You finally decided to participate in a pole competition! You found the cutest costume, the best song, and you know exactly what cool trick you’re going to nail in time for the big day. You paid the competition fees and bought the photo/video package. Then, one day, you’re running your routine, or taking a class and you hear a “pop” or “crunch” and something doesn’t feel quite right. You’re injured and now you have to make the heartbreaking decision to cancel. Cue the tragic music!
For me, it happened during a performance. The audience was clapping hard at my impressive splits, and I thought, “Hey, I could totally pull this leg back a little further...” I finished the performance, but spent the next two weeks hoping I hadn’t broken myself forever.
I get a lot of clients who were injured while training for a competition (or a studio performance, or a workshop intensive/training retreat, etc.), so I wrote this little guide to help folks get prepared in a safe and effective manner.
Please keep in mind that these are general guidelines made without knowledge of your specific limitations, skill level, or body awareness. I always recommend consulting a professional (such as a pole-trained physical therapist or personal trainer) for a detailed evaluation of your strength and flexibility to create a unique training plan.
1) Make a Plan
Decide how much time you realistically have to devote to this goal. The plan shouldn’t be “choreograph my best tricks and repeat until show-time.” That's a recipe for overtraining and injury! Use the tips below and invest some internet research time to come up with your own plan, or get a training partner or coach to help you map out your time and make sure you stay on track or adjust as necessary to prevent any last minute freak-outs where you suddenly try to “catch up” on missed days or rehearsals.
2) Journal
I highly recommend journaling to track your habits and progress. Even just adjusting some settings on your fitbit can help you discover how your body best responds to movement, nutrition, and your training schedule. The elements I focus on daily are:
3) SIGN UP EARLY!
I recommend at least 8-12 weeks of prep time when you have to adapt your body for a new physical challenge such as a competition. Simply starting early can greatly decrease your chances of getting hurt from a sudden change in training load.
4) Training Loads
I see a lot of competitors (especially first-timers) go from 0 to 100 the second they sign up for that competition. This kind of overload sets you up nicely for catastrophic failure! Since you followed my advice and signed up early, now you have ~6 weeks to gradually increase your training load to the levels you need when running your routine regularly.
Start with your usual workout/class schedule and start to play with alternating heavier days and lighter days. “Heavier” can mean increased time training, or it can also mean harder tricks, bigger strength requirements, etc. Alternating heavy and light loads like this can actually help your body get stronger faster than just gradually increasing loads over time.
5) Rest and Recovery
Rest is where your body actually makes changes. Research consistently shows that lack of rest decreases strength gains--yet we still struggle with it! Part of this is because training something like pole is as much a social/psychological activity as it is a physical one, so we often enjoy doing it as much as possible. However, making time for rest is vital if you want to improve your performance. Rest does not mean sitting on the couch watching TV. Rest means taking a break from any activity that requires a lot of focus and energy. Forms of rest can include: walking, light yoga/pilates, or gentle mobility and stability exercises (such as your physical therapy exercises if you’re one of my clients).
6) Stop Adding New Tricks!
This is a hard one. It’s one month from showtime and you see a new trick on instagram that is totally similar to the tricks you are great at and you can totally learn it in time and nail it and be the most original performer ever! Realistically, it takes muscle tissue 4-6 weeks to fully adapt to new changes. Adding a new trick in that last month creates demands on your body that make it vulnerable to injury, especially since you will also be in “crunch mode” by this time. Save that cool new trick for after the show--it can be your treat to yourself for pulling off a solid performance!
7) Pre- and post- activity care (warm ups and cool downs)
We need to transition our bodies from rest to activity status. A five minute warm up of shoulder rolls and band exercises is generally not enough to accomplish that task. For pole, I recommend
What you do after a class/performance is equally important for returning your body to a rest and recovery state. For a cool down, I often recommend:
8) Bad Side Love
When preparing a performance piece, we tend to not only overtrain certain muscles, but to overtrain certain muscles only on one side. You’re in the Danger Zone! In an ideal world, we could just run the whole routine on both sides--problem solved! Except that we are generally significantly weaker and less flexible on our non-dominant side, and trying to do your routine on the other side could actually end up causing an injury! Instead, I focus on floor based exercises that challenge the less-loved side. Go through your routine and note: what side do I split/climb/invert on? How many times do I do that? And then go ahead and make a little floor routine to do that on the other side: 5 left side splits, or 3 inverts from the floor on your least-favorite side, etc. Take the time to balance out your body and not only will you be less inclined to get injured: your bad side might have a hope of someday becoming the good one (or so it can dream)!
