Debunking Five Common Pole Dance Myths: Training Smarter, Not Harder
In this episode, we tackle five prevalent myths in the pole dancing community that can hinder your progress and increase the risk of injury. We delve into the misconception of 'pole every day,' the inefficacy of repetitive trick attempts without variation, the myth of injury-free techniques, and the complexities of flexibility training. Additionally, we address the unrealistic expectation of linear progress in pole dancing. By incorporating scientific research and practical training strategies, we aim to help you train smarter and achieve your pole dancing goals more effectively.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Pole Dance Myths
01:16 Myth 1: More Pole Equals Better Performance
05:49 Myth 2: Repetition is the Best Way to Learn
09:34 Myth 3: Injury Prevention Through Perfect Technique
13:13 Myth 4: Flexibility Training Misconceptions
17:54 Myth 5: The Illusion of Linear Progress
25:44 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Citations
Episode with Dr. Rob Grey on motor learning research: https://www.slinkthroughstrength.com/science-of-slink-podcast/the-science-of-learning-to-move
(Load & injuries) Greenspan S, Stuckey MI. Untangling risk factors including discipline-specific exposure for injuries in preprofessional and professional circus artists in the USA. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine. 2023;9:e001551. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2023-001551
(PNF is better) Minshull, C., Eston, R., Bailey, A., Rees, D., & Gleeson, N. (2014). The differential effects of PNF versus passive stretch conditioning on neuromuscular performance. European journal of sport science, 14(3), 233-241.
(PNF is not better for all groups) Feland, J. B., Myrer, J. W., & Merrill, R. M. (2001). Acute changes in hamstring flexibility: PNF versus static stretch in senior athletes. Physical Therapy in sport, 2(4), 186-193.
(PNF makes no difference) Arazi, H., Nia, F., Hakimi, M., & Mohamadi, M. (2012). The effect of PNF stretching combined with a resistance training on strength, muscle volume and flexibility in non-athlete male students. Sport Science, 5(1), 85-90.
Transcript
Today we're gonna be talking about five pole dance myths that pole dancers believe that I hear come up all the time. And if you happen to believe one of these, uh, it's gonna make your life unnecessarily harder. Uh, so I'm gonna be bringing in some of the scientific literature, some of the research to help bust some myths and help you get unstuck perhaps in your pole life.
Uh, train. Smarter, not harder. I hate that saying. But yeah, that is basically what I wanted to help you do today, um, by helping to address some of these myths so that you can understand where they come from. 'cause they don't come from a vacuum. Right. Um, and, uh, what, you know, based on my understanding of the literature and the research is actually the case.
So. Uh, and before we hop into it, I do wanna say, uh, thank you to my members. My sciences link members are in it for the whole kit and caboodle, uh, all my classes. I love y'all. Uh, and my essentials of Slink members who come in and join me once a week, uh, to, to get your, your home pole on. Uh, uh, really appreciate all of you for making the studio possible, making this podcast possible, and I hope you're having a wonderful day.
I hope everyone's having a wonderful day, but particularly my members are. All right. Uh, five really common misconceptions/
The first one is that, huh? Some of y'all may remember. It's less, uh, common now, but for a while there was a, a hashtag that was like, poll every damn day. Circus every damn day. Um, and the general misconception here is that you get better at poll by doing more of it.
And, uh. On the one hand that is kind of true, right? If you slowly, slowly increase your training load, your body is going to adapt to those additional stressors, right? Um, you will get stronger if you ask your body to do harder stuff. You will get more flexible if you ask your body to move in bigger ranges of motion.
You do it consistently, however. There, uh, is very quickly gonna be a point of diminishing returns and where this point of diminishing returns is for you and your situation in your life is gonna depend on a lot of factors outside of your pole life as well. So. In general, yes. If you try to increase your training load again slowly, we don't wanna have big jumps and increases in training load sudden, sudden increases in training load.
Uh, that's really where, uh, particularly research on circus injuries. We tend to find. That those occur, right, is when you go from like one day a week to five days a week, that's, that's too much. But if you slowly increase your load, right? And that could be you are working for the same amount of time, but on harder things or on things that are the same amount of difficulty, but for longer.
