Exercise Science 101: How to get stronger for pole dance

The episode explains how pole dancers can get stronger using progressive overload, defined as gradually increasing training stress so the body adapts during rest and the same demands become easier over time. It outlines adaptation timelines: neurological and cardiovascular changes can occur quickly (sometimes within a session for neuro drills), noticeable strength gains typically appear after about 3–6 weeks, connective tissue (tendons/ligaments) adapts around the 3-month mark, and bone density changes occur closer to 6 months. Rosy emphasizes easing back into training—especially after a break or postpartum—avoiding self-punishment, and prioritizing rest because adaptation happens during recovery. It describes ways to increase load for pole and bodyweight training: increase training frequency while keeping at least 1–2 rest days per week, increase repetitions, use time-based conditioning like a “pole treadmill” (repeated climbs/descents for time), increase resistance via weights/bands or by selecting harder bodyweight progressions, and use isometrics by holding longer or increasing tension. It notes that muscle damage is not necessarily required for positive adaptation and references Felipe Damas’ work (primarily in hypertrophy research), while clarifying the focus is strength training rather than bodybuilding. The episode also explains that the body responds to chronic life stress similarly to training stress, which can hinder strength gains, and encourages stress reduction and enjoyable movement.

Citations:

• SELYE H. (1950). Stress and the general adaptation syndrome. British medical journal, 1(4667), 1383–1392. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.1.4667.1383

• Monti, E., Franchi, M. V., Badiali, F., Quinlan, J. I., Longo, S., & Narici, M. V. (2020). The Time-Course of Changes in Muscle Mass, Architecture and Power During 6 Weeks of Plyometric Training. Frontiers in physiology, 11, 946. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2020.00946

• Damas, F., Phillips, S. M., Vechin, F. C., & Ugrinowitsch, C. (2015). A review of resistance training-induced changes in skeletal muscle protein synthesis and their contribution to hypertrophy. Sports Medicine, 45(6), 801–807.

• Damas F, Phillips SM, Libardi CA, Vechin FC, Lixandrão ME, Jannig PR, et al. (September 2016). "Resistance training-induced changes in integrated myofibrillar protein synthesis are related to hypertrophy only after attenuation of muscle damage". The Journal of Physiology. 594 (18): 5209–22. doi:10.1113/JP272472. PMC 5023708. PMID 27219125

• Ahola, R., Korpelainen, R., Vainionpää, A., Leppäluoto, J., & Jämsä, T. (2009). Time-course of exercise and its association with 12-month bone changes. BMC musculoskeletal disorders, 10, 138. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2474-10-138

• Plotkin, D., Coleman, M., Van Every, D., Maldonado, J., Oberlin, D., Israetel, M., Feather, J., Alto, A., Vigotsky, A. D., & Schoenfeld, B. J. (2022). Progressive overload without progressing load? The effects of load or repetition progression on muscular adaptations. PeerJ, 10, e14142. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14142

Chapters:

00:00 Get Stronger for Pole: What We’re Covering Today

00:55 Membership Shout-Out + How My Training Programs Work

02:24 Progressive Overload 101 (Stress → Rest → Adapt)

03:50 Adaptation Timelines: Nervous System, Cardio, Strength

05:53 Long-Game Gains: Tendons, Ligaments & Bone Density

06:59 Coming Back to Pole: Patience, Rest, and Consistency

08:01 How to Add Load in Pole Training (Frequency, Reps, Resistance)

11:12 Isometrics & Bodyweight Progressions (Making Moves Harder)

14:48 Wrap-Up: Stress Management, Keep Showing Up

Transcript:

  📍 Pole dancer. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that you probably want to be stronger for pole dance so that things feel easier and more flowy and they're more accessible in your freestyle and you feel better. Probably that's why you're here. In which case, fantastic news. That's what we're gonna talk about today. Uh, we're gonna talk about what progressive overload is, uh, how we adapt to stress, some of the timelines you might be looking at there when you start to increase stress and some ways to increase stress. Uh, and to be very clear here, the stress that I'm talking about is the positive stress that leads to these strengthening changes that we'd like to see in our bodies and not just like over overall just worry and upsetness, that's something different.

I'd really like for you to come away with this with a better understanding of how our bodies adapt when we start to make greater demands of them, how long these adaptations might take, and some specific guidelines for specifically for pole dancers, how we can cause those changes to occur.

And before I get into it, you know what I'm gonna do? Shout out to my members. Love y'all. You make this possible. And I've actually just recently switched to only teaching for my members, so I don't do drop-in classes anymore. Uh, and if you're like, oh, Rosy, that sounds expensive. Well, there's actually a little code down there that you can use so that you can take a full month of Essentials of Slink, which is five classes for the cost of one of my drop-in classes when I was previously offering them because when I am putting together my curriculum, everything works together.

