Exercise Science 101: Core Strength for Pole Dance

Written by Randi Fentress

Pole dancer, do you actually know what your code is and what it does? No shame if not: by the end of this episode you will! Listen in as we go over: 

  • What’s actually part of your core?

  • What does it do?

  • As pole dancers, what's important for our movement-specific training? (Including a commonly-overlooked motion!)

Links and resources:


Chapters: 

00:00 Core Basics Intro

02:18 Defining The Core

03:17 Core Muscles Tour

04:58 Spine Control Role

05:47 Spine Motions In Pole

08:07 Pole Specific Demands

09:46 Stability And Isometrics

11:44 Anti Rotation Strength

14:14 Wrap Up And Takeaways

Transcript

Pole dancer, do you know what your core actually is, and what it does, and what we should be focusing on as pole dancers?

Uh, 'cause no shame at all if the answer to any of those questions is no. I did not know what all actually constituted the core until, uh, pretty shamefully late into my pole dance journey. Years. Let me put it that way. I'd been pole dancing for years before I was like, "Oh, shit, that's part of my core?" Uh, so I would like to give you a little shortcut on that learning process today.

We're gonna talk about what is the core, what's actually part of your core, uh, what does it do, what's its job, what it's, what's it responsible for? And then as pole dancers, what should we be training? What's important for us, uh, for our movement-specific training? Because if you look at the grand canon of things that human bodies can do, the things we do as pole dancers are a little bit on the unusual side, let's say. Not a whole ton of humans are just walking around doing the types of movements that we do in pole in our day-to-day lives.

And before I jump in, I want... You- y'all know what's coming. Shout out to my members, my Science of Slink members. Y'all are the best. We obviously are working on core strength and really focusing and drilling down on this all this month. Next month, uh, we're gonna start talking about upside downsy things. You do not have to do a single chopper if that is not to your delight. But we'll be playing with those sorts of shapes. Uh, and then of course, December, member requests. We're gonna be working on what you ask for. And keep an eye out for your inbox for that survey. That'll be coming in quickly. It's very important. I'll remind you a bunch. Uh, but I wanna make sure that we're really doing things that, uh, are cool for you. And if you're not a member yet, you can join. Doors are open, scienceofslink.com. Come on in. Water's fine.

Or if you just sort of wanna learn a little bit more about me and my teaching style, uh, I actually offer a free class. I'll have a link to that down in the show notes. And then every month I also have a free community flow class. This month's is gonna be on October 24th. And it's what it says. It's just, it's for the community. It's just time for us to come together, move together. It's a lightly guided freestyle. I'm gonna have some ooky, spooky, October-y type of seasonal tunes in our playlist this month. Uh, should be a great time. If you'd like to join, we'd love to have you.

But all that to the side, let's dive into it.

What is the core? So basically, when people talk about the core in an exercise context, they are usually referring to the muscles that make up the trunk, and specifically parts of the muscles, and specifically muscles that are intrinsic to the trunk, right?

Which means that the attachment point, that both ends of the attachment points, because remember, muscles attach to bone, right, are in the core itself, are on the trunk. So an example of something that most people probably wouldn't talk about as a core muscle would be the lats, because they attach down near the spine on the bottom, but then they come up and they actually attach to the arm. So that's an extrinsic muscle. It starts in the trunk, but then it moves out of the trunk. Intrinsic muscles would be like your rectus, right? Your six-pack muscles, which attach, you know, top and bottom both, uh, right in that core area. So that is a core muscle because its function is to move the spine or keep the spine from moving. We'll get into that a little bit more deeply. Uh, what are these muscles?

And if we're looking at the core bottom to top, we're gonna start at the bottom, and that is the pelvic floor. So you think about your pelvis kind of like a, I guess like an old-timey turnkey shaped bone a little bit. Uh, and then at the bottom of it, there's a hole we have, uh, a web of muscles that sits there, and that's the, the bottom of our core is the pelvic floor.

And then the top in concert with the pelvic floor is the diaphragm. So this is this big muscle that sits underneath your lungs. It's one of the primary muscles that helps you breathe. So diaphragm at the top underneath your lungs, pelvic floor at the bottom, at the bottom of your, your pelvis, and then all the way around we have all the other muscles of the core.

Particularly relevant for us as pole dancers is the transverse abdominals. Those are really, really deep stabilizer muscles. Uh, your, your rectus, your six-pack muscles, really good at moving the spine, not so great at holding it in position. The transverse are much better stabilizers than the rectus. So those are very relevant for us as pole dancers. Uh, and then also on the sides, we have the internal, we have the external obliques. These help with side bending and twisting. Then there's a bunch of little muscles, uh, along the back as well, that, at least for me, I don't tend to, uh, target individually 'cause they kind of work as a unit. But if you're getting really into contortions and back bending, uh, and you're working with a contortion coach, they might get into those in more detail.

So, uh, so basically we have this, like, tube of muscles with, like, a top and a bottom. Uh, on the inside, we have, uh, some really important stuff that we need to continue being alive, uh, and that we are helping to protect with our core.

