Too Much vs. Not Enough: Consistency and Habit Building in Pole

Welcome Pole Dancer to this episode of Slink Through Strength. This week we will be discussing the balance of Too Much vs. Not Enough: Consistency and Habit Building in Pole. How much is enough, how much is too much and what are some tips for building a consistent pole habit? For building habits, 3 hours/week for 6 weeks is a great start!

~~Two week Pole for Pleasure challenge starting January 8: figure out what you actually want and then Build the nourishing, feel-good pole practice that you need right now!~~

https://courses.slinkthroughstrength.com/offers/m955Fjmn

3 hours/week exercise is probably good but even one hour is great! Evidence shows "The nearly maximal benefit on mortality reduction was observed among individuals who reported ≈150 to 300 min/wk of long-term leisure-time vigorous physical activity, 300 to 600 min/wk of long-term leisure-time moderate physical activity, or an equivalent combination of both." 

In fact, "Adults should perform at least 1 hour per week of aerobic exercise (moderate and/or vigorous, whichever is more enjoyable and sustainable) to significantly improve health and reduce the risk of death by all-causes. We found little evidence that more than 3 hours per week of aerobic exercise yielded any additional benefits." (Based on 400,000 US adults!)

You CAN exercise too much!

• Your capacity is dependent on stress! 

• For college football players "the odds of an injury restriction during weeks of high academic stress were nearly twice as high as during weeks of low academic stress"

• Overtraining

• Exercise addiction

• If exercise is negatively affecting other parts of your life, if you feel guilty when skipping a session, you push yourself to train while ill or injured or if you feel powerless to reduce your training load you should talk to a mental health professional

• "Pole is therapy" if pole helps your feel better, good! If you need pole to feel better that may be a warning sign.

• Affects roughly 3% of adults in the US

Tips: 

• Find something you have fun doing (even if you're not doing that exact this, it'll motivate you to cross train too!)

• Give yourself grace and flexibility 

• Be honest about your capacity: if you're adding something, something has to go

• Start small and build if/when you want to: something is better than nothing

• Community, accountability & other people

• It should FEEL GOOD, change whatever you need to to get that to happen

Resources: 

Lee DH, Rezende LF, Joh HK, Keum N, Ferrari G, Rey-Lopez JP, Rimm EB, Tabung FK, Giovannucci EL. Long-term leisure-time physical activity intensity and all-cause and cause-specific mortality: a prospective cohort of US adults. Circulation. 2022 Aug 16;146(7):523-34. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.058162 

Coleman CJ, McDonough DJ, Pope ZC, et al. Dose–response association of aerobic and muscle-strengthening physical activity with mortality: a national cohort study of 416 420 US adults. British Journal of Sports Medicine; 11 August 2022. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2022-105519

Freimuth M, Moniz S, Kim SR. Clarifying exercise addiction: differential diagnosis, co-occurring disorders, and phases of addiction. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2011;8(10):4069-4081. doi:10.3390/ijerph8104069

Kaushal N, Rhodes RE. Exercise habit formation in new gym members: a longitudinal study. Journal of Behavioral Medicine. 2015 Aug;38:652-63.

 Mann JB, Bryant KR, Johnstone B, Ivey PA, Sayers SP. Effect of Physical and Academic Stress on Illness and Injury in Division 1 College Football Players. J Strength Cond Res. 2016 Jan;30(1):20-5. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000001055. PMID: 26049791.

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