Our conditioning supports, our trick training, supports our artistry, and it all comes together. And hopefully, things will just start to feel easy and flow and feel good. Uh, and that's really, really my goal is that you don't have to do all the thinking and application and I just do it for you.

Essentials of Slink, like I mentioned, one hour class a week. If you're short on time, you're looking for a more affordable option. That is a great place to start out with. And if you're like Rosy, I am, I'm all about it. I would like more. Please. Uh, you can check out Science of Slink, which is five classes a week.

Uh, bigger time commitment if you choose to do everything or you know, you can pick and choose things that work with your schedule. And you always get the option to join live. And the recording, so you can really, really work it in when makes, makes sense with your life. So if you're interested in joining us, I'd love to have you.

Uh, and if you're already a member hearts to you. I love y'all. I feel so, so lucky that I get to hang out with pole nerds, uh, at work.

All right, let's get into it. So. Progressive overload is the thing that we're gonna be talking about today.

It's a term that you may have heard previously. And the basic idea here is that when, as as organisms, right, we're tuning along, we're just sort of like in our zone our bodies like to maintain homeostasis, right? So we like things to be the same on the inside. We don't like to make a lot of changes to our bodies.

Of course there's obviously natural aging that's occurring. There's other environmental factors, but generally biological processes trying to stay pretty much the same.

Then we'll encounter some sort of stress. So in the case of strength training, that will be us trying to work against a load that is greater than we have worked against before.

And our body will be like, ah, we're being, we're being, uh, called upon to do something. Let's do some stuff. And then. You rest, right? So you remove yourself from your stress. During that rest is when the adaptation happens, is when you actually become stronger so that the next time you meet this same stressor again, it's a little bit easier to deal with.

Right. And the progressive overload here is that we increase the load over time in a, you know, gradual. Supportive manner, uh, so that our adaptations also increase over time and in the end we get stronger or more flexible or whatever it is that we are attempting to change about our bodies.

How long does this adaptation generally take to occur?

So there's obviously a lot of systems working together here. Neurological adaptation. So increase in coordination, uh, motor learning, understanding where your body is in space. If you've done neuro drills with me, like some of the eye gaze work that we do, that adaptation can happen over the course of a single training session.

So again, if you've done some of the, the neurological drills with me, you know, we'll usually do a pre-test and then the drill and then a post-test. Uh, and if you don't see an instant improvement, then that neurological drill is just. Not gonna be useful for you, uh, but it might be useful for other people, right? There's a lot of individual variation in brains and bodies and, mind body connection, all that. So neurological adaptation quite fast.

Then the next thing that adapts in this sort of timeline is, well, I should also say the cardiovascular system also tends to adapt quite quickly, uh, particularly compared to building muscle mass, right?

Building strength that you're generally not gonna see for at least a couple weeks. Uh, I would say three weeks is sort of the, the near end. Uh, ideally by six weeks you should have some sort of noticeable improvement in strength. Uh, again, this is, you know, you're starting from something, you add something. How long are you gonna see that adaptation to that?

And just on, on a little side here I certainly learned that what causes the, the muscle to need to adapt is actually, uh, structural damage to the muscle, right? Is actually the creation of micro fissures. And it seems like, and this research is a little bit more in, in hypertrophy than strength training, uh, but it does seem like the muscular damage is not only not necessary, but that must be healed first in order for the positive adaptations that we're looking for to occur. Felipe Damas has done quite a bit of work on that. I'll have some citations down there for you if you're interested. Um, and I'll say again, this is working at hypertrophy and not strengths training.

The mechanisms and the sort of training program that you're gonna get between those two are slightly different. I focus on strengths training because I would like you to get stronger, and for most people, that's their goals. If you're interested in really building a lot of visible muscle, you should probably work with somebody who does bodybuilding. That's not my wheelhouse.

Uh, and then even further down on the line, uh, we're looking at about the three month mark is when we're gonna start to see connective tissue adaptation. So things like ligaments and tendons. Uh, so you'll notice your muscles are going to adapt first and then your connective tissue.

Uh, this is another good reason to really take your training progression, maybe a little bit slower than it feels like you might be ready to, so that by the time you're adding a lot of increased force and stress you've had time for this adaptation to occur. Because there's just, there's just less blood flow. Um, maybe, obviously a lot of blood in muscles. A lot of blood and muscles. They get a lot of oxygen, they get a lot of, uh, of nutrition, uh, just a lot less blood flow in connective tissue. So it tends to adapt more slowly.

