Pole Dancer: You’re a Researcher in Your Own Body
Today we have the lovely Emily Scherb join us on Slink Through Strength! Emily is a Physical Therapist with experience and focus in Circus and some pole dancing. We discuss research and why there are gaps in it, Individual variation & sport-specific considerations, “Prehab,” and How to be Circus Smart. We also discover the importance of logging your practice with how you feel physically, emotionally, and mentally, on and off the pole, and recommend you journal each of your practices! Each Individual is a Researcher in Their Own Body
Where else you can find Emily:
Training log workbook: https://www.thecircusdoc.com/training-log-workbook/
Aerial anatomy course https://circusanatomy.com/
Slink Through Strength Email Sign Up: http://eepurl.com/iimjnX
Join pole instructor & personal trainer Rosy Boa as she chats with experts about the evidence-based practices you can introduce to your pole journey to improve your pole journey and feel better. The Evidence-Based Pole Podcast aims to help pole dancers feel better on and off the pole by talking with experts and diving into relevant scientific research to find evidence-based insights we can apply to our pole journeys. It’s a production of Slink Through Strength, the inclusive, evidence-based online pole studio, which can be found online at slinkthroughstrength.com.
Edited by: Simone Rossette
Simone.rossette77@gmail.com
Transcript
00:00 hey pole dancer welcome to the evidence-based poll podcast my name is Rosie boa I'm a poll dancer poll teacher
00:06 and personal trainer and I've started this podcast so that we can learn together talk with the experts read the
00:12 research and feel better on and off the poll so if that sounds like something you're interested in doing let's go
00:18 welcome to uh an episode that I'm very excited about this is one that I when I was starting the podcast and I was like
00:24 brainstorming like dream guests uh Emily was definitely one of them uh also y'all
00:30 who are are my students may have seen this on my bookshelf when I teach or else I've referenc it in class sometimes a book and applied anatomy of aerial
00:37 arts reference it all the time uh I did some workshops with em when I was in Seattle uh
00:45 oh twins um and I reference those notes all the time so um Emily is a huge
00:53 resource to the community I would say you're probably a little bit more focused on circus than poll but a lot of
00:58 what you talk about is very relevant to pole danc as well um and certainly has been like very instrumental in my
01:03 teaching and my understanding of anatomy and you know inversion shoulder stuff all that stuff that that we have in
01:09 concept con common is the word I was looking for um and also your a
01:15 researcher in addition to you know being an educator and a clinician um so I'd
01:21 like for you to just like talk about yourself a little bit and some of the things that you do just to kick it off and you know for people who haven't
01:27 heard of you you may you may know of you as the circus St perhaps um yeah talk a
01:33 little bit about what your whole deal is and then we'll dive in in a little more depth oh my goodness yeah okay hi thank
01:40 you so much for having me on um yeah let me talk a little bit about my background and how I got here because I think that
01:46 makes things make more sense I myself was a circus artist professionally for a couple years prior to going back to
01:53 school which is why things do tend to be more focused on circus than pole it's because I physically have done more of
02:00 it with my body but I love my pull dancers pull dancers are awesome um and
02:06 you guys are just killing it so um yes love pole as as you said I am a clinician so
02:14 I have a practice based in Seattle Washington where I see circus artists and I have other circus medicine
02:21 practitioners that work with me and we just have a practice full of awesome humans doing awesome things with their
02:26 bodies um I am also an educator so I wrote that applied anatomy of aial
02:31 artarts book um and I teach online courses because I and I teach with um
02:38 American circus Educators um because I really think getting knowledge about how the body works out into the world of the
02:44 people that are actually doing it with their bodies is just so amazing and important so I've been doing that for uh
02:52 I think I first taught a Contin education course for instructors in like 2011 2012 so I cannot believe it but
02:58 it's been well over a decade um and then I also teaching education for clinicians because I want our um
03:08 circus bodied athletes of all types shapes sizes colors stuff things all the
03:15 stuff to be able to get the care that they need and that's responsible care that has an understanding for our Sport
03:20 and our athletic needs of our bodies and then because I'm a nerd like
03:26 most of you guys yay nerds yay nerds um I do research for fun um so I do partner
03:34 with um with folks who work at generally in universities I can get irbs one of
03:39 them is another clinician in my practice here with me she's also a professor at a um physical therapy school here in
03:45 Seattle and we partner on a bunch of research as well so I do a little bit of
03:51 everything I got like my fingers into all the aspects of um everything circus bodies pole bodies um and I'm really
03:58 excited to talk about some of that and share that excitement knowledge and nerdiness with you today yeah uh me as
04:06 well um well to have it shared with me um and everyone listening so let's let's
04:11 start with research because I think that's the you know I mean they're all they're all big
04:17 cans of worms but I feel like that's one that's like particularly you know relevant to the podcast and also and also folks um so I know you've worked on
04:25 you know a lot of different studies longitudinal studies and stuff like that um but I think probably what would be
04:32 most helpful for folks who are just coming into this is um a to get a little bit of an introduction to the lens that
04:39 uh circus Arts tends to be researched through um CU certainly in you know in my own reading and trying to keep up
04:46 with the literature um many times it is from an injury