Um, or on, uh, you know, things that are radically different from what you're doing now. So you're placing different stressors on your body. But if you are increasing the stressors on your body over time, yes, you will get better.
And a really important part of adjusting the intensity of your physical load is doing it in a, um, reasoned, consistent way. So, uh, we talk about periodization. In the, the exercise science literature. Uh, and this is the plan of how you're going to increase and then decrease your training load to give yourself rest.
So, and these, these are things that happen in cycles. Um, so generally, um. You know, even if you think about within a, a single training session, right? You wanna start by warming up. You start at a lower intensity and then you increase once your body's prepared to handle those higher loads, and then you end by cooling down, right?
So you have that, uh, increase and then decreases intensity over the course of a training session, uh, over the course of a week, right? You're having. A rest day, maybe multiple rest days. I, my general recommendation is two. I think that's a good solid number for most folks, at least two rest days a week. Uh, and then you think about, uh, the month are you increasing and then decreasing your, your intensity.
So. For the studio, uh, those Yahoo train with me know that every single month we have a deload week, right? Where we're, we're not taking complete rest. We're not, not moving at all, but we are reducing the intensity. We're reducing the amount of stress in our bodies to give ourselves time to recover. Uh, and then zooming out even further.
Over, you know, a three months time period, right. Are you slowly increasing in intensity and then reducing it? Uh, so in, again, in my curriculum, the way that, that I deal with this, well, 'cause I'm, I'm doing the periodization for you, that's part of the service that I offer, um, is, uh, you know, we are starting by building capacity.
So we're doing more foundational movements to help build the strength that we need for the technical movements that we're doing in the next month. And then once we're starting to master those, we really beginning to play with them in the third month. And then. Uh, resetting that cycle, right? So there's a three month increase cycle that goes around.
Um, and then even more broadly, six months, every six months roughly. Uh, I'll have a complete deload week, uh, where we're not doing any classes, right, at least one week to just let our bodies completely relax, uh, and then reset that cycle again. So, uh, doing more. In a specific controlled way that also includes commiserate, rest.
Uh, and those two things going together really is going to help you increase your physical capacity. But just being like, I'm going to do more pole and then I'm going to get stronger, not necessarily the case. And, uh, that is again, where we tend to see injuries, where people are like, I'm gonna do a lot more right away.
So. Yes, but. Right? Uh, I, I do think like on its face kind of true, uh, however, also kind of not true. And I think people who just jump in and try and add more and more and more and more, that's where we really tend to see over you centuries.
Second thing, um, I did hear somebody, I'm not gonna like shout 'em out 'cause I think it's a little bit rude, but somebody did just straight up say this on, on Instagram, uh, that the way that you learn a trick is by trying it over and over again.
That may be an effective technique for some people. If it, if it's effective for you, and that's the technique that works for you and you enjoy it and you don't find it frustrating, I'm not gonna tell you not to do it. However. We know from the motor learning research that if you are interested in, uh, mastering a move it so that you can learn it more quickly so that you can do it in a wider variety of different situations.
Uh, and particularly as a freestyler, that's very important to me in the way that I teach because I want my students to be able to really have access to moves, not just that like. I can do it, you know when my moon sign is right and, you know, everything is perfectly sticky and the humidity's perfect. I want you to be able to do it, um, from any angle, at any speed, uh, with, you know, fun articulation and play.
I really want you to be able to master these movements so that they can be, um, just an unconscious thing that you can reach for and add into your dance. That's really my goal as instructor is to get you there and if that's where you're looking for. Or honestly, if you just wanna learn faster, we know that repetition with variation is key.
So I have a, a podcast episode where I talked to Dr. Rob Gray from Arizona State University, who's a motor learning researcher, and that's one of the things we talked about quite a bit. Um, and that means, you know. Doing things on both sides. That's a great way to add, uh, repetition. Uh, it means doing things on different days, different tempos with different entrances, right?
