Mel Nutter as Baudelaire

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Cross Training for Aerial – Part 5: Foam Rolling

May 3, 2016 /

I first started foam rolling after subscribing to StudioVeena who recommended it for use before stretching.

In her tutorials she would outline how to roll the large muscles in the legs before flexibility training, as a way to increase blood flow to the muscles and loosen up knots and tight areas before working on regular stretching sequences.

Physios and massage therapists sell a variety of foam rollers and spiky balls of all shapes, sizes, and firmness depending on how they will be used. As well as being a great asset to your flexibility training, foam rolling can work wonders on DOMS, and be generally soothing for an active body. Chunky rollers are great for larger muscles. Spiky balls are perfect for getting into smaller muscle groups in the back and shoulders, or for massaging the forearms after training.

When choosing your foam roller, keep in mind your tolerance during a regular massage. The softer the roller the softer the pressure, and the firmer or spikier the roller, the more it will dig in to those tight spots. A deep tissue experience can be effective but you don’t want to be in so much pain that you can’t commit to rolling up and down your leg!

My preference has been a hard, smooth roller that I picked up at the local Clark Rubber supplier! It’s the perfect density to use everyday, before stretching or after training, large enough to roll my hamstrings, quads, and glutes, but also small enough to throw in the car if I need to bring it along to a comp or showcase.

Foam rolling is a “self-myofascial release technique” that works by massaging the fascia and muscle fibers. Research suggests,

“Self-myofascial release causes an increase in short-term flexibility that lasts for >10 minutes but does not affect athletic performance acutely. Self-myofascial release may also be able to increase flexibility long-term, in programs of >2 weeks.”

Sounds pretty good right?

Here are some photos of how I use my roller at home. You probably need a space similar to what you use for yoga to make sure you can lay down and roll in various directions. It’s a great practice to turn into a habit though, and once you know what you are doing, it’s easy to incorporate into your day, even while watching television!

I like to start on my legs and glutes, remembering to roll up and down the entire muscle and at various angles.

Foam Rolling glutes

 

While sitting on the foam roller, I angle my body to either side, rolling in the direction of the muscle fibers. By placing my foot on the floor or lifting it up, I can change how much of my body weight I am putting in to the motion. Listen to your own body as you roll, slow down on the “sweet spots” – those trigger points that seem to be more painful than others – or even pause for up to 30-60 seconds and you will find the tension begins to release.

Foam Roller HamstringsFoam Roller Calves

My roller is long enough for me to do my hamstrings, calves and quads side by side. Though once again, I can change the amount of pressure I’m applying by rolling them one at a time or leaning into  it at a different angle.

Foam Roller Quads

Fellow polers also roll their ITB. I find this incredibly painful but sometimes have the nerve to work up to it, rolling over from during my quads to catch it as I roll down my outer thigh.

Foam Roller Adductors

Rolling your adductors, or inner thigh, can be a bit tricky, however those with good hip flexibility may find this easier. Try and cover as much of the muscle as possible and don’t forget to slow down or pause over any trigger points.

Foam Rolling Stretch Foam Rolling Forearms

Recently I have been rolling my forearms and upper back and then using the roller to perform and overstretch for my shoulders. After rolling up and down my forearms, with the large foam roller and a tennis ball, I sink back into a child’s pose with my arms resting on the roller. Breathing into the stretch, I try to sink my chest down to the floor, feeling the stretch along my upper arms, down my lats under my shoulder, and across my shoulder blades. Coming out of the stretch I try to curl my spine in the opposite direction, remembering to breath as I come out slowly.

Don’t forget to drink lots of water post foam rolling session. Any type of massage increases blood flow around the area and staying hydrated will help the lymphatic system and circulatory system do it’s job, reducing the chance that you’ll feel groggy and need a nap after your session.

If you have a foam roller at home I’d love to see your favourite techniques and stretches! Post them here or tag me in your photos online!

A Story about Stretching

March 26, 2016 /

2015-12-06 11.29.25For anyone involved in the pole dance community, you would have had a thousand involved conversations about flexibility and stretching. Studios everywhere offer conditioning classes to compliment your dance practice, and most people’s pole goal list is dotted with dreams for flat splits and bendy backs. After a few months of dancing you may have also amassed a stash of foam rollers, thera bands, and spiky balls to support you on your journey to flexiness!

 

Coming from a yoga background, I already felt I understood the benefits of increased mobility. But it wasn’t until I started pole that I really focused on stretching and learning about muscle groups and how I could work towards my flexibility goals.

StudioVeena was my first inroad into dedicated stretching in 2013. She still offers tutorials for front and middle splits and back flex and encourages foam rolling as part of a warm up to increase blood flow and support muscles relaxation. The tutorials are between 20-30min, the perfect length to fit into my schedule. After riding home from work, I was already well warmed up and could foam roll and then stretch before dinner. Doing this nearly everyday, I was making amazing gains on my front splits.