04:51 standpoint and like you know that sort of I'm not saying that people are saying that like circus is a problem in pathologizing Circus but like that is uh
04:59 the lens through it a lot of the research is done um and then also maybe talk a little bit about normative
05:04 studies and like what is normal quote healthy quote um and
05:10 then any other sort of General lenses uh or ways of thinking about researching circus that uh you think are pretty
05:17 devel so researching circus is from the biomechanical musculoskeletal side of
05:24 things really stinking new which I'm sure you know however from the cultural
05:29 aspect of like circus research or or um the sociological side of circus research
05:35 it's actually a much older field so there's actually a huge amount of research that has gone into what is what
05:43 is Circus what is the theater of circus all of that is much actually quite uh quite a bit older which is really
05:50 interesting and then from the muscular skeletal side we're really trying to build that base or have been over the
05:55 last few years just trying to understand what the heck we should be studying right so that's where a lot of the the
06:01 injury data that you're seeing is coming from is well before we dive deep into like for example whole right
06:09 everyone always is like oh my shoulders hurt or I stream my hamstring or before we dive into that is that actually what
06:15 we're seeing let's figure that out first before we dive deep into XY or Z which
06:20 is why you see a lot of the injury stuff and that's be because mainly our field is really quite new um there is a little
06:28 bit going on in the psycholog iCal side there's a little bit going on on the um
06:34 on the nutrition side um as recreational circus as recreational poll has grown
06:40 exponentially I mean just in the last decade right like mind-blowing like I think um you know I was looking looking
06:47 around the internet just like it just as the internet has made these things normal in that people can find
06:55 them in their communities I think that the internet really has done that um it just grown so fast so it's it's funny
07:02 I'm realizing as I'm saying these words how old I'm going to sound so I'm just going to say it but I you know I
07:09 remember the start of the internet right like um and and when we think about like
07:15 I think about a phone I don't think I had a cell phone really until grad
07:20 school I didn't have a smartphone until I realized there was like missing friends plans after I was like a
07:25 practicing PT for a couple of years right and now we have these computers where we watch things constantly um and
07:33 as that has grown we've just grown exponentially so that really has happened in the last decade and a lot of
07:39 us have come to um circus and pole Arts as adults um and so we're starting to catch
07:46 people as they're starting to go through grad school and they're starting to come out of grad school when they're in that Prime research time when we can get a
07:53 master's thesis or a doctoral thesis or um or an honors papers or
07:59 things like that where you can start kind of pushing other fields to do research on the things that we love and
08:04 that's why we're kind of seeing this boom like ever since like 2019 especially with the pandemic as paper
08:10 started to get published it used to be the only place really having funding and interest in the research would have been
08:15 searay where their dollars are on the line we need to keep these performers performing and now it's not necessarily
08:23 about the dollars we may get a little bit more of like the but this is interesting type research because we
08:28 have people the actual practice iers that are interested in doing it doing the research so I'm seeing a lot more
08:34 varied broad um lenses as you said of of research and
08:39 avenues um there are my personal research has jumped a little bit all over the place because
08:45 I'm I'm also um so if you don't know about research uh especially when you're researching humans you need to get
08:51 approval from a a review board and that process is really gate capped there's a
08:57 lot of financial barriers in the process of research some of it is very warranted we want to make sure
09:04 our our subjects are safe and all of that um but it costs thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to do
09:10 research um because on humans because of this review board process so you can't
09:15 just be like oh I want to study this and study it um so because of that me as a as primarily a
09:21 clinician not affiliate directly with the university though I do work with a bunch of them um but not affiliated
09:27 directly uh I am kind of somewhat at the whims of the people I I work with so right now
09:34 I'm in the process of writing up a study on um pelvic floor dysfunction based on
09:40 a survey we did um last year oh that's right and we presented it at a
09:46 conference already but we're actually getting to the newr and writing the paper up um and then I'm doing um a
09:52 study also on this is like secret nobody knows about it yet but um we're in the
09:57 process of developing a protocol for a shoulder um return to sport some return
10:03 to sport testing some normalized values for for some of us um yeah so things are
10:09 kind of a little bit all over the place some of it's like what my what my friends and colleagues want to research some of it's what I want to look at um
10:16 normative values in our population are few and far between we're getting more and more of them it's one of the things
10:22 you're asking about to come back around um there is a study on the shoulders of
10:28 acrobats versus Arius or those that do both that has some normative data on the
10:34 shoulder that's been published and that was somebody's um uh clinical doctorate
10:40 thesis um so that's a um hberman study from
10:47 20 19 sound sound somewhere right in there
10:53 um but that's that's Karly Herman's uh work from when she was doing her doctoral research and then we have some
11:02 other normative values from conference presentations and then I think you've already interest interviewed Stephanie
11:08 Greenspan if not go back and check out that episode if you haven't listened to it yet um but uh her study which was at
