A young dancer, or an adult ballet beginner can feel very frustrated checking in with the ballet feet position chart.
Oh that lovely 180 degree first position; likewise the second! And most coveted of all, the toe to heel fifth position.
First of all, the models for these charts are well chosen for their gift of dance turnout.
Highly unnatural, this degree of ease in turning out depends initially on the shape of your hip joints.
The hip joint is a ball and socket joint, and the socket, or cup-shaped area that your thigh (the ball part) fits into, can face out straight sideways from the body.
In this case, allowing for strength in the Piriformis Muscles, long ligaments in the hip area, and flexible Adductors, or inner thigh muscles, the thighs will rotate easily and may reach that 60-70 degree turnout that allows the perfect ballet positions of the feet.
While the thighs achieve a 60-70 degree of rotation, in an individual with general good flexibility, additional turnout in the lower leg and ankle joint result in beautiful foot positions.
Turnout must initiate in the thighs, however.
Compare this scenario to a dancer who has flexible muscles and long ligaments - yet has hip sockets that face forwards to a small or larger degree.
Those thighs may rotate well, and yet they cannot achieve the same ballet foot position.
Ever! A professional ballet dancer will execute the perfect fifth position and line up the rest of the body above it.
With the following compromises:

• the hips will rotate slightly toward the front leg
• the front knee will be slightly bent
• the upper body will be held straight, or square, to the front to cover up the hip rotation

While training, or studying in an adults ballet class, decisions must be made as to how much you will force your ballet positions of the feet.
Hopefully not much! Most teachers will not encourage recreational to dancers to force their feet out.
To increase ballet turnout, hip flexibility exercises and leg flexibility exercises must be done frequently.
Ideally, every dancer needs to both strengthen and stretch all areas of the hips and thighs in order to achieve a balance of tension and flexibility of the entire skeleton and muscle system.
When well warmed up, stretches will be performed for the:

• quadriceps, or "quads, a muscle group at the front of the thighs
• hamstrings, two muscles at the back of the thigh
• the adductors, three muscles of the inner thigh
• the gracilis and sartorius, two muscles connecting the hip and pelvis to the inner knee