I think maybe Linda was just trying to point out that, technically, turnout *cannot* actually happen at the knee joints (not just that it *should not* happen at the knees). I understood her post to say that any compensation for turnout that is not achieved at the hips actually happens at the ankle joints, not the knee joints. Thanks for pointing that out, Linda.
Yes, that's EXACTLY what I meant, and I've corrected several figure skating coaches, including my own, when they direct their skaters to "turn their knees out."
So does the rule of thumb still stand that your knees need to be facing the same direction as your feet or you will strain your knees? Based on my own experience and the experiences others have shared, this seems to be the case. Personally, I feel it in the knee of my back leg on the Ina Bauer if I don't first do my plies against the boards to open up my hips. The idea is that pressing the insides of the knees against the boards during the plies keeps the knees facing the same direction as the feet, requiring the turnout to come from the hips.
Again, exactly right, and practicing your spread eagles and Ina's against the boards are exactly the on-ice exercises that are appropriate for improving turnout.
Linda, you recommended "variations on the frontal split and hip external rotations with tubing" but I have to admit I actually have no idea what that means. Would you be able to provide some pictures and/or descriptions in layman's terms? As for on-ice exercises with a skating coach to improve turnout, neither of my coaches has ever been able to do a spread eagle or Ina Bauer due to "closed hips" and I doubt that there is anything in their training that would make them experts on correct stretching technique (I came up with the plies-against-the-boards myself; neither of them taught it to me). I'm not dissing them; I'm just saying I don't know that this kind of training is required for figure skating coaches.
Coaches who are PSA rated are required to have a certain amount of sport science background, which includes understanding basic anatomy and physiology and fundamental kinesiology. If you have this knowledge, you should be able to apply it to on- and off-ice exercises that correctly target the desired skill or element.
I don't think I have the external rotation with tubing on video, but four-way hip and the monster walk with tubing help strengthen several msucles groups needed to hold and further open up the hips. You can see the monster walk in this vid:
I show other tubing exercises in this vid, and external rotation would just require doing the same setup but performing an outward rotation of the hip rather than a "pull" as shown on these exercises:
Frontal splits include the variation I show in this vid at about 1:18, as well as the more common "froggie" varation, with the knees bent. Both are flexibility exercises that when performed correctly target the external rotators--the butterfly stretch proposed earlier actually targets the adductors:
Again, I post to provide help, nothing more. I've learned a lot from many of the posts I've read here.
Linda