11:16 many sites across the US which I was thrilled to be one of the clinicians on for her um we did an intake of all those
11:24 folks and she's going to start publishing those normative values uh starting really soon so that paper I has already been written so hopefully coming
11:31 out in the next couple months year a process to get into a journal and get it reviewed and and getting all the way
11:36 through is also it takes a while to get from inception to actual publication um
11:41 so that's my very long answer to to lenses the the reason you see a lot of injury data is because that's where you
11:48 kind of need to find where the problems are usually before you want to go diving
11:53 down the holes because there's again that more interest kind of coming up
11:59 we're seeing uh things on nutrition now on psychology um on a little bit more the
12:06 the cultural qualitative studies of what does circus what does actually poll poll is a big one what is the community
12:12 aspect of poll um how does poll um feed
12:17 my soul feed my community help me stay engaged with moving moving my body um there's actually been quite a bit on
12:22 that there's at least two or three studies I can think up so uh we're getting there we're getting there we're
12:28 getting a larger field of researchers and we're getting a larger bre and depth of knowledge as well which is fun yeah
12:35 it is um it's also something that you brought up in there that I think is
12:41 really relevant for the differences in what we're seeing between folks who are looking at Circus broadly defined and
12:46 just pole and of course some of the circus broadly defined include pole dance in the way that I would think of it but also things like Chinese pole
12:51 that are similar um and that is I mean to be frank research is not
12:58 free as you have mentioned um I don't know of any like big NSF grants that are
13:03 like we have to protect our strategic resource of circus artists there is no checkbox for circus
13:10 on when you're doing even Performing Arts grants there is no it's other oh um for those of you outside the US or dant
13:16 to J or theater um and that is true who was I just talking to I was just talking to um folks from New Zealand they don't
13:24 have a check boox for circus either I was talking to them earlier this week yeah it's still it's still kind of a
13:29 niche thing um so there's not a lot of government funding for it unless it's like kind of through another Avenue um
13:37 and uh like obviously in Circus you have you know circus La they make money and
13:43 spend money and want to keep their athletes happy but can you imagine like um those Bastion of Labor rights uh
13:51 strip clubs funding research to promote the longevity of their independent contractors that they're chewing through
13:57 uh and exploiting I can't uh listen I got I got some Fields about
14:02 Labor rights issues in in stripping um but you don't have that same like centralized um you know institutional
14:10 organization that really has a bestest to death and this is also why men Sports
14:15 if you just think about sports have so much more research on them than women's sports it's just because there's money y
14:22 it it's it's it's more interesting it's more involved there's probably I don't know this to be true but I'm just
14:28 thinking about I'm like I there's almost more information about like returning just to like baseball than returning to
14:34 working in a factory like I would I'm curious like those are both can be Financial interests but like which one's
14:40 actually studied more even though that'd be a fun a fun little review study to even do yeah I think it would be but
14:48 it's true it's like it costs money to do the IRB and then it's like again I do research for fun I don't
14:54 get paid to do research I just like doing it um this is these are my hobbies
15:00 uh so it is it's time consuming it takes months years Etc partially because we're
15:07 a lot of us are doing it part-time and yeah but oh man wouldn't that be great if we could get our workers
15:16 to Yes uh that would be great but I think as a result like I don't know that
15:23 I've ever read you know research outside of sort of like the feminism gender
15:29 studies cultural studies sphere on strippers specifically um and like
15:34 specifically you know if you are a stripper what sort of body issues might you have you know what sort of advice
15:40 would be helpful for clinicians and I just don't know of anything and it may be out there and if it is please send it to me I would read it so badly um I
15:47 don't think I've seen it either yeah um and I wonder I really do Wonder because
15:53 because it's not the same like being a uh even a professional performer as a as a
15:60 pole dancer Inay or um your competitive pole dancer
16:05 is different than being a stripper and it's like but if we're just calling it the same thing it's different when it's your dayto day grind it's your work yeah
16:13 versus I perform you know one night a week or I'm teaching most of the time or
16:18 you know so I don't I'm sure there's something but I
16:25 can't think I certainly can't think of any injury studies off the top of my head which is mostly what my brain is full oh um yeah
16:33 if anyone listening knows of of more research I would I would love to hear it but I think that it does sort
16:39 of highlight one of the struggles so you know the title of the cast is the evidence space podcast and I had someone
16:46 like reach out to me recently after an episode I think it was the episode with ginger who was talking about um work that she's currently working on and
16:51 she's like well the standards for evidence-based are double blind you know
16:57 randomized control trials and I was like yes I get that uh we the amount of
17:04 evidence that we have is the amount of evidence that we have the amount of research that we have is the total
17:09 amount of research that we have we are not baseball we are not like dripping in studies right like I don't know of any
17:15 motor learning studies on poll specifically even though I would love to see that right
17:21 um I don't honestly I don't think I know of any motor learning studies on circus maybe some stuff on tumbling I think