And then finally it closer to like. Sixth ish month mark is when you're gonna start to see changes in bone structure, right? Because muscles attach to bones through the connective tissue, uh, and as your muscles contract, they put stress on the bone. And you know, after about six months, body's like, alright, guess we better shore these up.

Let's get, you know, let's get a little bit more structure in here. Let's increase the density. So that is quite a long timeline if you're just starting from nothing to start to see these changes. So, if you are, you know, particularly if you're just coming into pole or just coming back to pole, whether that's after a break or postpartum, or especially postpartum or anything where you've had like a big change to your body, in the meantime, it's just gonna take a little time.

That is perfectly fine, right? You've got time, uh, much better to sort of ease into it and really progress at a, uh, at a comfortable, sustainable pace and really try to push yourself.

Listen, I know some of y'all come back and you can't do the thing that you imagined or remember being able to do. I do this, and you get really frustrated with yourself, and you're like, no, I'm gonna push myself. I'm gonna punish myself for losing this skill. That's not good. That's not good for you. That's not good for your brain. You're gonna stress yourself out more. Uh, you're going to maybe shorten your rests. And remember, rest is where the adaptation occurs. That's no good. So. Trying to step back and be like, okay, we're looking at like six months to start seeing changes across the body.

It's just gonna take some time. I just gotta keep showing up and be gentle and consistent. You'll have a nicer time in the body and the brain in my experience.

So again, talking these timelines, you're not gonna see changes unless you're increasing load. When we first come to poll, right? Or we come back, the load is going from zero to anything at all.

That's pretty much guaranteed to be an increase. So for the first little bit, I don't really think you need to, especially if you're coming from maybe a more sedentary lifestyle, I don't really think you need to add additional resistance training. Right. Just being exposed to this new stimulus is probably gonna be enough for you to start seeing adaptation. However the thing about pole is its body weight and, your body weight's probably fairly consistent. I wouldn't recommend trying to change your body weight for the sake of pole. It's not something I I help people with. I don't, again, generally recommend it.

So once you've adapted to your body weight and the positions you're working on. If you continue to work on those same positions, you're not gonna be adding more load. So once you're, at that point, once you start to notice that you're not seeing strength increases anymore and you would like to, this is when you can start adding in other things.

So how are some ways that we can add in other things? So one thing we can do is we can increase our frequency, how often we're training. So, like I mentioned, Essentials of Slink one class a week. Science of Slink, more like four or five classes a week, that is a pretty big jump. I would say if you're going from one to the other and not doing anything else, maybe you start with like adding in two classes per month and then three classes and then all the way up to four, right?

'cause it's, it's a little bit, bit more that increase. Uh, but you can do things more often. You can do the same thing more often. Uh, and I think this is a really common way for pole dancers to increase load, right?

You, you add one more class. Sort of challenges with that. Um. A rest time. You do need to make sure you're still getting rest. I at least one rest day a week. I'd recommend two actually, if you, if you can swing it.

So scheduling wise, that can be challenging, right? I think for most people there's a functional upper limit to how many pole classes you can do in a week.

So what are some other ways to increase load? One is to increase the number of repetitions. If you have been, let's say, working on your climb as part of your cardiovascular conditioning, instead of maybe doing one climb up or down the pole, maybe you start doing two or three, uh, so that you are doing the same thing, but more of it.

Within the same time training block, so that's also gonna increase your intensity. It's probably going to make you breathe a little bit harder, a little bit more stress on the cardiovascular system.

Just as an aside if you are looking to train for, uh, endurance and cardiovascular endurance on the pole, uh, I really like an exercise that I call a pole treadmill where you set a timer, uh, and you climb to the top, slide down, climb to the top, slide down, climb to the top, slide down for time.

Uh, so when I am preparing for performance, that's often something I will do for like a minute or two. And particularly if you're doing that at the end of your training, assuming climbs are something that feel very straightforward for you, that can be a really good way to quickly increase your cardiovascular endurance.

And then probably the most common way that people know about increasing load is increasing resistance. So, uh, if you are doing weight training, you would use heavier weights. If you're using resistance bands, you'd use a band with more resistance. Or if the resistance band is supporting you, for example, you're working on a pull up and you're, you're using a resistance band to help support your weight, you would reduce the resistance so you're carrying more weight in your body.

Hopefully that that distinction there is clear.

Because pole is a body weight movement. Um, and my classes are equipment optional. Almost all of my strengthening exercises are body weight strengthening exercises, which means often you'll need to change the specific type of exercise you're doing.

So if you've ever wondered, you know, you've been taking conditioning with me, and you're like, why does Rosy give like eight options for every single exercise? It's because changing the option that you take is how you increase the resistance in a body weight exercise. The one exception to this, I would say, would be something like an isometric exercise, where the way that you would increase effort is to increase effort.

