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Controlling Hyperextended Knees
When the Foot Is Weight BearingStand with your side to a mirror in a parallel first position and fully straighten your knees. Note if
the knees appear slightly bent, straight (extended), or if they bow backward (hyperextension or genu
recurvatum). If your knees are hyperextended, try the following exercises to help control this hyper-
extension.- Limiting the degree of knee extension. While looking in the mirror, slowly bend and then straighten
your knees. Identify the position visually and kinesthetically in which the knees are just straight and
not overextended. Then, try to find this position kinesthetically and just use a visual check in the mirror
to see if you were accurate. Focus on pressing down into the floor with the whole foot and keeping
the ischial tuberosities (“sitz bones”) facing down and forward over the ankles rather than facing back
and over the heels as the knees straighten (A). - Limiting the degree of femoral internal rotation. Now, bend your knees slightly and let your
knees drop in. Then, use your hip external rotators (deep outward rotators) to bring the knees out
relative to the foot as shown in B. Repeat this procedure several times; and when you have clear
ability to activate the external rotators, concentrate on using these same deep outward rotators to
keep your knee facing straight ahead as you slowly straighten your knees just to an extended, not
a hyperextended, position. Also focus on using the abdominal–hamstring force couple to keep the
“bottom of the pelvis under” so that the pelvis maintains a neutral position as the knees straighten.
Notice when you relax the deep outward rotators and the abdominals whether the knees go “in and
back” and the pelvis tilts anteriorly.
For the dancer with extreme genu recurvatum, these technique cues can be used to allow the heels
to be brought closer together during standing in turned-out first position (figure 5.27B). Working with
the feet separated and knees hyperextended tends to stretch out the posterior capsule and other
restraints, increasing the degree of knee hyperextension over time and necessitating progressively
greater separation of the heels. For dancers who are used to working with their heels separated more
than an inch, it may be necessary to gradually bring the heels closer together over several months as
skill for controlling hyperextension is developed and new balance strategies are learned.