17:27 like where it overlaps with gymnastics be a little bit there but um you know we
17:32 we make do with what we have uh and you know do continue to work and build our
17:37 body of knowledge but um yeah and I think it because it's so new people who are just coming to it don't realize how
17:44 new it is like it's it's also just really new there there hasn't been a large enough group to successfully study
17:52 until a couple years ago in the grand scheme of things so like you need numbers to be able to do something like
17:58 a randomized controlled study you need a lot of humans um and so to get enough
18:05 humans in a controlled enough environment to do that probably wouldn't have even been um a thing until until
18:14 recently so we're getting there guys we're trying yes uh but I think it's
18:20 it's helpful to have that perspective of like what is there actually here and it's a lot right like it's certainly
18:25 more than it is there's been a lot more work done but it's not uh each each paper is valuable we are not
18:32 each paper is valuable there something it is every paper every researcher is pushing it Forward one way or another um
18:41 and the more time we have dedicated to it the more we can duplicate that research the more we know it's actually
18:47 things versus but the thing the thing I want everyone to remember I know this is an evidence-based P PLL podcast but the
18:54 thing I want you to actually remember is your daily science that you're doing with your body and your training
18:59 training is your most valuable resource like just because it hasn't been
19:05 confirmed with the study doesn't mean it's not true 90% of the time especially
19:10 this phase of research that we're talking about with what we're doing right now what we're trying to do is confirm what we see in the studio like
19:18 that's where we are we're confirming what we see in the studio and seeing if it balances out to try to move things
19:24 forward so the research you're doing every day when you're training or every day when you're teaching is still
19:30 research and um I urge you to not discount that and also document it for
19:35 yourself because you can learn so much from your daily training habits absolutely keep a keep a full notebook
19:41 I'm a I'm a big fan of that that comes to mind for me uh is
19:47 nerve Glides and like nerve mobilizations as part of flexibility training which the last time I looked I
19:52 couldn't find anything on it specifically as part of flexibility training there is work on it as like a rehabilitative you know thing that you
19:58 can do to help somebody recovering from injury or sciatica or stuff like that it does seem to be effective for that but
20:04 in my own experience and like working with students you know we're just doing like a little pre-test post test doing
20:10 10 on each leg Yeah we can notice a difference um so if you have you know evidence that you have gathered in the
20:15 course of your your teaching or uh you know movement don't necessarily discount
20:22 it uh if you are a teacher maybe check in
20:27 that it's working for everybody in you know a different variety of bodies because that's also certainly an important factor uh but
20:34 yeah and I also on yourself I mean you can do science with a group but those
20:40 are those are different different groups different different ecosystems human body is widely variable yes yes
20:49 I I think that a lot of folks who do not have or haven't spent a lot of time
20:55 particularly as an adult sort of like learning about Anatomy are are um sort of under the impression that bodies are
21:02 a lot more like each other than they necessarily are so even things like you know brain lateralization for language
21:07 yeah there's a general Trend but like the right brain left brain thing is generally a thing for most people but it
21:13 is not like that across the board right and I think that that's thing that people assume is just true of everybody
21:18 or um what is it like the the lat doesn't actually attached to the scolder blade like what 25% of people that's
21:25 what I was going to say yeah I'm like so like like my favorite one because it's so relevant to Circus I think it's in my
21:31 book somewhere but the latissimus dorsai are big lats um muscularly in most in most
21:38 people don't attach at all don't don't attach it's just it's through like a tenderous fasal attachment um and
21:48 [Music] in it's something like 25 30% of people
21:53 there is no attachment at all um in the rest of them it's usually a fasal attach attachment uh and not necessarily even a
22:02 um contractile tissue attachment so it's like yeah does your lie attach there
22:07 doesn't right like that is highly relevant to how your shoulder might move
22:12 or not move yeah absolutely and it's going to vary in the population so it may vary in
22:19 your class of 10 people right like that's yeah so I think that is a nice place to
22:27 segue into I'm trying to say this in a way where it makes sense to other people not
22:33 just to my brain um so when I you know cuz my my background's more in social science so I'm used to thinking at a population level but when you get into a
22:40 clinical study uh setting everything is at an individual level right so um if
22:45 you've if you I don't know if you read medical research um a lot of times you'll have like case studies that's like this one person has this one thing
22:51 going on and you're like oh there's just one person and then you look it up and it's like this thing has been diagnosed
22:57 in 10 people ever in the history of Western medicine this is a large chunk of the total people who have this thing
23:03 going on um so when we get into that more like individualized you know really
23:09 thinking about a specific patient um what are some of the things that you see
23:15 where like hey this general advice that works for some people or most people doesn't work for you know a a range of
23:23 people specifically or general advice that might work for like the population as a whole that's just not applicable to
23:29 people who are doing circus or pole let's start kind of what we were just talking about normative
23:35 values because what does the word normative mean right it just means average there is nothing about a body