So an isometric is an exercise where you don't move, you're resisting against something that could be gravity, something like a plank. Or it could be something like an object. Uh, so I, uh, will often use isometric exercises at the end of our range of motion as part of uh, PNF flexibility training, uh, and also to help, you know, build joint stability at the end of that range and strength. But for that side sort of exercise, you can increase effort or resistance, right? So if you are in a plank, for example, and you want to increase effort, you can think about pushing your hands into the ground and then pulling them back to towards your feet without actually moving, right?

Just adding additional tension, uh, in your core, and that can help you increase your, your resistance. You can always hold it for longer. So again, those of you who I know, I keep referencing things that I do in my, in my classes this is how I am applying these things. So I think it's helpful to have that information. But in my conditioning classes, my strength conditioning classes, you may have noticed that I always include an isometric core strength, endurance hold, and that over the course of the month. Those holds get longer until we do our deload week where we don't do them, and then we'll reset with a different exercise next month.

Right? So that is how I'm building progressive overload into the strengthening using isometrics, is that we're holding them for longer instead of increasing the amount of weight that we are using.

Uh, and then of course, like I I mentioned with body weight exercises, often you have to change the body weight exercise.

So if you are working on pole crunches, for example you might start sitting on the ground in a strong hold and just pulling your legs towards you, and then you might lift your legs up with bent knees, and then you might lift your legs up with straightened the eggs, and then you might. Come to standing and hold your body weight with your arms.

Then you've got more work in your arms. There's a greater cardiovascular component there. And then same thing, legs towards you, bent knees, straight legs, one leg at a time. The longer the lever, the harder the exercise and the specific changes that you do are really gonna depend on the specific exercise that you're doing and what it is that you're training for.

So those are the types of ways that you can increase load. You can increase how often you're training, you can increase, uh, how many of a thing that you do, you can increase, uh, how strenuous it is to do the thing and you can just do the same thing for longer as well.

So that's a very brief, uh, hopefully fairly easy to follow introduction to, to progressive overload. We're introducing stress into our bodies. Our bodies are adapting to that stress while we're resting, make sure we rest. Rest is important.

I got a whole episode on it. Uh, and then we, we come back. We're more able to deal with that stress. We'll start to see, neurological adaptation, cardiovascular adaptation very quickly. Uh, and then, you know, building muscle strength and then building connective tissue strength. And then finally building bone density. But over, uh, at least a six month period, you should start to see really noticeable changes in your body. And even in the first three to four weeks, hopefully you're starting to notice yourself feeling stronger and things beginning to feel a little bit easier for you.

And then we also talked about different ways to introduce this stress and to to scale the intensity of your training.

And before I wrap up, I will just say, I've been talking about eustress here, but your body cannot tell the difference between, you know, chronic stress, things that are just. Taking up maybe a lot of brain space that are maybe making you feel anxious. That's gonna be in the same bucket as I'm trying to get stronger and I'm doing strength training and I'm, uh, you know, experiencing stress on purpose that way.

So if you have a lot of stress in your life, if you're not getting a chance to disconnect and give yourself time to reset, that's gonna make it harder to build strength, and that is okay. That is not a moral failing. That does not mean anything is wrong with you. That is just the way bodies work and as much as possible, if you can reduce chronic stress, that's going to make it easier for you to do strength training.

But happily any sort of exercise also is in associated with a reduction in stress. So even if you're coming in and you're like, oh, I don't feel super strong. Oh, I'm so tired. Any bit of body moving, especially with people, especially a thing that you find fun and enjoyable, and I hope you find pole fun and enjoyable.

Otherwise, why are you doing it, dog? This is, this is for recreational pole dancers. This is not a good recreation for you, you got other options. I urge you to go take them. Find your joy, find your movement, joy, and yeah, help, help yourself. Help yourself, support yourself. Give yourself whatever it is that you need. Whether that is, you know, a little bit of relaxation, time to disconnect. Maybe turn off your phone maybe logging out from social media. I don't know. Whatever it is that's gonna help you regulate, rest, adapt, and then come back stronger to do whatever it is you need to do out there in the world. That's how to get stronger for pole at a very high level, uh, at a much crunchier level. It's, you know, what do you do when?

And I would say my biggest piece of advice to you is just keep showing up. Show up consistently. That's why I have a membership to help people who are home pollers show up consistently, uh, and make sure they're getting the structure they need to get stronger, learn new things, and feel better in their dance.

So, all right, that's what I got for you today. I hope this was helpful. Uh, as always, citations in the down there if you wanna dig into this a little bit more. And I hope you're doing as well as you possibly can right now, and I will talk with you again very soon.

Goodbye.