But the main thing that these, but the main thing that our core muscles are doing is they are actually controlling our spine because as humans, we're bipedal. Uh, we have, uh... So as humans, we're bipedal. Uh, our spine is made up of all these little segments, these little vertebrae. So you can think about those like beads on a string, right?

But if you took a string of beads and just sort of set it on one end and let go and expected it to, to stand upright, it probably wouldn't, right? Unless you're using, like, really thick, flat beads. And even then, it would be pretty unstable. It would be pretty easy to push over. So the role of our spine muscles are to move our spine, to control where this string of beads is, and also to hold it steady in space, to resist movement. So a lot of our core muscles are primarily stabilizers and not movers necessarily, so their job is to resist moving.

What types of movement can we do with the spine? Well, we can curl forward and arch back, right? Flexion and extension. So arching back, extension. Uh, we need this for a lot of things in pole. We need it for things like Superman, any movement with a back bend, uh, any movement with like a, a lay back. Usually there's some degree of extension there. Uh, we need them for things like flexion.

So this is, you know, curling up like, like a pill bug or a roly-poly or a sow bug or whatever you call them where you are. Um, this is helpful for lifting and tucking our hips, which can make movements like basic inversions or spins easier. Uh, it can help us get our knees a little bit higher in our climbs. So we use those in pole.

Another thing that our spine can do is it can bend to the side, right? And we use this in things like our Cupid, especially for reaching out and doing long flowy side shapes. We'll do this in things like our side climb, right? The more we can crunch our inside hip up as we are side climbing, the more efficient that movement is going to be. And then we also use these for things like big side bends, right? Uh, Keem, for example. If you are working on something like Bird of Paradise, that's gonna require a lot of side bending and active side bend.

And finally, we can twist, we can rotate our spine. So I mentioned Superman, obviously we are finding that arch, but we also have to reach behind us. We need to twist our chest. And there are a lot of movements in pole what require some degree of twist, and often they will have twisted in the name. Uh, Twisted Jasmine, for example, right? Even something like tabletop grip, being able to get a little bit more rotation in the spine can help you get your arm behind you. Particularly for someone like me, you got real short arms, that motion is gonna have to come from somewhere. It might be the spine. And ballerina is a perfect example of a movement that requires a lot of twisting through the spine.

So those are the different planes of motion for the spine: forward and back, side bending, and then twisting. And just for, like, being a human being in the world, it's really helpful to check in with all of them. Particularly as we age, sometimes we lose the ability to turn and look behind us. Uh, if you're not watching the video, it's a cat on a chair behind me. Uh, turning to look behind us, which is just an important life skill to be able to have, so definitely good to be able to train those.

Uh, but there are some specific things that we need for pole beyond our demands just as humans living in the world.

So one thing that we need as pole dancers, depending on what you're working on, is you may need a greater than standard range of motion. Uh, for example, if you're working on Cherry Ribbon or Eagle or another shape that has a big backbend in it, you'll be shocked to hear this, you're gonna need to work on your backbends. Uh, and as always, I recommend working with a contortion coach, particularly if you're working into your extreme range of motion. I would say someone who specializes in contortion and has deep training in anatomy specifically is really gonna be your best bet for contortion training. Uh, but if you are working on those shapes, you just need that range of motion. There's no way to get around it.

Another thing that we need to do in pole is we need to be able to move our pelvis in space. Uh, if you are someone who has any sort of twerk background or, uh, uh, Raqs sharqi  or a belly dance background, this is also gonna be something that you're really, really familiar with.

The thing that makes it a little bit different in pole is that in pole, it's often an open chain movement, which means that instead of having our feet on the floor supporting us, our feet are in space. We don't have anything to push against with our legs to help create this motion. We can't rely on the extrinsic muscles to do it. We have to rely on our intrinsic muscles 'cause we're just kinda dangling in space. So all that stability, all that movement has to come from the muscles of the core themselves, which again, little bit of a weird thing. Uh, not in primates as a whole, very common motion for just sort of primates as a family. For humans specifically, not something we tend to do day to day.

So those are some of the specific motions, but there's another really important thing for us as pole dancers, and that is resisting those motions. So I mentioned, right, uh, if we're thinking about that, that string of beads, the muscles of our core move the string of beads, but they also keep the string of beads stable. And since we are doing so many open chain motions on the pole, since we don't have the support of the floor a lot of the times, we need to create that stability ourselves intrinsically.

So those of y'all who are my members, you will know in our conditioning class, we have a monthly focus on a stability endurance movement where we're really focusing on a specific type of stability, and it rotates. It's, it's not just planks. Uh, but that's really important for us as pole dancers because we have to create that stability for ourselves.

And we need to create it in all of the different planes of motion, right? If we can move all these different ways, we also need to build strength isometrically, right? So finding strength without moving, finding strength to resist movement, to resist all those ways that we can move, right?

