Do stretching exercises that pay specific attention to the legs. Stretching to work the legs will need to include everything attached to the legs, such as your thighs, calves, ankles, feet and even the toes. The legs have many functions in dance like holding the dancer up, performing extensions, leaps and turns. Be sure to do straddle type stretches to aid in learning to "turn out" with your ballet positions in class. The ankles, the feet, the arches and the toes must be flexed and stretched in order to ballet dance.
Work the core area of the body, the middle waist section, to prepare for a ballet class. A dancer lifts or prepares to leap from the core of their body. Many times, a partner physically lifts a dancer by grabbing the core and lifting up. The muscles of the core area of the ballet dancer's body must be tight and firm.
Use your exercise time to tone the arms of the ballet dancer's body. The arms are a visible part of all dance performances. The arms need flexibility and stretching exercises, so that they appear long and flowing in actual dance movements.
Practice walking, standing and sitting with all muscles being tightly held in, tucked under and lifted up. This is a training exercise for ballet dancers similar to how they conduct their warm up exercises in ballet class. At the ballet barre, the ballet dancer must hold in their stomach muscles, tuck under their rear area and hold up their chest while holding their shoulders back and their chin up. There is no way to learn to do this other than practicing the exercises on their own outside of class.
Support yourself at home doing exercises with a chair or dresser to take the place of using the barre in ballet class. Barre work is a big part of every ballet class, so find a place and a way to practice barre work several times a week in your exercise plan for ballet class.
Go through sequences of ballet positions in flat ballet shoes and in pointe shoes if you study pointe. Repetition of these exercises strengthen and tone the legs, ankles and feet. Do these by count, just as you would in ballet class. Do these exercises after your stretching exercises.