23:42 that is training sadly as an American you know three four times a week uh at
23:48 end range with strength like that's not normal our normal is sedentary our
23:55 normal is um you know is an average human of average size height whatever um
24:05 not normal in our world our world is different so um one of the biggest
24:13 things I I have is the challenge of undoing some of that common common
24:20 wisdom right did you know that having being able to sit on the floor with your
24:25 legs out in front of you straight which means you have 90° of hip flexion with your knee straight is not normal right
24:33 like that's not normal so if you unfortunately sometimes it's not about the the patient in this case I'm talking
24:40 about the clinicians but there are some clinicians out there who will say well you already have enough Mobility so I
24:46 don't know what to do with you or you already have enough Mobility because you're sitting that's like that's too much don't go there like well no I need
24:53 to to do my things that are safe and normal it's so it's it's knowing what
24:60 normal is uh for that individual so on the bigger population scale like I think
25:05 it's it's a um understanding knowledge having empowering the artistic
25:11 population to be like okay no I need to seek care somewhere else and educating the clinician population of what our nor
25:18 Norms are um and then on the individual it's what's that individual's normal
25:25 right if I have a contortionist and she's likew I'm just not bending as well
25:31 as I normally do I may even still look at her even as me and be like you're
25:37 bending just fun right but if it's not normal for that person it's not meeting their goals that's where it's really um
25:45 interesting in the clinic where we have to work together and problem solve and be like okay what is actually the limiting factor here for you you know is
25:53 it um you know if it wasn't that contortionist let say somebody who's really rigid is it bony shape is it is
25:60 it how your muscles are firing around that joint is it um is it the tissue itself that sticky or stiff and why is
26:08 it because there's um weakness and lack of control and then I I always personify the muscles I'm like now the muscles are
26:14 scared because they don't they're not in control nobody likes to feel out of control I'm in a grip right and like
26:19 that's why you're not moving or is it like your bone is just like this and there's nowhere for it to go um I will
26:26 say there's that is less common then your muscles are not feeling safe secure
26:33 strong uh and able enough to go into whatever range of motion you want you want to do
26:41 um I don't know if I answered any of your questions but other things oh you were asking um queing or things that
26:50 don't apply to the population um shoulders back and down I mean that
26:58 doesn't really apply to anybody uh what I find is shoulders back
27:03 and down KNE is not going over to it's the same thing for everybody it's it's this generalization and telephone that's
27:11 been played with cues that aren't evil they just got simplified so far
27:18 beyond recognition um that they're not necessarily helpful so um like the cue shoulders
27:27 back in down right that came from like we don't want people coming around the world like this right like sitting with
27:33 their phones doing like so you should bring your shoulders back and down it's like yeah but no one should actually be
27:40 here this is not where we want people either right so um it's it's not saying
27:46 you should actually bring your shoulders back and down shoulders are really complex ecosystems of them themselves um
27:52 they're basically bones and joints swimming in a sea of muscle um and we get a million different choices of where
27:57 we can put them um and if you have any
28:03 sort of neurod Divergence or hypermobility uh good luck finding where that middle swimmy section is um so so
28:12 but shoulders basically should be swimming in kind of the middle they should be swimming in that muscle and
28:18 kind of sitting supported on all angles but not one thing so if you say to a
28:23 mover who's an achiever who can get that movement pattern done and learn it and like tick I learn that steal shoulders
28:29 back and down they will bring their shoulders back down right but this is not where our shoulders are supposed to
28:35 be especially we're trying to do crazy things like bring our arms up over our head then you end up with little T-Rex
28:43 arms uh so yeah so there's there's those things that especially
28:49 um have C kind of gotten watered down in the Fitness World um that that I think
28:55 are are are simplistic and don't apply to our population or really to the
29:00 general population um and understanding where they come from helps you understand how to use that queue
29:08 effectively um even if it's not the best one coming up with your own version of it yeah I
29:15 uh I two thoughts there so one is that you know as you mentioned specifically you
29:21 know hyper mobile nent folks it is much easier to be like I'm going to go to my end range and that's where I need to be
29:27 than it is to be like I need to find a position in the middle of my range and then be stable there right it's um you
29:37 know I mean it's true for everybody but it's even harder if you have a lower sense of proprioception or ability to
29:44 know where that that piece of body is in the space ah I'm trying to think of an example it's much easier to like touch
29:51 an object than it is to take your hand away from you exactly 8 in right like
29:57 one of these things is is just easier on a you know controlling your body level and the other CU it is like this is much
30:03 easier bang my shoulder into my ear is up right versus you know raise
30:12 it find find a spot find find the greatest
30:18 width across your front and back body the other cue that I take un fridge with and see constantly
30:26 is setting up for push up with your hands right underneath your shoulders if you're going for a chest push-up if you
30:32 have broad shoulders and a narrow carrying angle yes that may feel good but if you have narrow shoulders in a
30:37 broad carrying angle uh it it's just not very strong position and tends to be a
