A Promise, Turn Out and Magic

Turnout. No matter how hard you try to get away from it, it is always there! When one of my adult dancers explained to me that they struggled to understand turnout I made a promise to write a blog post on the topic. So here I am ready to give you the ins and outs (excuse the pun!) of turnout.

First thing’s first, turnout is not natural. We neither walk to the shops nor run for the bus with turned out feet and it’s important that we don’t. Ballet dancers must train their external rotators, glutes and abductors to work together to turn their legs away from the centre of their body. I like to think of turnout as a bit of a magic trick. You see, turnout is only really visible at the feet when dancers show any of the 5-foot positions in ballet. But the power of turnout comes from further up the body at the hips. Good turnout starts at the hips!

The external rotators of the hips are activated by squeezing at the backs of your legs under your glutes. You should then engage your abductors to help to continue the turnout all the way down the leg thus protecting the knee joints. That’s another good point, turnout should NEVER come from the knees because this can cause a great deal of pain and increase the likelihood of injuries for a dancer.

It is true that the bone structure you are born with can affect turnout and largely this structure is not modifiable. Nevertheless, with time and training, soft tissue such as muscle can adapt, biasing the hip rotation outward. A good exercise to try involves lying on your back with your legs straight in the air. Your feet should be flexed with the toes towards you. From here, rotate your feet from parallel to first and back again. Watch how your upper leg rotates and the feet follow. Feel the muscles at the backs of your legs and your inner thighs engaging to make the rotation happen. Magic eh?! See if you can recreate this feeling next time your in ballet class.