9) #CompetitionDiet
This is one that can get a little divisive. We are all (hopefully) aware that classism, racism, misogyny, and anti-fat bias deeply affect our perception of beauty, health, and wellness. Despite decades of anti-fat and culturally insensitive rhetoric in medical schools, research does not support weight or BMI as a metric of health. In fact, providers often use weight as an excuse to skip further testing, which puts patients at risk of late/missed diagnosis that can be fatal. Nevertheless, the first thing many athletes (including pole dancers) do when getting ready to perform is try to slim down for those expensive professional competition photos.
Recent research on pole dance injuries actually found no correlation between weight and injury in pole dancers, yet a significant correlation between attempted weight loss and increased risk of injury. Increased training load means an increased need for energy. Competition time is not the time to be cutting calories out of your life. I do not make specific diet recommendations to people other than to get a variety of foods in your life and listen to your body. Journaling can also help you figure out what food makes you feel energized and strong and what makes you feel cruddy the next day. A qualified nutritionist who is culturally competent and body-positive can also help you figure out what food is physically and emotionally satisfying for you.
What else?
Are you feeling ready to compete? Let me know if this was helpful! Also feel free to email or follow me on instagram if you have more questions!
Want a complete evaluation of your strengths and flexibility, along with a personalized starter exercise plan to correct your imbalances? Book now to set up a one on one session in-person or online!
For me, it happened during a performance. The audience was clapping hard at my impressive splits, and I thought, “Hey, I could totally pull this leg back a little further...” I finished the performance, but spent the next two weeks hoping I hadn’t broken myself forever.
I get a lot of clients who were injured while training for a competition (or a studio performance, or a workshop intensive/training retreat, etc.), so I wrote this little guide to help folks get prepared in a safe and effective manner.
Please keep in mind that these are general guidelines made without knowledge of your specific limitations, skill level, or body awareness. I always recommend consulting a professional (such as a pole-trained physical therapist or personal trainer) for a detailed evaluation of your strength and flexibility to create a unique training plan.
1) Make a Plan
Decide how much time you realistically have to devote to this goal. The plan shouldn’t be “choreograph my best tricks and repeat until show-time.” That's a recipe for overtraining and injury! Use the tips below and invest some internet research time to come up with your own plan, or get a training partner or coach to help you map out your time and make sure you stay on track or adjust as necessary to prevent any last minute freak-outs where you suddenly try to “catch up” on missed days or rehearsals.
2) Journal
I highly recommend journaling to track your habits and progress. Even just adjusting some settings on your fitbit can help you discover how your body best responds to movement, nutrition, and your training schedule. The elements I focus on daily are:
- Sleep: how much, the quality, and how I felt when I woke up
- Food & drink: when and what
- What I did physically throughout the day (time spent sitting, in class, driving, etc)
- How I felt at the end of the day
3) SIGN UP EARLY!
I recommend at least 8-12 weeks of prep time when you have to adapt your body for a new physical challenge such as a competition. Simply starting early can greatly decrease your chances of getting hurt from a sudden change in training load.
4) Training Loads
I see a lot of competitors (especially first-timers) go from 0 to 100 the second they sign up for that competition. This kind of overload sets you up nicely for catastrophic failure! Since you followed my advice and signed up early, now you have ~6 weeks to gradually increase your training load to the levels you need when running your routine regularly.
Start with your usual workout/class schedule and start to play with alternating heavier days and lighter days. “Heavier” can mean increased time training, or it can also mean harder tricks, bigger strength requirements, etc. Alternating heavy and light loads like this can actually help your body get stronger faster than just gradually increasing loads over time.
