Ballet Pointe Shoes - Injured Knee

by Emma
(Syracuse)

Ballet Pointe Shoes - Injured Knee

I dislocated my knee 3 months ago and had to miss my yearly recital. Dance is starting back up again in September and my doctor has cleared me for dance and school activities. My knee still gets aggravated I noticed while doing grand plies. I am 15 and this will be my first year of being en pointe. I talked to my teacher and she recommended me for it and said it would be a great quad strengthener which is what I worked on in PT. So I guess my question is will being my first year of pointe affect my knee? I do have to wear a mini patella brace, but I've been practicing and it is possible to dance with, just challenging to bring up to posse. Is pointe more strenuous on your ankles and toes, or knees? Thanks for your help :)
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Reply by Odette
To:- Ballet Pointe Shoes - Injured Knee


Remember, just like I did before I went en pointe, ballet students MUST take responsibility for their own strengthening prior to beginning pointe work.
Australian dancer, Lisa Howell has made a video which explains how pre-point strengthening works.
Don't leave it to your teacher!
You can watch this pre-pointe video
yourself here (just wait for the page to load up then the video is on the top right of the page).

Hello Emma,

Thank you for contacting me, I am glad you contacted me. In fact, not that long ago my friend who is a professional ballet dancer dislocated her knee in just a simple stretch she was doing. It all happened very suddenly, but she was back fully dancing on pointe again in the next few months with no more problems. Of course, I am not sure how severe her knee was compared to you but it can definitely give you some encouragement that dancing on pointe will be possible once you have gathered the strength for technique on pointe.

I suggest you just take extra care when learning everything about how to dance on pointe through your ballet classes, because you want to be doing everything in your body correct in order to not cause any problems to your knee. You can take a look at the video above, which will lead you to all the extra and vital information for beginner dancers on pointe.

Pointe definitely is more challenging to dance as oppose to just wearing your ballet flat shoes. It takes more control in your technique and muscle strength to keep you stable, but this will also come with practice as you progress in your classes.

Now that it your knee recovered from the injury, you still have to give it extra care that it stays in good shape and doesn't get too aggravated by any of the ballet moves. If the doctor gave you any strengthening exercises, it would be really good to keep these up.

The main thing is to pace yourself. For every pointe beginner, it may feel like a slow progress to begin with but if you keep persisting you will get there in the end.

Keep a close relationship with your ballet teacher so she can help you progress with pointe and look after your knee.

Don't forget, I'm always here to help!

Best wishes,

Odette