A profile of the musculoskeletal characteristics of elite professional ballet dancers

Abstract

Twenty-eight principal dancers and soloists from Amer ica's two most famous ballet companies were exam ined for anthropometric measurements, including flexi bility, muscle strength, and joint range of motion. Both male and female dancers were flexible, but not hyper- mobile, and did not differ significantly from each other. Marked differences were found between the range of motion of the hip and ankle in the dancers and the norms for the general population. The increased exter nal rotation of the hip in women was accompanied by a loss in internal rotation, resulting in an increased range of motion with an externally rotated orientation. The men, however, lost more internal rotation than they gained in external rotation. These data raise the pos sibility of a torsional component to the turned-out hip position in elite female professional ballet dancers. In addition, significant anatomic differences separate elite dancers of both sexes from the normal population.