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Do I use a personal trainer or physical therapist?
Would you guys happen to know of any pole dance trainers either in the Honolulu area or San Francisco area? I'm thinking along the lines of injury prevention and proper conditioning. Would I consult a personal trainer (cause it seems like a lot of personal trainers do not have the appropriate knowledge to condition a pole dancer, not the one's I've seen at the gym anyways) or a physical therapist? I do need someone to watch over me/make a work out plan/guide, etc as I am NOT a natural and am not good at reading my own body movements as well as others. Asking b/c I'd like to begin conditioning myself to compete in 3-4 years.
What other things do you guys do for injury prevention? Massages? Chiropractor? I'd like to hear them all 🙂
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9 Replies
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I've had BOTH due to getting old and fallin apart! AND.. as I've said before.. Veena's lessons on here are the Best $$ I've ever spent.
She IS a Personal Trainer… and for POLE! :):) The lessons and strength training are the best I've experienced and you see pretty quick results. As to the safety, doing things the RIGHT way go a loooong, loonng way to preventing injury and she teaches safety with every move!
Get a mirror and video yourself, too. You'll either get 'natural' or die trying! (Kidding.. not physically, I just meant the 'mentality'! 🙂
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My understanding is that a physical therapist is more for when you have injured yourself, and you need help! I went to one for my knees…they are very knowledgable, and good at looking for problems, but I don't know that they would have a lot of knowledge on the other side of things.
I agree with LoneStar, Veena is a personal trainer with tonnes of experience, and she's got the lessons up here for those of us who want to learn at home, and don't want to hurt ourselves! The strength training parts, too, are very useful. Veena, and several other pole dancers of competition level, and teachers, are all here, and you can ask them anything!
My reccommendations? Take it slow. Listen to your body, because if you're pushing too hard, it will tell you! If you hurt, maybe don't pole that day…do something softer, more relaxing, or maybe nothing at all. If you don't feel like a certain grip is stable enough, don't hang from it! Practice on the ground, and see if you can work out how the grip can be made more stable.
Other things that might help… a mirror, so you can watch yourself, or even better, a video camera. I DON'T like watching myself dance, but the video camera is something I'm forcing myself to do, because I know I'll improve eventually! Perhaps a crash mat, too, so you can work on moves with a little more safety. And, you can always check out pole dancing classes in your area (I'm sure Google would come up with a few!), and take some of those. I know that there are a lot of classes out these days that go right from beginner to advanced, from the floor to all aerial, and with a teacher present, perhaps you could also pepper them with questions about how to make up routines, how to train so you can improve, and what to do about stretching and strength if you hit a plateu.
Best of luck! Sounds like you have a good, realistic goal 🙂
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Personally I would go see physio therapist and ask for injury prevention exercises. I would show them videos of what we do so they can see where we place strain etc. 🙂
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I was thinking along those lines as well… 🙂
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All of the conditioning lessons here are also used for injury prevention 🙂
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Yes! it's actually where I got the idea! I never really gave a whole lot of thought to really conditioning myself for pole.. besides, just the basic core/ab, pushup, cardio at the gym. But a lot of my friends have been getting injured lately and the other day I was doing a jackknife and something tweaked in my shoulder ( I mean it's not bad at all, but I know something very very small moved a way it didnt' want to so it allowed me to really give some thought into how I want to go about practicing).
I never did any upper body conditioning that the gym (cause I didn't want to bulk up https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_sad.gif.. and because I'm genetically prone to muscle hypertrophy), buuuuttt… now that I'm starting to progress into more horizontal/upper body holds/advanced movement… I feel it best to??
Just out of curiosity, what type of conditioning would be good for half/full cartwheel mounts, or any type of movement similar to this? This is a pushing movement, so would it be good to do the nautilus overhead shoulder presses at the gym?
I'm deeefinately going to do the conditiong exercises on this website.. For the band.. I tried to find the one that was used in the video but I couldn't find it online. I can basically use any band? Like the green/yellow/blue ones? Also, bands better than tubing?
Thanks!!https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif
p.s. what are the most common injuries in pole dance? (just to keep myself safe https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif
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Each one of the conditioning lessons are important for pole…that is why they are included. To figure out what muscles to focus on for a particular move, take a peek at the lesson description. This lists the muscle groups used 🙂
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Oh I forgot to add, you can use either a band or tube for resistance. The different colors represent different levels of resistance.
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