5) Rest and Recovery
Rest is where your body actually makes changes. Research consistently shows that lack of rest decreases strength gains--yet we still struggle with it! Part of this is because training something like pole is as much a social/psychological activity as it is a physical one, so we often enjoy doing it as much as possible. However, making time for rest is vital if you want to improve your performance. Rest does not mean sitting on the couch watching TV. Rest means taking a break from any activity that requires a lot of focus and energy. Forms of rest can include: walking, light yoga/pilates, or gentle mobility and stability exercises (such as your physical therapy exercises if you’re one of my clients).
6) Stop Adding New Tricks!
This is a hard one. It’s one month from showtime and you see a new trick on instagram that is totally similar to the tricks you are great at and you can totally learn it in time and nail it and be the most original performer ever! Realistically, it takes muscle tissue 4-6 weeks to fully adapt to new changes. Adding a new trick in that last month creates demands on your body that make it vulnerable to injury, especially since you will also be in “crunch mode” by this time. Save that cool new trick for after the show--it can be your treat to yourself for pulling off a solid performance!
7) Pre- and post- activity care (warm ups and cool downs)
We need to transition our bodies from rest to activity status. A five minute warm up of shoulder rolls and band exercises is generally not enough to accomplish that task. For pole, I recommend
- at least 5 minutes of activity that gently but steadily increases your heart rate (I’m a fan of alternating marches, jumping jacks, and other repetitive full body motions)
- at least 10 minutes of moderate strengthening and active flexibility exercises that prepare your joints for the kinds of end range strength tasks we do in class
- 5-10 minutes for weakness-specific exercises (such as upper trap and pec stretching with serratus anterior and lower trapezius strengthening--generally determined by your coach or PT)
What you do after a class/performance is equally important for returning your body to a rest and recovery state. For a cool down, I often recommend:
- Gentle joint motions (circles at ankles/wrists/hips/shoulders, bending/straightening elbows/knees, gentle spinal articulations/twists)
- Passive stretching (especially of hip flexors, pecs, forward folds--any place that typically is tight and stiff for you)
- Stability exercises such as squats/planks/balancing to restore “normal” postural alignment.
- Deep breathing exercises
8) Bad Side Love
When preparing a performance piece, we tend to not only overtrain certain muscles, but to overtrain certain muscles only on one side. You’re in the Danger Zone! In an ideal world, we could just run the whole routine on both sides--problem solved! Except that we are generally significantly weaker and less flexible on our non-dominant side, and trying to do your routine on the other side could actually end up causing an injury! Instead, I focus on floor based exercises that challenge the less-loved side. Go through your routine and note: what side do I split/climb/invert on? How many times do I do that? And then go ahead and make a little floor routine to do that on the other side: 5 left side splits, or 3 inverts from the floor on your least-favorite side, etc. Take the time to balance out your body and not only will you be less inclined to get injured: your bad side might have a hope of someday becoming the good one (or so it can dream)!
9) #CompetitionDiet
This is one that can get a little divisive. We are all (hopefully) aware that classism, racism, misogyny, and anti-fat bias deeply affect our perception of beauty, health, and wellness. Despite decades of anti-fat and culturally insensitive rhetoric in medical schools, research does not support weight or BMI as a metric of health. In fact, providers often use weight as an excuse to skip further testing, which puts patients at risk of late/missed diagnosis that can be fatal. Nevertheless, the first thing many athletes (including pole dancers) do when getting ready to perform is try to slim down for those expensive professional competition photos.
Recent research on pole dance injuries actually found no correlation between weight and injury in pole dancers, yet a significant correlation between attempted weight loss and increased risk of injury. Increased training load means an increased need for energy. Competition time is not the time to be cutting calories out of your life. I do not make specific diet recommendations to people other than to get a variety of foods in your life and listen to your body. Journaling can also help you figure out what food makes you feel energized and strong and what makes you feel cruddy the next day. A qualified nutritionist who is culturally competent and body-positive can also help you figure out what food is physically and emotionally satisfying for you.
What else?
Are you feeling ready to compete? Let me know if this was helpful! Also feel free to email or follow me on instagram if you have more questions!
Want a complete evaluation of your strengths and flexibility, along with a personalized starter exercise plan to correct your imbalances? Book now to set up a one on one session in-person or online!
