Stop Dancing Around The Truth About “Turn Out”
Posted on by Athletico
What is “turn out”?
“Turn out” is the amount of outward rotation that can be achieved from the legs.
For a ballet dancer, the ideal amount of turn out is 90° from each leg.1 If that motion is not possible from the hip joints, the motion must come from other parts of the body.2 While the ideal amount of hip external rotation of each leg is 90°, no need to toss your pointe shoes in the trash if you don’t have that much hip mobility. Even elite professional ballerinas rely on compensations to produce the desired level of turn out.3