Can 16-18-year-old elite ballet dancers improve their hip and ankle range of motion over a 12-month period?

Objective: To determine the effect of a 12-month intensive ballet training regimen on hip and ankle range of motion in male and female, first- and sec ond-year professional dancers. Design: 12-month longitudinal follow-up. Setting: National classical ballet school in Australia. Participants: 28 female and 20 male full-time ballet students with a mean /- 1 SD, ages 16.8 +/- 0.8 and 17.7 +/- 1.2 years, respectively. Main Outcome Measures: Degrees of range of motion of left and right sides f or the following movements: standing plie in parallel-passive ankle dorsifl exion (DF); standing turnout in the balletic first position-lower leg exter nal rotation (LLER); supine hip external rotation (ER); supine hip internal rotation (IR). An additional range of motion was calculated: external rota tion below the hip joint (BHER) derived by subtracting hip ER from LLER. Main Results: in all subjects combined, hip and ankle ranges increased stat istically on the right. However, the amount was generally minimal and most at the borderline of the amount of error associated with the measurement to ol. While there was no change in LLER, there was a decrease in BHER. There were no overall gender differences, and year differences existed only for l eft hip ER and total hip ER with first-year dancers showing significant imp rovements in these ranges. For DF and sum of hip IR, first-year males and s econd-year females had increases in range. There was a negative relationshi p between baseline range and the amount of change over the 12 months. Conclusions: Dancers ages 16-18 years who enter full-time ballet training d id not augment their ankle dorsiflexion to any appreciable degree. Some, bu t certainly not all, increased their hip active external rotation over 12 m onths without increasing their total lower limb turnout. Hip ER was more li kely to improve in the first-year rather than second-year student in this e lite full-time training school.