It means changing things in your training, not just trying to do the same thing over and over and over again. Particularly if you're doing the same thing and failing because you don't have the capacity yet, right? You're missing a strength component, you're missing a flexibility component. My preference as an instructor is always that you build that capacity.
Off the pole separately and then bring that to the pole so that the only thing that you're doing on the pole is the motor learning and figuring out what goes where. Uh, so that's part of the reason why I don't do conditioning in my pole classes. We do them in a separate conditioning class, which all my members get.
Y'all know, y'all know I'm not gonna not condition you, uh, because Right. Uh. Getting stronger, getting more flexible and learning a new movement are three separate things. Those are three separate types of adaptation that you're trying to do. And if you smoosh them together and try to learn all of them all at once, if you have very limited time to train, that may be what you need to do.
But if you have a little bit more time, you have a little bit more capacity, separating them out is going to allow you to have greater focus on each of them, and you're just gonna get better results in the long run. So that is my preference. So again, just repeating a trick over and over and over and over again and failing, and failing and failing and failing until you get it.
If it works for you, please feel free to keep doing it. However, really not backed by the motor learning research. The motor learning research suggests, uh, adding a lot of variation in there and a lot of play and trying different things. Um. And, uh, those of y'all who've taken pole classes with me, you know that I use pole pathways which is, uh, basically it's a series of movements that have the same biomechanical foundations, right?
The same motor programs. If you believe in motor programs, I don't want to get into, into that too deeply, but if you believe in motor programs, then uh, I am trying to help you build chunks. In different positions that you can then take together and squish together and hopefully have, uh, an easier time learning uh, what it is we're trying to learn.
And also it'll give you a lot more options, right? So you can take one class to learn 10 things 'cause they're all related.
Speaking of learning specific techniques, something that I hear a lot from, from students. I said they've been told to do something a specific way and that if they do something a specific way, they will avoid injury. Right. This is how you avoid getting hurt. Um, and I, listen, what we do is dangerous, right?
I don't really think there is a way that we can, as instructors promise our students that if they do this, they will blanket avoid injury. I just don't think that's feasible. There's, there's too many variables that nobody can control all of. Um, there's certain thing things that we can do, right?
We can train with mats. Uh, we can train again within our capacity. So building the strength and the flexibility, uh, so that when we are coming to the pole, when we're working on something on the pole, especially something upside down, really all we are figuring out is where our body goes and not, uh, do I have the strength to hold myself here?
Training off the pole can really help with that. Um. There are some specific things that I like to recommend as an instructor, uh, to reduce the risk of injury. Uh, so a great one here is I prefer that folks don't pivot on a flat foot, um, because, uh, that can, you know, create twisting force of the leg than can put unnecessary stress on the.
Uh, however, it is perfectly possible to pivot on a flat foot, particularly if you have prepared yourself for that movement, particularly if you have, you know, trained anti rotational strength in the joints. Um, you know, uh, ball sports athletes do this kind of a lot and they train for it kind of a lot.
So even though you know, it is not my preference to do it, uh, it can be done without injury and doing it does not necessarily guarantee that you are never going to have any sort of like torquey joint injury in the lower body. Right? Uh, or another example of something I just like suggest folks avoid is if you are spinning on static, having the outside hand come across the pole and press into the pole.
And that's because it puts, uh, sort of lopsided pressure and torque on, on the little, the little wrist bones, metacarpals. Um, and especially if you already have some sort of carpal tunnel or inflammation there, it can be uncomfortable. It can exacerbate that. Uh, I prefer that folks don't do it. You can do it without injury.
You can do it and never become injured by it. Um, but if you do do it, perhaps it will increase your risk slightly. Right? So we're thinking about. You know, risk, probability, uh, trying to, uh, help people avoid positions and shapes that might be more likely to lead to injury down the line for specific reasons.
But we can't guarantee that you're not gonna get injured. We can't guarantee that doing something a specific way means that you're not gonna get injured that's not a promise I would personally make, let me put it that way. So, uh, and I think when someone does make a recommendation a cue recommendation, a technique recommendation, um, I think it is important that, uh, they know why they're doing it. Right, like specifically, why is this something that you were recommending to this person in this situation, uh, and are able to tell you why.
