How Do We Achieve Better Turnout in Ballet?
- The Ballet Academy
- 11 hours ago
- 3 min read
Turnout is one of the most recognisable elements of classical ballet, yet it’s also one of the most misunderstood.
Many dancers (and parents) believe that better turnout simply means forcing the feet to open wider. In reality, safe and sustainable turnout is built through correct anatomy, strength, coordination, and time. True turnout is something we train, not something we push.
Understanding Where Turnout Comes From
True turnout originates from the hip joints, not the feet.
A simple way we explain this in class is through plié.
When students plié, we always cue them to think about opening the knees, rather than turning the feet further out.
Because when turnout is coming from the hips:
The knees will naturally track over the toes
The feet stay grounded and relaxed
The pelvis remains stable
If a dancer tries to “rotate the feet” instead:
The knees often collapse forward
The arches grip or roll
The turnout becomes forced and unstable
By focusing on knees opening from the hips, students learn to activate the correct muscles and maintain safe alignment — especially in foundational movements like plié.
Increase Hip Flexibility
Improving turnout requires flexibility in the hip joint and surrounding muscles, particularly the hip external rotators and inner thighs. When these areas are tight, dancers may struggle to access their natural turnout range comfortably.
Butterfly Stretch
This stretch helps improve:
Inner thigh (adductor) flexibility
Hip external rotation
By sitting tall and allowing the knees to gently open, dancers learn to release tension in the inner thighs while maintaining an upright spine, an important habit for ballet posture.
Pigeon Pose
This stretch helps improve:
Deep hip rotators
Glute flexibility
Keep the spine long and square. Focus on relaxing the hips and breathing deeply to release tension.
Strengthen Hips & Glutes
Many dancers have turnout flexibility but struggle to hold it once they start moving. This is where strength plays a key role.
Why strength matters? Strong turnout muscles:
Support the legs in rotation
Prevent knees from rolling inward
Allow turnout to stay consistent during balances, jumps, and turns
Fire Hydrants
This exercise helps to strengthen your glutes maximum and medius muscle, which is a good example of multidimensional movements. Perform 3 sets of 10 to 20 reps per side.
This exercise helps improve:
Hip rotator strength
Glute stability
Learn with Amanda Hawke Physiotherapy:
Clamshells
The clamshell exercise is a side-lying, low-impact exercise that strengthens the gluteus medius, hips, and core, aiding in stabilization and injury prevention.
This exercise helps improve:
Hip external rotation
Stability and endurance in turnout muscles
Follow Bondi Rise to do 3 kinds of clams to improve your glute strength:
Perform 3 sets of 10-15 repetitions on each side. Keep the pelvis stable and lift only the top knee. Slow and controlled repetitions activate the correct muscles.
Side-lying leg lifts
Side-lying leg raises are a bodyweight exercise performed on your side to strengthen the outer hip muscles (gluteus medius), involving lying down, stacking hips, and lifting the top leg straight up and down while keeping your core engaged and hips stable, avoiding rolling forward or backward.
This exercise helps improve:
Hip abductor strength
Control of turnout placement
Reminder from Lara to keep shoulder and hip joints above each other when doing side leg lift:
Keep the leg rotated outward from the hip, not the foot, and move with smooth control. Avoid gripping the glutes or rolling the pelvis.
Mobility is A MUST
Mobility connects flexibility and strength. It’s what allows dancers to move into and out of turnout smoothly during class.
In ballet, turnout is rarely held statically. Dancers need to:
Rotate the legs while stepping
Maintain turnout while transferring weight
Control turnout during dynamic movement
To keep your hips flexible and mobile, consistently perform the exercises above in a dynamic way, including deep squats, glute bridges, pigeon pose, fire hydrants and etc. Focusing on movements that take your hips through forward/backward, side-to-side, and rotational ranges. This will improve flexibility, build strength, and help reduce stiffness from sitting and everyday activities.
Follow TLB Master Trainer Louisa Paterson through this complete 19-minute hip mobility routine.
Activate Your Turnout Before Class
Before you start class, take a few minutes to activate your turnout. Engaging the right muscles before dancing helps you maintain alignment, control, and stability throughout your exercises.
Check out this exercise shared by Isabella to see how to properly activate your turnout before class:
Better turnout is not achieved by forcing or rushing. It develops when dancers train mobility alongside technique. With consistent, mindful practice, turnout becomes more secure, expressive, and sustainable.