You know, flexion, extension, our spine moving back and forth, being able to find, uh, you know, a rigid upright shape in a variety of conditions. Any sort of inversion, right? Any sort of handstand, any sort of Ayesha, any sort of elbow stand, being able to find and stack and find that shape in space, control where our pelvis is using the intrinsic muscles of our core, super, super important.

Resisting side bending. So a really great example of this is genie. If you don't have that strength to resist side bending, it'll be really hard for you to get into your knee pocket because you're gonna sort of bend and droop, and you're gonna end up really much higher on your thigh than you mean to be.

So if that's something that you're struggling with, working on isometric strength, uh, and resisting that side bending is gonna be really, really helpful for you.

Uh, and then finally, and this is a big one, and not everyone always trains this. Uh, again, those of y'all who are my members, you'll be like, "Wait a second. You were talking about this in class last night. You..." I'm filming this on a Monday. Uh, "You were talking about this in class last night. We just did a ton of these." We sure did.

Anti-rotation is super important for us as pole dancers, and I would say probably more important for us than it is for other related sort of aerial disciplines because we cannot be directly under where the pole is attached to the ceiling, right?

Unless you're doing flying pole. Flying pole's separate. Ignore this if you're just a flying pole person. But the pole is stiff. It's right under the point. We cannot be under the point without occupying the space that the pole is in. Uh, if you can do that, congrats on your sick-ass ghost powers. I sure can't.

So that means almost everything that we do in pole, the vast majority of the movements that we do in pole, we're a little bit to one side. We're a little bit rotated. Things are slightly uneven in our body. So even something like a pole crunch, the hip that's on the pole is going to be getting more support, more stability than the hip that's not on the pole.

So if we don't have the ability to keep our hips from rotating in space, we don't have that anti-rotational strength that we can create just in our core as we begin to remove parts of contact, it's gonna be really challenging to do things like pole crunches. Even to do things like holding a split grip and keeping your hips square. If your arms and your hands are square, but your body immediately starts to rotate the moment you take your feet off the ground, you may need to work on your anti-rotational strength.

So as pole dancers, we need to be able to move through this range of motion. We need to be able to own it. We need to have strength there. Yes, absolutely. But we also need to be able to choose not to move. We need to be able to have that isometric strength and stabilization as well. Uh, and that's all the way around the core, front, back, sides.

And also, uh, you know, the top and the bottom of core, those are important, too. Uh, also really important for breathing. So we need to be able to breathe with good mechanics while we're doing all this, while we're stabilizing. Uh, and it's a lot. It's a lot mentally.

It's a lot physically. Uh, but good news is this is really one of those things where slow and steady really is gonna help you win the race. Consistently working on your strength, both, you know, being able to move through your range of motion and also finding that isometric, that anti-rotational, anti-extension, anti-flexion, right? All that stability work, uh, really is gonna add up really quickly and help your movement on the pole feel more stable, feel more secure, and of course, feel stronger.

So this has been really a very sort of surface level introduction to what the core is, what it does. My focus here today was to help you build a sort of a broad understanding of what this structure is, what it looks like, and what sort of movements we need to be thinking about as pole dancers, what sort of conditioning we need to be doing, how we need to be preparing our body off the pole to find things on the pole that feel just easier, just better, just smoother, just flowier, right?

Uh, that's always my goal, right? When I'm doing conditioning, it is so that pole time feels nicer, and when I'm training tricks, it's so that my freestyle has more options. And for me, that's always the point, is freestyle that just arrives in my body, where things just sort of show up and are delightful, and I can be like, "Oh, I didn't even know you were there, but I guess I have been working on conditioning that would support this, and I guess I have been refining my t- technique in a technical class, uh, so welcome to the party. Uh, let's have a great time together." That's, that's really the relationship I wanna develop with, with movements in my pole repertoire.

So, all right. So again, just the tip of the iceberg today, but hopefully it's a helpful tip. And like I said, these are things that I didn't learn about the core and didn't really understand conceptually until many years into my pole journey, and if I'd understood it earlier, it would have helped me significantly

So I hope that this was helpful for you. Uh, and if it was, uh, I apparently have been supposed to have been doing this for a long time. Feel free to leave a review, leave a star rating, uh, follow the podcast, wherever it is you're listening. Also, if you leave comments, I see them. I'll respond to them. So, uh, always happy to, to hear your thoughts. And if there's anything that you, you know, wish you'd known about the core while you were starting off in pole, I'd be really interested to, to hear. And of course, uh, pole's not a monolith. It's super diverse, especially, like, these last couple years. So many new people have been coming into it, and I'm always really interested to hear, you know, what sort of information people are coming in already knowing, and what has been your learning. 'Cause we're all learning all the time, right? That just the point of living, is to learn more?

So, thanks so much for joining today. I hope you learned something. I hope you had a nice time listening. Uh, maybe I'll see you in, you know, Community Flow or check out my sample class. Uh, but even if not, no worries. I'm still gonna look forward to talking with you in the next episode. I'll talk with you then.

Randi Fentress
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How to Rekindle Your Pole Spark: Capacity, Goals, Novelty, and Lowering Demands