Strength Training For Pole Dancing

Strength Training

Strength training is key to Pole Dancing success. Most people who pole dance and a lot of those who don’t, see a pole and immediately grab it and have a swing, I know I do. There is a temptation just to start pole dancing and only focus on the technique – the spins, poses, holds and tricks. Imagine if you spent a little of your pole dancing time training your body and doing exercises to help you further your pole dancing. You would be a lot stronger and more confident in the way your body moves. While strength training isn’t necessarily the fun part to pole dancing, it is important and will help you pole dance for longer, and more effectively.

You really do need to focus on all areas of your body when it comes to pole dancing. You need to be able to hold you own body weight in a controlled manner, often with only a small amount of contact on the pole. Building up your arms will allow you to complete spins with much more control and hold certain poses for longer, such as the mermaid pose. Your legs need strengthening for a lot of the upside down tricks and climbs. Strong abs are essential for most spins and poses. Try out these simple exercises and see if you can feel the difference.

Exercises:

Abs

Place your inside and strong arm on the top of the pole and have your outside arm placed lower on the pole in a split grip. Pull the pole towards you with your inside arm and push the pole away with your outside arm. This will strengthen your arm so you can focus on your abs. With your feet together, slowly bring your legs off the ground and bend your knees at a 90 degree angle, so your body is in the same position as for the chair spin. Take your legs slowly back down towards the ground, but do not let your feet touch the ground.  Repeat this lifting up and down motion 3 times. Repeat this on the other side. When you are able to control your body, moving your legs slowly, increase the repetitions from 3 to 5 per side.

Tips

It is important to repeat any pole dancing exercises on both sides to build up your muscles equally. Even though your arms will be of different strengths to begin with, you will be able to build them up to both be strong enough to lift you confidently.

Arms

Begin with a basic invert and slowly let your body slide down the pole until you can stretch out both arms to touch the ground. You body should be in a handstand position with your legs still holding onto the pole. Slide down the pole bending your arms as if you are doing an upside down press up. When your arms are bent and your head is close to the ground this is the lowest position you should be in. Keep you legs on the pole just to keep you on, rather than to help you push off. Use your arms to push your body back up. When your arms are straight, slide your legs up the pole and get a good grip back on the pole with your legs. This is one full handstand push-up. Repeat this 5 times.

Tips

If you feel light headed make sure you stop and take a rest. It is important to make sure you have a good grip on the pole with your legs so that you can really work on your arm strength.

Legs

Begin facing the pole with your arms in a split grip. When you have a good, secure grip on the pole with your hands, begin to bring both legs off the ground. Keep them straight and moving slowly at the same time. When you have lifted them as high as you can, slowly bring them down to the ground again. Take your arms off the pole and shake your legs out. Repeat this from the start 5 times.

Tips

With all of these strength training exercises it is quite likely that you will find them very difficult at first. The key is not to rush the exercises and to go through them in a controlled manner. There’s just no point going through the motions of theses exercises – you will benefit if you do them properly. If you can’t do as many repetitions as suggested in this article, make note of how many you can do and work on increasing this number slowly. Pole dancing is very hard work, but the more you train, the bigger the pay off.

If you have any questions or need any help, feel free to contact us and we will get back to you very shortly with lots of help! Good luck and get training.