Maximize Your Turn-Out

Having the ideal turn-out is always something that dancers are striving for in ballet. But how do you know if you are doing this safely?

Achieving as close to 180 degrees of turn-out at the lower extremities is considered the ideal turn-out motion for the majority of ballet dancers. Understanding how your anatomy will contribute to this range of motion will be important in learning how to improve your turn-out motion. Research has shown that approximately 60% of the turn-out motion will come from the hips, 20-30% from the ankle, and about 10-20% from the knee and lower leg.  

It is important to be aware of what it means to be forcing turn-out, and how this can lead to many issues and even place you at risk for injury. As dancers strive to perform with the ideal aesthetic of turn-out, this may lead to forcing turn-out if there is not enough turn-out achieved at the hips. Common compensations that may occur are allowing the foot to roll inward “overpronating”, external rotation torsion at the knees, or forward tilt of the pelvis. It is also easier to force your turn-out motion when your feet are on the floor because your knees and foot can be used better in these positions to achieve a greater turn-out. But by forcing turn-out, this can lead to various injuries throughout your lower extremity including overuse injuries such as tendinitis and stress fractures.

How should you safely work to improve your turn-out without forcing this motion? I should stretch my hips right? No, actually the best way to do this is by strengthening your deep hip external rotator muscles! And this does not even mean your glutes. These small muscles are very important for turn-out as they control the range your hip is able to rotate through especially when your legs are required to lift about the level of your hip. Research has been demonstrating that being able to control your turn-out range of motion is likely more important than your available range of motion. 

Working only on flexibility is not going to allow you to safely and effectively achieve your desired turn-out motion. You will need to focus on improving your strength and control to truly allow you to achieve optimal alignment that can be carried over into your dance techniques. Working with a dance medicine physical therapist will allow you to understand know what your turn-out range of motion is in standing, how much of this motion is actually being achieved from your hips, if any motion is being forced from other areas, and how to properly engage your deep hip external rotators to allow for your most ideal turn-out! 

Originally posted July 9, 2022.

Negus, V. et al. Associations Between Turnout and Lower Extremity Injuries in Classical Ballet Dancers . J Orthop Sports Phys Ther • Volume 35 • Number 5 • May 2005

Pata, D. et al. Improving turn-out in ballet dancers. Journal of Dance Medicine & Science • Volume 18, Number 4, 2014