Right. So like the, the foot pivoting thing, again, that's my preference. Um, some people will say that you'd always need to be on the pulse of your foot for aesthetic reasons. Uh, which again, I. That is an aesthetic preference, right?
And if that's someone is, and if that's why someone is giving you a cue, I don't think it's necessarily wrong, but they should be a, they should A, know that it is a cue that they're giving for aesthetic reasons. And B, be clear to you that that is what they are doing, uh, because you are in charge of your body and you get to decide whether or not you do a specific thing or take a specific cue or apply it.
Uh, and I think that information is an important part of that decision and that you should have it as a student.
Another sort of bundle of misconceptions that come up a lot are around flexibility training. Um, and something that I have heard, uh, folks bring up is that you should never static stretch or you should only passive stretch.
Um, or you need to stretch every day or you're never gonna get flexibility or you need to spend, you know, an hour in your splits just hanging out there. Um, and I think there's a lot of misunderstandings around flexibility training and what is effective.
And for me, I think it is important in flexibility training as pole dancers that we are working on active flexibility training, which means that when we are in an end range position, what is holding there is our muscles and not an outside force, because when we're in the air, we need to bring our bodies to positions using our muscles and not the outside force.
Right? We, uh, sometimes we can use the pole for leverage, but particularly, you know, once you get off the ground, you don't. Have the ground anymore. I know that sounds obvious, but, uh, a lot of, uh, passive assisted stretches use the ground and if you don't have that up the pole, learning how to do that really good is not really gonna help you.
Right. So I do think active flexibility is important, uh, particularly for my hypermobile folks, being able to support a joint in its end range through using the muscles around it and not sort of like plumping into the, uh, into the space that your, your, your collagen is giving you is really important.
That said, uh, static stretching does have its place. Um. And, uh, a technique that I will use quite a bit is PNF for proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, uh, where we will move back and forth between an active and a passive stretch, um, statically at the end of your range of motion. Uh, those of y'all who've been in flexibility classes with me know, know about this.
Um, who was it? Who said was it? It might have been Stephanie who said, uh, that my, my flexibility classes were just as much work as my strength and conditioning classes. Uh, maybe sometimes in our deload week. They're very chill and it's all static stretching and all passive stretching. Uh, but we do work a lot in the active range as well.
And it's good to have both. But I would say the most important thing is regularly stretching, right? Consistency in your flexibility training, um, stretching the muscle and not the joint. Um, and then also supporting that with other things, right? Like depending on what it is that is limiting your range of motion, addressing your specific thing.
And if you are interested in working on your end range and really going in deep, I would actually recommend working with a contortion coach. Not me. I'm not a contortion coach. I just teach, uh, the flexibility that we need as sort of like recreational, intermediate level pole dancers.
I'm not, I'm not gonna get you your rainbow marchenko. That's not what I'm here for. Uh, if that's something that you are interested in really working with a flexibility training professional, particular a. Torsion flexibility trainer who is really aware of the anatomy and the mechanics of moving into and beyond those very end ranges, uh, is gonna be really important because once you get to sort of the extremes, your specific situation, your individual variables become much more important.
So all of those misconceptions around flexibility training, uh, passive and active are both good. You do not need to hang out in a passive stretch for a really long time, and that's the only way you're gonna get your splits. So, uh, I guess this fourth one is more of like a bundle of misconceptions around flexibility training, uh, and hopefully, uh, sharing some of this information has, has been helpful. Um, but I'll say it is a. A really varied, uh, area of research. Uh, even just talking about PNF, which is a technique that I really like.
Some of the research, uh, says, you know, PNF is better than just passive static stretching. So like, uh, that's Minshaw 2014. Say that. Uh, and then, you know, uh. In conversation with other research, like, uh, sorry, etal 2012 who are like, Hey, PNF versus just resistance training. Strength of training didn't show any difference in flexibility.
So maybe resistance training is just as good as PNF, um, and then, or things like feland, uh, at all 20 2001. And they were like, well, it's better for some groups. It seems to be better for men. It seems to be better for younger folks, but maybe not women and older folks, possibly sometimes. So, uh, there's a lot of sort of mixed results in literature.
