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Weight lifting and gym exercises to help with pole dancing
I was just curious what fellow polers do to help them to get stronger for pole. I have a gym membership and I’m not sure what’s better then what to do. Any ideas?
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9 Replies
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Pole dancing really works all areas of the body, with almost all of the muscles, so any exercises would be good! I think a lot of people focus much on upper body strength (shoulders and arms), but the core is extremely useful, and our thigh muscles, and calf muscles, are also used often, though we may not think about it!
If ever I go to the gym, though, I try to focus on areas I know are weaker on my body. That would be triceps, lats, shoulders (like, deltoids). So, you can determine some of the areas you’d like to work on, and focus on those sorts of exercises 🙂
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I have a personal trainer I work with twice a week and he knows that I pole too. I usually share with him whatever my current pole challenges and goals are and he will tailor my workouts to compliment them. I work a lot of upper body and core with absolutely everything! I use free weights, stability ball, medicine ball, kettlebell, TRX straps and resistance bands. He also comes up with crazy stuff to keep me from getting bored. On my off days I do cardio work like rowing and biking. Since I started the weight training, my progress on pole has improved at a much faster rate!
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I am looking for a complete list of gym exercises to help my poling. Any one able to help?
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I’m sure anything you do at the gym will help with poling if you feel it’s necessary. I personally love the basics like pull-ups, planks, push ups, and hip thrusts/bridges, etc. I spend off pole time doing these exercises, yoga classes, ‘stands practice, and if you have lessons, SV’s conditioning exercises here.
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Hi. Here is what helped me & this is just my personal opinion (since some things work differently for people). If you are just starting out, take it slow and start with lighter weight. Here are my favorites for really building strength and working multiple muscles at once : 1. Squats 2. Deadlifts 3. Rows 4. Presses. Second to these I like dumbell kickbacks, extensions, chest flys, curls, etc. I love tricep dips. Wrist curls helped me before finding Veena’s great wrist and forearm conditioning lessons. Aside from that, planks, pull/push ups. I like to do a lot of leg lifts also. I divided up the week by doing Day 1-Weights (Barbell excercises), Day 2-Cardio & Flexibility, Day 3-Rest during day/Deep Stretch at night, Day 4 Weights (Dumbbells exercises), Day 5-Cardio, Day 6- Rest. Then repeat. I stuck with this schedule to get my strength and endurance up, it still took me about a year (also I was working about 5 nights a week so I got a lot of exercise at work). Since I have found Veena, it has added a lot to the mix. I also have been able to progress faster now… even though building strength was a slower process for me (I spent countless hours researching and watching/trying fitness videos on youtube). I still have a long way to go. Veena pretty much has everything you need except the weight bench lol. Just going in order through all of her workouts, conditioning and lessons will probably build your strength in no time. 🙂 Good luck, I hope you find a workout routine that you enjoy.
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I actually focus on parts of the body pole and aerial don’t work as well. Mostly lower body stuff. I like compound lifts though, so they work more than just the legs. I do squats, deadlifts, split squats, good mornings, and barbell glute bridges. In addition, I do overhead press, bench press, and I think I’m going to add rows since I go to the gym 3x/week.
I do toss in some pull-ups now and again, some eggrolls, skin-the-cat, pike-ups, and tick-tocks (or whatever people call them). It just depends on how much aerial I’m doing. My main focus is aerial silks, but I have recently picked pole back up.
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My upper body is pretty unbalanced, because I’ve been lazy about practicing things on my left side, so naturally it’s a bit weaker. So I go to the gym and lift weights to try and balance that out a bit.
I love doing circuit training, I personally find it a really efficient way of working out at the gym, and like jivete mentioned, I prefer to do compound exercises rather than isolation. My typical week is pole – power circuit – yoga – power circuit – chest and back – legs – shoulders and arms
and then on the “non-pole days” I really try to fit in some pole practice where I can because I have a performance coming up.I worked out what exercises to do by looking around different fitness and bodybuilding blogs. Also, most gyms will have instructors who are moer than happy to help you out and put together a workout plan
Depending on what day it is, the exercises I do are: clean and press (barbell), hanging knee raises, weighted step ups, pull-ups, incline dumbbell press, incline pec flys, bench press, squats, deadlifts, hamstring curls, weighted lunges, weighted side lunges, dumbbell shoulder press, lateral raises, and then i do a bunch of different cable exercises too 🙂
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Sorry for the double post; I would add into what M Darling said and say if you’re new to these exercises, most of them can be done with bodyweight. So I’d recommend that before adding weights. e.g, body weight squats, lunges etc.
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As long as your working both sides when you pole added strength training outside of pole work isn’t necessary if your poling for fun or fitness. If you are working towards very advanced level moves are feel you are stuck and no progressing then lifting or doing strength training off the pole can help.
Here is a video with 30 off the pole exercises that are great for pole! https://www.studioveena.com/messages
You can also find this video in the Veena’s Tips section of the lessons. 🙂
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