Sometimes dancers come for Alexander Technique sessions with painful knee problems and flattened arches. Paul Blakey’s ‘The Muscle Book’ is a small but very useful anatomy book for dancers (and others).
On page 31 which features the Posterior Tibial muscle, he says ‘Turning out the feet from the ankles rather than the knees causes this muscle to stretch so that the medial longitudinal arch drops.’
Its such a common problem. Of course everyone would love to have a good turn-out of the feet but not at the expense of the knee joints and arches. So use the mirror to make sure that hip, knee and ankle joints always stay in line and turn out from the hip joint, not the ankle.
Finding a Pilates instructor who has been well trained and doing a course with them will ensure that all the leg muscles are exercised. A quick look at page 36 which features the Quadriceps will convince. ‘Many problems with the knees can be traced back to faulty training techniques which have not taken into account the need to stretch and exercise all parts of the quadriceps.’
And the most common problem that I encounter in clients? Nearly everyone locks back the knees which results in the pelvis tilting forward and the lower back over-arching (lordosis). The leg can be straight but without the knees being pushed back. One of the advantages is that the knee joint doesn’t have to be ‘unlocked’ to allow movement.