And I would say the main, uh, information that we can get from the flexibility literature is consistency is important. A variety of things is important. That variation with repetition. You don't always wanna do the exact same thing. You wanna be given your, your nervous system, uh, new input.
And then of course, we do know that it is a, uh, a process of adaptation in the nervous system as well as the musculoskeletal system as well. So, um, those are sort of the, the main things from the flexibility research that I would like folks to sort of know.
And then the final thing that, uh, I would really like pole dancers to.
I dunno, take to heart. Uh, and I think this is something that there have thankfully been more conversations around recently, uh, is that progress is not linear. And I think a lot of us have, you know, capitalist brain worms that doing a good job means constant growth and the line goes up into the right, I think.
Right, left dyslexia, um, line is constantly going up into the right. Uh, you're constantly learning new tricks. You're constantly getting stronger, you're constantly getting more flexible. Um, and if you don't do those things, then uh, you're doing a bad job. And I will say you are likely to see that happening when you first start pole.
Particularly if you are, um, you know, adding pole to your, your movement life instead of replacing something else with it, uh, but you will eventually plateau. Right. Uh, and beyond that, right? So that's just sort of, you know, as your body adopts to the, adapts, to the um, the stressors that you're giving and eventually if you don't change your stressors, you're just not gonna adapt anymore.
'cause you don't all the adaptation you need, right? Very, very straightforward. This is why periodization is important to keep changing those stressors so you continue to get adaptation. But also, you know, we're humans. We live in the world, we have bodies. Uh, we're all temporarily abled, right? Uh, things are going to change in our life, in our body, in our, uh, you know, just like day to day.
What are we doing physically? Uh, what is our mental capacity? What's our emotional capacity? Right? You may become or stop being a caregiver. That's a huge change in your life. Um, you know, even something like, oh, uh. Uh, my dog's getting older. I'm not going on as many walks. Something like that is going to change your body, change how you feel, change your capacity.
Um, and at some point you'll regress. And even if you're training pole consistently, even if you are continuing to get stronger, if you are not continually revisiting the same set of movements, the same set of tricks, you are gonna get worse with them over time. Right? If, if you want to continue to improve at a specific movement, you have to train it specifically.
I think that's one of the key findings of exercise science that I don't think has been super well. Sort of infiltrated into the, the popular consciousness, right? Uh, when we are training things, when we are adding these stressors to our body, when we're adapting to them, we're gonna adapt to the specific things that we are, uh, we are exposing our body to. We don't just sort of get like general overall adaptation.
Uh, you know, I'm continuing to work on static spins, so my, uh, inversions are gonna get better automatically, not necessarily. Right. Uh, you may be getting to develop things like better proprioception, better awareness of your body and space, and that will transfer between skills. But if you are working on, you know, let's say power movements, it does not follow that.
You're automatically gonna get more flexible.
Knowing progress is not linear. Right. I tend to think that it's more helpful to think about like a, like a, like a spider star chart right there. You'll see like a video game stats, right? Like high attack, low defense, hi, high speed or whatever. Um, and I think it can be more helpful to think about your, your current pole state as like a little snapshot there, right.
Um, and you might even think of it as next to, uh, sort of a larger life thing, right? Like, uh, okay, right now I'm really focusing on business stuff, so I just have less time for my personal pole training, right? Or right now I'm focusing on, you know, I've got a lot of family things going on. I've got a lot of business things going on.
The pole training's really low or maybe, uh, you know, sort of a slow season my business, I'm gonna step up my pole training, so I'm spending more time on my pole training. So I have more points to spend, if you wanna think about it that way. Uh, and I think trying to have a more holistic view of your life, of your capacity, of where POLE fits into your life.
Um, 'cause I'm, you, you're probably not a professional pole dancer. I mean, I'm, I guess I teach pole, but I'm not a professional pole dancer, right? Like, I'm not spending all my time training. I'm not, I'm not going for international competitions or anything like that. So it fluctuates how much pole I actually do, uh, even though it is a, a big part of my job.
