OUTSIDE HEEL HOOK

The outside heel hook is the leg-lock technique that rotates the opponent's foot outward (away from the centerline), transmitting torque through the ankle into the knee. It is the structural mirror of the inside heel hook — where the inside version rotates the heel inward, the outside version rotates it outward — and both are equally damaging when the position is correctly established. The outside heel hook is set up most commonly from the saddle position (also called honey hole or 4/11), which puts the attacker's legs in a configuration where the captured leg's knee is locked between the attacker's legs while the outside heel is exposed.

The technique was less prominent than the inside variant during the early leg-lock revolution of the 2010s but has been increasingly used by Craig Jones and the broader Australian B-Team competitive system in the 2020s. The outside heel hook works particularly well from 50-50 because the natural foot orientation in 50-50 exposes the outside heel rather than the inside. Defensively the outside heel hook is escaped by hand-fighting to prevent the grip from closing, by spinning to the front of the attacker before the lock engages, by hiding the heel rotation, or by tap-to-grip — like all heel hooks, damage precedes pain and the modern competition convention is to tap to the grip rather than test the joint.