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Hyperextension – Help needed
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I recently have been made of aware of the hyperextended joints. If you're not experiencing any trouble, I would consider yourself lucky! You probably already do have some strength which might be protecting you. From my understanding it can lead to "tennis elbow" and can cause some real long term problems and pain for some. My gymnastics teacher just made me aware yesterday that my daughter is hyperextending and was very concerned. He immediately made her correct the position and explained although it was easier, she needed to be aware of the elbow lock and always to soften to prevent injury. Im sure w everything it varies form person to person but better to be safe- especially if you are teaching. I dont think it would be wise to allow someone to do something that could potantially injure themselves. Of course what they do on their own is up to them, but I really appreciated our gym instructor being concerned and offering a solution to prevent an injury. He also explained that it gives people a false sensse of security and strength as the lock is not coming from the muscle. Luckily she os only 8 and he said if she corrects it now, she wont develop that habit and save her joints in the future
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that´s exactly what I thought first paulette. I don´t want her to injure anything of course while I teach her. It would be horrible for me if one of my students ever would get injured during my class!
That´s why I corrected her. I think I will ask her next time, if it´s okay for her if she won´t hyperextend her arms (at least during pole classes)
But what should I do if she doesn´t want to break the habit for pole dancing? I don´t want to stop teaching her of course, but I also don´t want to teach something I don´t stand behind…
And also important I don´t to force her to anything she doesn´t feel comfortable with.
On one side it´s her body of course and her decision what she expects of it, but on the other side I´m responsible for the health of my students during my class.
I´m really doubtful now….
it´s seems to be so individual, I think the only thing I can do is to decide together with her how to handle it. I really hope she will break the habit, so that there will be no risk to injure her arms. I think she´ll understand that I´m responsible for the health of my students during classes.
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Well maybe you don't want to make it this complicated for a beginner student. What if you keep it really simple and explain it to her as "proper form" to keep the muscles engaged (just like the shoulder down thing)? As a beginner she's probably very nervous and has to think about so much while pole dancing that it doesn't really matter to her WHY you're telling her to do things a certain way.
And there's really no harm in letting her NOT hyperextend (when I see the answers in this thread the other way around we aren't that sure https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif ) especially in the beginning when she doesn't do any advanced tricks. And I think it's kinda easy to go from not hyperextending to hyperextending if one day she decides to change it.
Maybe later on you can talk to her about it in detail. If she asks and shows interest in the matter, then of course you should tell her what you know 🙂
(Are there even any beginner moves where you extend the arm completely and push with it? The first split grips in the carousel and boomerang spin are usually taught with a bent bottom arm …)
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thanks RoseMay, that´s a great idea. I also recommend my other students to keep the arms slightly bend to make it easier to keep the arms engaged.
Seems to be a good and easy resolution for everyone.
It was her first pole class, so we didn´t do any split grips yet and it´ll need still a lot of time until we get there. I teach those when they can do some easy one-handed spins, so when we get to the split grip spins they can take of the pressure of the lower arm and wrist a bit while spinning.
I didn´t know that way to teach split grips, I´ll have to try that and see whether I´ll gonna teach it like this, too. For holds I teach it also with a bend bottom arm, because that´s a lot easier, but for spins I used the technic I described above where nearly no weight is on the lower arm.
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I'm another hyper extension pole dancer. I never realized that my elbows hyper extended until this past year, when finally an instructor realized it. Since then I've looked at other people and realized how hyper extended I am. I have no problems with my hyper extension for any spins. Just like Cinara said my arm is like a rope. Hanging is no problem hyper extended. When I do an extended butterfly both arms are hyper extended and locked with no issue. If I do a catipillar climb or an Aysha I need to use the elbow grip rather than a split grip, but my bottom arm is hyper extended and locked. My only real issue is a stationary split grip where all the weight is in my arms. My top arm is fine but the bottom arm I need to bend to hold myself in place, otherwise my bottom wrist takes far too much weight. The most important thing is to be aware that a student with hyper extension will do things slightly differently and make sure they know enough to stop if something hurts. I think it fabulous that you are concerned about your student's hyper extension. Unfortunately there are a lot of pole instructors that do not have any real fitness background so they do not recognized hyper extension.
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thanks for your replied. I had a private class with her and we talked about he. She said she never had pain because of her hyperextension, too. which is really good to here.
but I will keep all your tipps and experiences in mind, once we do our first split grips!
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so glad you started this thread because everytime I have brought up this issue with pole friends/teachers, they look a mix of confused and scared. Then they tend to go 'oh' and gloss over it saying make sure I don't fully lock it out and if I do, do proper stretching (to which they don't tell me what to specifically do…) and it annoys me because I just want confirmation that I'm not damaging myself if I occassionally hyperextend whilst in moves (it doesn't hurt but I'm always seeking approval that I'm ok to keep hyperextending haha).
The main thing for me is floorwork and poses and trying to make it look graceful and aethetically pleasing…. and because most the time I'm programmed to automatically 'Point your feet! / straighten your arms!' etc. and I forget I'm grossing out people with my funny angled elbows so I had to learn a few different arm positions to make it look 'normal' hehe
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I totally understand how annoying your experiences were. A teacher should always care about the health of her students. If a student would get injured in one of my classes it would be my fault and I would feel responsible (except if a student didn´t follow my instructions) and so shoulde every teacher feel in my opinion.
If your teacher is not experienced enough to handle your special elbows, he should be honest and let you know. This would be better than giving you unclear instrucitons.
It sometimes can be good to gross out people 😉 as long as it doesn´t injure you. But I think it´s good that your try to position your arms normal, so you´re on the safe side
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