And, uh, if that's true for me, whose, whose job this is, it's absolutely true for you who, whose job this probably is not. Give yourself grace, give yourself a long view. Think about what your long-term goals are, and know that I'm just going to continue learning new tricks. And getting stronger forever is probably not a very realistic pole goal.
And at some point you're gonna have the conversation with yourself, what am I really getting out of this? What is this that makes this fun for me? And if the answer is, well, only learning new things and where everything is harder than the last. I think at some point you're probably gonna have to find a different hobby to keep chasing that high because you'll, you'll get to where you have the capacity to get to in pole, and then you're not gonna keep learning new harder tricks.
And that's more of a, a mindset thing than anything else. But I do think it's a really important thing. 'cause I've, I've noticed the folks who tend to be really drawn to pole tend to be, uh, very driven people. They like doing hard things. They like, you know, the feeling of achievement and like standing on the mountain and looking down and being like, yeah, I'm a badass.
Uh, and that is fantastic, and it's a wonderful feeling. I, I like that feeling. Uh, but you're not gonna have that all the time. So what is it about where you are on the mountain that you enjoy so much? And, uh, if the answer is just that I am the one who got up here, then maybe pole is not your forever hobby.
Uh, and if the answer is, I love the way it feels to stand up here and feel the cold wind on my face, uh, and the gravel beneath my boots and smell the fresh air. And I really have genuine enjoyment of being here for its own sake. Uh, then I think that maybe pole is your forever hobby. So, couple different misconceptions.
Uh, you have to pole every day. Please don't pole every day. You're always getting better by doing more. Not the case. Periodization is important. How you structure your training is important. I hope you are structuring your training. Uh, if you're working with professional teachers, hopefully they're doing that for you.
Um, you can learn something really well just by trying it over and over again. Maybe if that works for you, feel free. Uh, you're probably going to have an easier learning experience and, uh, a clearer mental model of what it is you're trying to do if you're doing it with variation as well.
That you can avoid injury by following the exact right set of cues.
Uh, just um. No, you can perhaps reduce your injury, uh, your risk somewhat. Uh, but I would say the most important, uh, you know, sort of in prevent injury prevention tips are really gonna be, um, periodization taking your risk, increasing your, uh, your load slowly and sustainably. Uh, make sure you're fueling, make sure you get enough sleep. Uh, work on building capacity off the pole. So when you're coming onto the pole, you're really working on motor learning. Um, use your mats. You know, use a spotter if you got a spotter, all, like all the boring stuff, right? Like that's how you're gonna reduce your risk. And it's still like, you know, the Swiss cheese model, uh, from, from public health.
If folks know that like each one of these things is gonna help reduce your risk, when you layer them up, they might reduce your risk quite a bit. But what we do is inherently dangerous and it's important to always keep that in mind.
Whole bundle of things about flexibility. Gentle, consistent, uh, work, I would say is probably gonna be your best friend when it comes to flexibility training.
If you're interested in getting into really extreme stuff, work with a specialist, work with the contortion coast, they're gonna be able to help you out there.
And then finally, the progress is linear and you can keep learning cool new tricks and getting stronger forever, which. I know on some level you already know isn't true, but I think that it's important to believe that emotionally as well as intellectually to help avoid just like unnecessary frustration with yourself and beating yourself up for something that's not even a problem. It's, it's not an issue, but, uh, at some point, you know, uh, without meaning to your brain decided it was going to be an issue and get grumpy about it. So it happens to all of us.
Anyway, that's what I've got for you today. Hopefully I've given you some stuff to think about. Maybe a different way to think about, uh, some of your, your, your own thoughts. Uh, possibly some, uh, research to go read and dig into a little bit more. Uh, and I look forward to talking to you next time on the podcast or perhaps in one of my classes. You can come to class with me, I teach online. It's a good time. Uh, if you are also a pole nerd, you'll probably like it. There's a bunch of us in there.
Uh, anyway, I'll let y'all go. Uh, I hope you are staying safe, taking care of yourself, taking care of the folks in your life, uh, and I will talk to you very soon. Bye.
