Training Turnout – Part 3 – Achieving Ultimate Extensions!

Do you constantly feel your hips and thighs gripping when holding extensions?

Is your développé devant well off your full range of flexibility?

Rest assured that if you answered yes – then you are by no means alone – and YES! We have lots of tips to help you control your legs in higher ranges!

The thing is – many people focus on all the wrong things when they are trying to hold their legs higher – so this article will help you get a deeper understanding of what to work on - and how to do this – in order to achieve your ultimate extensions! First of all, most people either focus on their flexibility only – or simply try to lift their legs higher through brute strength… neither of which is very effective in achieving a beautifully controlled développé or arabesque. The following pictures are designed to give you an understanding of all of the factors that combine to create the line you want.

Strength in the deep neck flexors to maintain softness in the neck and jaw Strong deep hip flexors

Thoracic Mobility and (Psoas and Iliacus) control

Strength in the arm, yet softness in the wrist and fingers Strength in the Knee Extensors of the lifted leg

Strength in the deep back muscles Inner thighs of the lifted leg

Turnout range and control of Flexibility of the hamstrings the lifted leg in turnout

Turnout range and control of the standing leg Stregnth to keep the standing leg pulled up

Stability in the standing foot

Now that is a lot to take in all at once! Which is why this is part three of a three part series!

Please make sure that you have read the first two PDFs before you start on the exercises in this section.

Part 1 – Achieving Your Ultimate Range

Part 2 – Isolating Your True Turnout.

And now… Part 3 – Achieving Ultimate Extensions!

Believe it or not, one of the most important things in increasing the height of your extensions to the front is actually the strength in your deep back muscles. This is something that most people don’t actually think to train when working on their extensions, but it can make a big difference to the height of your leg en l’air. ‘

When lifting the leg devant, the main controlled of the height of the leg is your deepest hip flexor – Psoas Major.

The Psoas Major attaches to the lowest four bones of your spine, and joins with another muscle - Iliacus - before attaching into the front of your thigh bone (Femur). The Iliacus sticks to the inside of your hip bone and is very hard to stretch effectively. Together these muscles form your Iliopsoas Tendon.

However – if the Psoas Major muscle is being used to stabilize the spine, it is less effective as a hip flexor, resulting in overuse of the other hip flexors, such as Tensor Facsia Latea (TFL) and Rectus Femoris (RF).

Overuse of these two muscles is usually felt by gripping in the top of the hip (TFL) or excessive tension in the front of the thigh (RF) with your développé.

So how do we stop this from happening…?

Strength in the deep stabilizers of the low back can help reduce the stabilizing role of the Psoas Major Muscle, allowing it to function more efficiently as a hip flexor – resulting in:

 Less pain and gripping in the top of the hip  Less tension in the thigh of the working leg  Improved height of the leg en l’air  More stability and control of the trunk during the movement.

One of the best exercises to really develop the control of these deep low back muscles in the way they need to work for a développé devant is with an exercise that we call the “Waiter Bow”

The Waiter Bow

This exercise really challenges the ability of your deepest back muscles to maintain the position of your back. It will also show you how mobile your hamstrings really are – and how much you tend to cheat range with your low back!

1. Stand side on to a mirror, with your knees slightly bent and your back in ‘neutral spine’ – with a tiny curve in your low back, but your upper back relaxed. Place one hand on your low tummy, and the other behind your low back to check that they both stay still throughout the movement.

2. Start tilting your body forward from the hips, maintaining your spine in neutral. This may take some practice to keep your low back in a good position, so be precise!

3. Once you have the feeling of maintaining your low back position, and keeping the upper back relaxed, try tilting forward until the body is horizontal with the floor. This is harder than it looks! If you can do this easily with bent knees, try with the knees straight.

4. If you can go to horizontal easily, see how much further you can go while maintaining your back in neutral, without arching the upper back backwards (a), or flexing the low back (b). Test and compare your range to your current height of your développé!

5. Also try it with the feet in first position and see how different this feels. The further you can go with this exercise, the higher your legs will be able to come in your developpé.

Many people struggle to see the relationship of this exercise to a developpé devant in the beginning – however these pictures might help…

If you are having to round out your lower back to flex forward, you will probably not have the mobility in the hamstrings, nor the strength in the lower back to hold your developpé at the height you want it to be…

Next up, is the strength to actually hold it there…

Once the deep back muscles are strong enough to stabilize the spine, we need to train the deep fibres of the Psoas and Iliacus to be able to hold the leg in position. To do this we must learn how to find the deep hip flexors, without over-recruiting the TFL or Rectus Femoris.

4 Pointe Psoas

This exercise is good to help get the awareness of moving the leg using the deepest hip flexors, but make sure that the outer hip and thigh stay very relaxed.

Neutral Spine

1. Start on hands and knees, with a large loop of resistance band around a sturdy table leg, and your knee 2. Make sure that your spine is in neutral. Keep hands aligned under your shoulders, and knees under your hips 3. Make sure not to let the chest drop down between the shoulder blades, or that the shoulder blades are not winging 4. Keep the neck long, looking at the floor

5. Slowly transfer your weight to one knee, and slowly bring the other knee forward, folding at the hip but keeping the spine Keep Relaxed in neutral. Feel as if you are drawing it forward from your deep abdominal muscles only. 6. Stay relaxed in the outer hip, and do not hitch the hip or tuck the tail under 7. Slowly return the knee to the starting position 8. Repeat at least 10 times, maintaining good form

Once you can do this with a light resistance – you can increase the distance between you and the table leg a little – but you really don’t need much resistance to get the effect of the exercise. It is more about learning to isolate your leg in the socket, without moving your spine.

And finally, how to work these two things together…

Développé Devant – Floor Barre

This video is an excerpt from our upcoming DVD which explains all about how to continue to work in class – even when you have a foot injury. Details on this coming soon!

Once you have developed strength in all of these areas, you can start to take the leg higher devant without putting too much extra load on the other parts of the hip. Take this slowly – but if you work on all of these areas – as well as all of the other areas indicated on page 1 – you should start to see some major improvements in the height of your extensions!

For more information on controlling the leg en l’air please take a look at our Core Stability for Dancers program, and our Training Turnout program, as both of these go into much more detail on how to master control of your spine, pelvis and hips in order to achieve your ultimate extensions!