5 Tips to Improve Your Turnout Range

Improve your Turnout Range with these 5 tips!

Ballet is all about turnout! Use these tips below to help you achieve greater turnout in a safe and sustainable way.

1. Don’t force it!

You want to find a happy middle of pushing yourself to strengthen and stretch the muscles, but you do not want to force your turnout from the feet/knees. The hips, knees, and ankles work together to create a strong structure. You will know when you’re forcing your turnout when you see the arches rolling inward, or the knees being farther forward than your toes. Try to avoid pushing your feet back to a 180° angle. Instead, start in parallel and rotate from the top of the leg as far as you can while allowing the feet to naturally follow. To test out if you are in the right spot, demi plie. If your knees are over the second metatarsal (second toe), then your feet and knees are where they need to be!

2. Keep your hips neutral

To help you achieve the correct placement, be sure to keep those hips level! Over-tucking or letting the hips tilt forward will compromise your turnout. Additionally, this will not translate to the center in terms of balance or stability. Think about keeping your tailbone down while lifting from the lower abdomen in the front.

3. Strengthening

Now that we have the structure, we need to strengthen those muscles! Turnout muscles are very specific and deep in the structure, so slow and controlled movements are key. The most important muscle groups to focus on here are the adductors and the deep rotators within the hips. (Image Source: thebodyseries.com).

Here are just a couple of turnout strengthening exercises:

• Clamshells

  • If you want more resistance, try tying a theraband just above the knees!

• Slow demi plies from first/second

  • Make sure to always be maintaining your rotation all the way down and all the way up

4. Stretching 

Although we can’t change our pelvic structure, there are many things we can change! We can stretch the muscles around it to help improve turnout! Be sure to stretch after a workout or warm up before with some of the exercises mentioned above.

Here are a few stretching exercises:

• Frog

  • Lay face down on your belly and open legs with inner thighs on the floor and the bottoms of your feet together. The goal is to keep the hips connected to the floor while trying to touch the toes to the floor behind you. 

• Fire Log Pose

  • Sit straight up with one leg stacked onto the other. Try to lay the top leg flat on the bottom leg. 

• Turned in stretch

  • Start in a position on the floor on one knee with the other leg up at a 90° angle in front of you. Keep the tailbone down and lower abdomen lifting to keep the hips level. This stretch may not look like much but you will feel a stretch on the outside of your hip

5. Be Patient!

Like all things ballet, turnout is a journey and you have to remember to be patient and gentle with yourself. Just remember, everyone’s turnout is different, and no one’s is perfect. Do your best and stay safe while trying to improve your turnout!