PSA to all dancers with “banana” legs: your knee joints are crying out!!! If you or someone you love has banana legs– or rather, legs that hyperextend past 180 degrees– you may want to keep reading.

Hyperextension of the knee joint is one of those traits that has an interesting history in the ballet world. The “look” of the dancer is an image that has been evolving since the conception of ballet itself, where the initial great female ballerinas sported developpés to only 90 degrees. While this “look” has evolved with the evolution of ballet technique itself, Balanchine popularized the look of the “bendy ballerina” — an almost prepubescent white body with long, lean legs, slender arms, and a flat chest. 

There are two problems with ascribing a certain type of “look” to the dancer. One: it is inherently exclusionary. Bodies that are strong and capable of immense feats of strength and grace look different because all humans look different! The pursuit of same-ness is wholly futile because we will never be able to achieve complete homogeneity. Secondly, the idea of the “look” is destructive physically to the dancer. When you take an aggregate of individuals who are naturally driven– as dancers often are– and maintain that there is only one way to be beautiful, it creates conflict whereby the dancer fights their own anatomy instead of working with the parameters of their body.

I will admit that there is nothing wrong in maintaining that bodies that dance can, and likely will, end up looking similar. Dance is extremely physically demanding and requires the dancer to be healthy. The crux of my argument is that fighting against how your body is built does not create a better dancer. In fact, it creates a dancer who sows the seeds of self-hate, and that is the last thing that any dancer needs.

Coming back to banana legs… This is one such physical attribute that fits very well into this concept of dancers fighting against their bodies. Because the banana leg look gives the impression of a very flexible dancer, dancers with hyperextension in the knee joint may choose to continue stretching their knees past 180 degrees to maintain the “look.” The problem with this is that while many individuals have some amount of naturally occurring hyperextension in the knee joint, dancing repeatedly and performing anatomically complex movements places an extreme amount of strain on the knee and hip joints. Dancers may know this as “locking the knee,” or “pushing back” into hyperextension as opposed to relying on the strength of the quad to pull the knee up. 

In the last knee-related blog post, we discussed the anatomy of the knee joint, including the four main ligaments of the knee joint: the Medial / Lateral collateral ligament (MCL, LCL), and the Anterior / Posterior cruciate ligament (ACL / PCL). These ligaments are heavily implicated in hyperextension of the knee joint, as these ligaments largely serve to stabilize the movement of the joint. If the joint is pushed back further than it naturally should be, or if the dancer keeps operating by “locking” the knee back, an extreme amount of stress is placed on these ligaments. 

The knee is pushed back into hyperextension, as opposed to the patella being pulled up with the strength of the hip and upper leg (rectus femoris, vastus medialis/lateralis) to create the lovely ballet line. This is seen a lot in younger dancers who have hyperextension but lack the awareness to use the strength of their rectus femoris, among other muscles, to pull up the knee joint instead of push the knee back.

It’s worth mentioning that the effects of hyperextension in the knee joint are not limited to just the knee itself. For example, a tight fifth position in ballet– especially through fast exercises such as degagés, or in variations– cannot be maintained if the dancer is locking or pushing back into hyperextension.

Similarly, straightening the leg to create a long line and pushing into hyperextension are not the same thing. 

Relying on locking into hyperextension of the knee joint to create the ballet line can be the symptom of weakness in the glutes and various muscles of the upper thigh. When the dancer has naturally occurring hyperextension, it is easier to push back into the joint rather than engage these muscles: the rectus femoris (the “quad”), the glutes, the VMO and VM (vastus medialis and vastus medialis oblique), and the sartorius. The vastus medialis muscles are implicated in the tracking of the patella, or the alignment of the kneecap when it is pulled up. For dancers that routinely lock out the knee joint, ensuring correct patellar tracking while correcting their technique is necessary. Similarly, the majority of ballet technique must be performed with the glutes engaged (contracted), stabilizing the entire system from the pelvis to the foot. Contraction of the glutes automatically encourages the dancer to engage the rectus femoris and VM muscles while maintaining pelvic alignment, and the knee joint is then safely and anatomically healthily straightened.

You can use my favorite human anatomy model to visualize these muscles: https://www.zygotebody.com

To conclude, I want to emphasize that identifying these muscles in your body by specific names is empowering and freeing. Pain no longer becomes a mystery when you can put a name to it. Thank you to the wonderful individuals sending their support in—I am so happy that we are on this journey together.

For more reading about the “Balanchine Body,” see these links:

Ballet, Balanchine, and Body Surveillance