Ever find yourself lurking awkwardly among the grunting bench pressers and clanking barbells of the free weights area wondering what the hell exercises you should be doing to improve your pole skills?
Well, wonder no more! It’s time to up your gym-savvy and stride up to that dumbbell rack the same way you’d strut confidently to your pole when your favourite jam comes on. Hair flick and all!
There are hundreds of awesome exercises that can help to build strength and mobility for pole athletes and your programme should, of course, include not just a few randomly selected exercises, but a well-balanced combination of pushes, pulls, squats, lunges and core work.
The exercises I’ve chosen below are just a few of my faves. I’ve explained why each exercise is so great for pole dancers – hopefully this will give you a good basis to start thinking about how to choose the exercises you use in the gym, to give you the most pole bang for your buck.
If you’d like to understand more about how to programme your training for pole, check out my book Strength and Conditioning for Pole which provides a ‘training for pole’ blue print and all the hows, whats and whys of how to get strong for pole. Available now in hard copy or ebook! 460 pages of pole geeking awaits!
1. Turkish get ups
The Turkish Get Up has it all – body awareness, core work, leg drive, shoulder stabilisation… everything you need to be a great pole dancer. Done properly, it is a beautiful movement that works through a number of different planes of motion and has loads of carry-over to the pole.
This movement is deceptively technical, and progressions are important! So make sure you have gone through the necessary overhead pressing progressions before starting to work on this one. Practice the movement without weight first and only when you understand and feel comfortable with the movement pattern, start adding weight. Even then, start light and focus on nailing the correct movement pattern before you start to increase the weight. Start with 5 reps on each side for 2 or 3 sets. Rest for 40-60 seconds between sets.
2. Eccentric bicep curls
The Turkish Get Up above is a full body movement involving multiple muscle groups and joint actions – it’s a very ‘functional’ exercise in that way. In contrast, the eccentric bicep curl is exactly the opposite – it’s an exercise that focuses only one one muscle group (the biceps) and one joint action (the elbow movement).
While more ‘functional’ exercises like the Turkish Get Up should form the bulk of your training for pole (or any sport), isolation exercises like bicep curls are also useful as part of a well-rounded training programme!
The bicep curl I’m demo-ing below is the ‘eccentric’ version, which basically means that we’re loading the muscle (the bicep) as it’s lengthening – focusing on the slow lowing part of the exercise. I chose this version because we use that eccentric contraction on the pole when we invert (you can find more about that here), so strength here is useful, especially for beginner pole dancers.
Start with 5 reps on each side for 2 or 3 sets.
3. Reverse flys
No “dumbbell exercises for polers” article could be complete without at least one pulling exercise. As I explained in my muscle imbalance post, we tend to overuse our pec muscles in pole training and neglect our poor old upper backs. This can lead to tight pecs and weak upper back muscles, making us more vulnerable to injury and affecting our strength and performance on the pole.
The reverse fly is an awesome upper back exercise to help combat this imbalance, create more balanced strength in the upper body and help to prevent injury.
Start with 10 reps for 3 sets. Rest for 40 seconds between sets.
4. Single leg deadlift
If I had to choose just one favourite lower body exercise for pole dancers… it’d be like trying to choose a favourite child, but I think the single leg deadlift (or some variation of it) would be the winner!
Hamstrings are, second to shoulders, one of the most commonly injured areas for pole dancers, so building strength here is important as part of a good injury prevention strategy for pole. I love deadlift varations because they train the hamstrings through the lengthened position that we use every damn day in pole! The single leg version also throws a little more hip stability work into the mix – and we certainly won’t say ‘no’ to that! Before doing the single leg version, make sure you’ve worked on bilateral progressions and understand the hip hinge movement pattern!
I usually programme 3 sets of 10 reps on these!
5. Russian twist
I had to include at least one core-focused exercise on this list and although it was hard to choose, I’ve gone with the Russian Twist. This movement involves spinal rotation – something that is super key to many, many tricks that we do in pole dance!
3 sets of 10 reps is a good level to shoot for!
Hope this gives you some ideas for next time you’re hitting the gym and want to make your training pole-specific!
As always, listen to your body, seek advice from a specialist if you are injured or unsure about any of the movements – and gimme a shout if you have any questions!
If you’d like to geek out more with me on the anatomy of pole dance, or you want more details on how to programme these exercises, check out my books – Strength and Conditioning for Pole and Pole Anatomy which are both available now in hard copy or downloadable ebook.
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