30:43 little bit grumpy on the elbows and I cannot tell you how many students I have worked with who like I'm like just out a
30:48 little bit right there yes and they're like I can do it I'm so much stronger I was like you were always this strong you were given a bad
30:54 positioning right because then it comes down to that individual level right it's not just it's not what works for
31:01 everybody it's what works for the body in front of you um how how are things set up yeah to help them succeed and
31:08 that can even be length of torso and leg length right so when you're talking about like something that works for an
31:13 instructor that may not work for the students if an instructor is a newer instructor um and mainly used to working
31:20 with their own body sometimes it's hard to be like wait your center of mass is in a different spot than me wider hips
31:26 narrower hips broader shoulders narrower shoulders all of that will you know fat distribution um length of leg length of
31:34 arm it all matters absolutely it absolutely all matters yeah I actually have have an episode on that and I have
31:41 abnormally short arms so like for me the opening my arms part of an invert easy
31:46 peasy not a problem uh but you know other things like say tucking under the bar in a trapas that no there's no room
31:54 for me it doesn't fit um yeah so like pros and cons right but
31:59 uh I there's an awesome aerial instructor here in Seattle Nam lur
32:04 Lauren Keel who has a T-Rex a trapes T-Rex t-shirt which is I also got that
32:11 one when she bonfire yeah uh yes I think we we have similarly very short arms um
32:17 but yeah and I like as a fitness instructor I get I get it right like I'm working with a group of 20 people like I
32:24 don't have time to go around the room and be like you here you here um but I
32:29 mean my my stance has always been like okay this positioning is based on like this specific thing that we're looking for and I would rather teach you what
32:38 the thing is and how to figure it out on your own body than I would just tell you put here or there um even though it does
32:45 take more class time and for some people they're going to be like it's a waste of time just tell me where to put my stuff and those people uh are not going to be
32:52 my students and that's okay and it's harder as an instructor that's what I get to do all day long
32:57 right right is make it individualized um but that's not necessarily what you always get to do because there may or
33:03 may not be time for that but you know that's why yeah that's why we have
33:08 different jobs absolutely absolutely specializations uh yeah so folks may
33:15 have heard the word what is it and who should you talk to about it because I think I've actually uh I think the last
33:22 time we worked together in person because I I'm said moved out of state um it was cuz I was like something's not
33:27 right with the shoulder and I think this will eventually become an issue and why I came in and uh it hasn't been an issue since I've been doing my homework um
33:35 but how how do you know right like I do it a lot and also am an
33:41 instructor and also think about this constantly so for me like I have like a checklist that I do on my inside but
33:47 it's not necessarily going to be the same as somebody else's checklist so how do you know that it's time to think
33:52 about prehab for something specifically Beyond just generalized conditioning that you need to do to support your body
33:58 doing hard stuff okay I'm going to tell you my
34:03 ideal perfect world everyone has access to sport specific care it is uh within
34:09 their budget and we're all happy elves giving to the forest or whatever you want to be um my perfect
34:17 world is when you start a new activity you get to go
34:22 see a movement specialist um I think pH therapists are personally great um but
34:30 um yeah you get to see somebody who's going to understand that new activity that you're getting into the demands of
34:37 it and can help you understand what your conditioning goals should be it doesn't mean you'd necessarily be establishing a
34:44 long-term relationship with them it's just a hey if you're going to start hanging
34:50 from your arms um let's see what your range of motion is let's see where your
34:57 strength is um and have a conversation about kind of what level you should be starting at and how you should condition
35:05 right and that might be something that most that many coaches might be somewhat comfortable doing um on the smaller
35:11 scale but in my perfect worlds yeah I'd love to see everybody a week before yeah I'd love to see because everybody also
35:18 plans in advance I do not so like whatever but everyone plans in advance and everything is amazing um everything
35:24 runs smoothly in the world uh it's great really taking a lot of license
35:31 here um but yeah like a month six weeks before you uh start a new activity I'm
35:38 like I want to do a thing oh Tomorrow there's a class tomorrow I'm gonna do the thing tomorrow whatever uh but yeah
35:43 like we kind of have an assessment we like get you set and you're gonna be like in the best position ever start the thing it's gonna be awesome that's not
35:49 how real life Works in real life uh I think there's a couple
35:56 different things uh if you're because like that's what I prehab
36:03 I don't love the word I don't know what I want the word to be uh but I don't love the word and
36:09 maybe by the end of the conversation you and I can come up with something even better um but times that you wouldn't so
36:18 there's times to seek care when you're not hurting um or to seek knowledge not even
36:26 necessarily care but may maybe also care but knowledge if you're
36:32 plateauing right if you're plateauing uh you're not able to gain skills you don't feel like you're
36:38 increasing range of motion your flexibility things just aren't going
36:43 well maybe not badly you're not losing things but things are
36:48 plateauing that's a great time to seek care you know that's a am I missing a
36:53 component of something that should be G going on here that could be muscular skeletal where Physical Therapy could be
36:59 great that could be nutrition maybe you need to get more protein you know uh or
