Ballet Pointe Exercises - Strength Building and Poise

There are many ballet pointe exercises that can be learnt to help a dancer rise up on pointe. The main things to consider are whether the dancer is strong enough, disciplined enough, physically developed enough and mentally ready. Only the dance instructor can decide when the student is ready to dance on pointe as many levels need to be achieved to ensure the dancer's safety.

There are many different ballet pointe exercise taught. Three of the main exercises are Plies, Releves and Tendus. But they all have the same focus: strength building and poise. Ballet dancers look very graceful as they glide through moves and effortlessly up onto pointe, yet the strength and agility needed for this is only created with years of training and effort. The hard work begins years before ballet dancers move to pointe work with repetitions of simple exercises and combinations.

Each exercise is designed to develop the muscles needed for dancing on pointe. The muscle groups that need strengthening are the many muscles in the feet and ankles, then the calves, quads and hamstrings, gluts and abs. Without balance and strength in each muscle group, with each group working together, pointe work will be very difficult to achieve. Human toes are not designed to support the body but with all of these muscles sharing the load, perfect pointe can be achieved.

Dancers bodies show extremely good flexibility as well as strength. This is unusual as many athletes will develop either one or the other, rarely both. As most dancers start learning ballet at a young age and continue to build on their skills with susequent grades, the flexibility and muscle strength continues to develop into adulthood, putting them at the athletic level of a professional sportsperson. These years of development lead to the poise and grace professional ballet dancers exhibit on stage when performing difficult and often painful pointe steps.
To get a thorough guide to these exercises with video explanations click on the picture link below.