37:05 uh maybe it's like you need to plan snacks differently um maybe it's a
37:11 strength issue maybe it's a mobility issue maybe it's a mobility issue based on strength maybe it's
37:17 uh finding a even just a different instructor who says it differently like but like a
37:24 plateau not like a plateau where you're like oh making Gaines and things are changing and eventually but like you're
37:29 like things are just not changing that's usually a good indication that something else should change uh maybe your training schedule
37:37 maybe but some things time to look at things and that may be a physical therapist
37:43 um another time is something just not feeling right you're in your bodies every day
37:50 something changes it's better to see someone then um
37:57 and that may or may not be pain if we're talking pain pain that does not resolve
38:03 in a week or two is another good time to see someone
38:10 um or you know big big boom big fall
38:16 like there are other reasons um but like prab what what do
38:23 I prehab implies there's going to be a rehab I'm like I don't love I don't know
38:29 maybe that's why I don't like it there's no Destiny of injury that is thrust upon everyone yeah and and the other thing is
38:36 we're not we can't actually prevent injury
38:43 which I know doesn't sell what I just said very well um what we can do is make
38:49 it less likely to happen we can prepare our bodies better for the random stuff
38:57 life throws at us um whether that's a slippery floor or you know if we um if
39:04 we are training our bodies in a well-rounded way it's going to be more resilient and more robust
39:11 however sometime your brain just forget to put your hand there you know sometimes the floor is slick sometimes
39:19 the it's colder than your thought you're sleepier than you thought you a really cute dog runs across the room at the
39:25 same time as you're trying to do and your your brain goes oo Shady thing right like injuries are going to
39:32 happen but we can make them less impactful we can make
39:37 them um easier to recover from we can ideally uh make them maybe smaller you
39:46 know we can't we can't control everything in our lives but we we can support what we want to
39:51 do yeah definitely uh I mean maybe you you can control everything right no
39:58 no I can't that would be uh I don't think I'd want to um yeah but it's like
40:05 a like in car inspection I guess like even if nothing's wrong you want to go
40:10 in and check it out every so often right right and that that's my ideal world and
40:16 I know it's not necessarily possible for everyone for a multitude of reasons but um but yeah I'd say also catching things
40:23 earlier than later if if you realize you're starting to eliminate skills that you don't train
40:30 anymore you're like I'm not really injured I just can't do this skill I can't do a you know a
40:37 flamco grip anymore um Swifty grip anymore like well but you could do it before what what change instead of
40:44 eliminating something and then seeing your world shrink shrink shrink shrink shrink and then you're like oh my God I can't train
40:50 anymore and that's when you go get help it's going to be an easier and faster progression if you're like
40:58 I don't really love doing Twisted grip how do I fix that or my hamstring doesn't really want to let me do my
41:04 front split anymore yeah yeah I think this is a place where I know we mentioned
41:10 journaling already but journaling can be really helpful like every time I go to practice poll I write down what I did
41:17 and also just like generally how I'm feeling um and I sort of aim for like about a third of my practice time should
41:24 feel great about a third should be like it happened about a third be like uh I'm frustrated but like if the uh I'm
41:29 frustrated is like showing up a lot that's some's up and I would definitely
41:34 you know talk to a PT talk to a coach um if you're just sort of like doing random
41:40 stuff off the internet maybe maybe work with someone who can help you build a more structured curriculum so that you're you're making the goals you're
41:47 looking for and you know help you assess like hey is this trick right for me um should I be working at this given you
41:53 know my command of the the movement parts that make it up so yeah I'm always
41:59 like you're more frustrated than not first check in am I sleeping right am I sleeping am I eating like am I sleeping
42:07 am I eating did I change my training schedule or you know I I've had a a few people in
42:13 the last couple weeks like Halloween shows crisis in the Middle East lots of
42:19 things going on like whatever it is their stress levels have increased right and they haven't changed their training
42:25 load but they're like oh my God my hip hurts oh my God my this hurts and it's like okay let's talk about how your load
42:33 has increased whether or not your actual hours in the studio have increased you know so there things you know do you
42:39 have a family member who's sick is your pet ill like all of those things look into all of that um one of the things I
42:46 actually have and I can get you guys a link to it is I have um like a It's
42:52 Paper maybe someday I'll get it together and create a digital version but I have a training log thing that's that asks
42:57 those questions like it's like on a scale of0 to 10 how tired are you on a scale of0 to 10 how sore are you um what
43:03 tricks did you train today how did you feel afterwards so it's just like a quick checkin for yourself kind of thing
43:09 um I can make sure you have a link yeah yeah uh I'll definitely put that in the
43:14 show notes uh and folks in my uh conditioning Club you also know you I I give you a journal uh and you can print
43:21 it out or not as you please but just like track what you're doing track how you're feeling and even on days you're not training right like um are you
43:28 consistently not doing well on your rest days that's another thing that I'm like something's up something something needs
43:35 to change in what you're doing with your life and your your circus or
43:42 po I'm so late uh so I want to make sure we don't go over because I know you are very busy uh but I do have here in my
43:50 notes uh circus smart uh written down uh what what is
43:55 Circus smart well circus smartt is just kind of the
44:01 way uh I like to think about the world so circus smart is is taking the knowledge it's out in there and applying
44:07 it to your training um and I'm like oh am I yeah yeah hey for those of you just
44:14 listening uh I'm going up and the shirt says train circus
44:19 smart right um so it's it's kind of my uh my overarching mission is to make
44:26 sure that we're we're we're training in a really um mindful way whatever that
44:32 means at the level you're at and the investment into that knowledge that you feel like it you want to dive in not
44:38 everyone wants to read the research not everyone wants to listen to us Babble on about the research um but there are
44:44 those of us out here doing it so that hopefully some of it trickles down to every single person who's practicing um
44:51 so that every single person doesn't have to do it because that's not what we're all into right like it's just not we
44:57 don't all have to have the same interest um even though we all love poll even though we all love circus we don't have
45:02 to approach it the same way but if we can continue to change and move the conversation forward we all do it with
45:09 more intelligence yeah absolutely bring build that you know it's not really an institution but build the the knowledge
45:16 and the Norms in the field around you know what evidence we have and drawing
45:21 together everyone's wisdom and knowing uh to help folks be yeah and and again like evidence I'm putting evidence for
45:27 those again those of you are listening evidence is in air quotes right because a lot of it is Studio based um practical
45:34 evidence of how bodies are actually working right we have been teaching circus a lot longer than we've been
45:41 studying it um and our instructors are huge reservoirs of knowledge um and that
45:48 shouldn't be discounted and maybe we just change some of the word like maybe the knowledge is absolutely right and we
45:55 change some of the vocabulary around how we talk about it or maybe um we change the order of class to improve the way
46:02 the brain works you know like there's there are things here and there that are are being added to by researchers but
46:09 also every single instructor um and uh and person who is having influence for
46:15 sure uh speaking of people having influence is there anything you'd like to plug I know we already mentioned uh
46:22 your book applied anatomy of aial Arts right there we go uh which again I recommend I have a copy I reference it
46:28 constantly if you care I recommend if you're not an anatomy nerd don't don't
46:34 buy something uh just because I told you to and then be like oh it's just Anatomy it's a nerdy nerdy Anatomy book
46:42 it is definitely more textbook than like fun reading but the pictures are super pretty the illustrator was spectacular
46:49 that I had the pleasure of working with um if you are an anatomy super nerd uh
46:54 and you want to learn more yeah you're looking whole relevant one there we
47:01 go that is on a climb from page 96 here we go we got the little inversion
47:06 inversion yeah absolutely so um I just Rand open to that too so great
47:13 um but yeah so but if you are a huge Anatomy nerd um and you want to dive in a little bit deeper but don't have a big
47:19 Anatomy background I do have a basic anatomy course um it does primarily um
47:26 it's focused primarily on aiel primarily uh uh circus sided of things
47:33 but it will teach your Anatomy at least in a way that is more fun um it's kind of the companion course to the book um
47:41 so if you are more of a visual audio type learner um that is
47:47 available um through my website as well um so that's complete aerial Anatomy you can Google it um the circus do complete
47:54 aial Anatomy uh but that's probably a great place to start um if you are
47:60 looking for a healthc care clinician in your neighborhood again you can head to my website and maybe we'll make sure
48:06 that link is directly available but I have a link to clinicians who have taken some of my continued education courses
48:13 um so you can find someone who speaks your language and understands a little bit about you and your body hopefully in
48:18 your community if you know somebody who's not on that list please please please uh either reach out for them or
48:25 uh let them know that they can get their name added to that list so we can increase access to uh poll specific care
48:31 for everyone absolutely some uh some good
48:37 things to do and I'll uh I'll put the links to that in the show notes as well so um and I like I said I know you're
48:43 busy I won't respect your time uh it's been a great conversation I could definitely keep checking but we should probably wrap it up um any we can always
48:51 do it again absolutely part two I'm definitely down um so any last words you want to leave pulled answers with to to
48:57 take with them out into the world U I think I love the themes that we kind of ended up circling around today that you
49:03 know each individual is a researcher in their own body I want to empower you to to own that and to to really have that
49:10 experiential Journey uh with this amazing tool that you have um and I also encourage you to to seek care when your
49:18 body doesn't feel right if you are that researcher in your body you're going to be much more observant when things don't
49:24 feel good and I want to keep you guys ping for a long long time uh so anything we can do to increase access and
49:30 increase your longevity is is going to be huge so go out there and train smart
49:37 I great words of wisdom and uh yeah what what Emily said all right thanks so much
49:43 for joining today uh thanks so much to everyone for listening I hope you found this as you know enjoyable informative as I did I'm sure you did um and I will
49:50 see you next time bye bye thanks so much for joining you today
49:57 poll dancer this podcast is a production of slink through strength the inclusive evidence-based online poll studio so if
50:04 you're looking for a place to train either off pole conditioning and flexibility or learning poll tricks and
50:10 refining your pole movement uh you can find us online at slink through strength.com