I also purchased Delavier’s Stretching Anatomy book, which offered 130 stretching exercises covering the entire body. The diagrams and clear details about how each stretch targeted different muscles really helped me articulate to myself how each stretch was benefiting my body. I could also begin to see how different stretches related to different pole moves, discerning how a strong and stable Butterfly pole pose would require strength and mobility in my back muscles, chest, shoulder, hips and glutes.

It was around 2014 that I started to learn about the difference between dynamic stretching and static stretching. My yoga classes and the StudioVeena series at the time were using static stretches. Cleo had just released her Rockin’ Legs N Abs DVD and I was excited to spice things up.

As well as a being a high intensity warm up and cardio challenge, Cleo worked through exercises for dynamic flex with lots of high front kicks, side kicks and back kicks. The women on the DVD are incredibly flexible and strong and inspirational in their range of motion. It was a great full body workout, but I have found that I don’t use it as much as I had hoped.

Sometimes dynamic stretching gets a back rap, the concern that if you bounce through a stretch or kick your up into a split without the proper strength to hold it there, you risk injury.

Personally, I am very careful with dynamic stretching. It’s important to remember that pole, like yoga, is a body work practice, and you need to listen to your body. After tearing both hamstrings, my physio advised that to reduce the chance of re-injury, I should take it slow with my tendons. If you have grown up with dance and ballet, your muscles and tendons may respond differently. I’m a massive advocate for “it’s never too late to start” but please remember that if your body is older and you don’t have a background in physical activity, diving in to the Rockin’ Legs N Abs video may be too dynamic for your body to handle.

It’s been a long road to recovery after my hamstring injuries. Physically it has taken nearly two years for my hamstrings to feel like stretching again. Emotionally it has also taken nearly two years to work through the fear that I might tear them again too. Attending a flexibility class or even just stretching at home used to bring up a lot of anxiety about damaging my body and I would get flash backs from the moment of injury. Thankfully, time away from stretching my splits allowed me to focus on other goals – back flex, strength tricks and dance flow have been the main focus on my dance practice for the last 2 years.

I still dream about the splits, and my feet touching my head in a back bend! Recently, a friend told me about the Easy Flexibility series and after doing one video with her I bought a split stretching series. I was pleased to find the videos offering a balance between static and dynamic stretches and stemming from an awareness of anatomy that made sense to me. It is also refreshing to be able to complete a video and not be sore the next day. I have been able to get back into a routine of stretching everyday which is great to make progress towards my flexibility goals but also supports range of motion and general well being.

Last month, Indi Pole Wear also released a stretching guide for pole dancers
outlining a sequence of 22 stretches for back and hip mobility. The stretches are familiar (cobra pose, pigeon etc) but also show how you can use a chair or pole to correct form or increase the stretch. The authors also comment on how important your breathing is to promote a relaxed stretch. I’d recommend the sequence to anyone starting out on their stretching journey but like all tutorials that can be used without the spot of a trained instructor, be aware off what your body is telling you in each exercise and take it slow.

Stretching can be a wonderful practice to do on your own, even meditative and insightful as you engage with the process and movements of your own body. But when pushing yourself to get flexier, if you don’t have a teacher to correct your form or remind you to breath, you do run the risk of injury.

There will be a summary of this story in the Cross Training Series, including tutorials of my favourite stretches, as I genuinely believe stretching is beneficial for your pole practice. But I hope that this story inspires you start or return to stretching, either in a class at your studio or at home with one of the methods I have used. If you have a great stretching practice I’d love to hear about it too! Please comment below or get in touch with me through Instagram or Facebook.

Safe stretching!

Cross Training For Aerial – Part 4: Stall Bars

March 18, 2016 /

For both strength and flexibility training, sometimes your best choice is to try a new apparatus!

You might have stall bars in your studio, local gym, or maybe in an outdoor playground, and they can be a great asset to your pole training – just ask Oona.

I have been using the stall bars during my warm up and for added conditioning, supporting my strength and flexibility training as well as alignment. My work on the bars has also supported building strength and coordination on my goofy side, the horizontal format allowing me to focus on technique before taking those skills to the pole.

Here are just three ways I’ve been building my stall bar workout:

 

**Flexibility**
Stall-Bars-Back-Flex

I have many posts about how yoga has helped with my back bends, but the stall bars open up new opportunities for opening my chest and shoulders.
Drop backs can be scary and without a spotter or the right technique you risk crunching through your lower back or hurting your wrists as you land. The stall bars can support you as you walk your way down to the floor, or back up. It’s often gentler on the wrists to hold on to the rails and you can move slowly, allowing you to focus on alignment and technique.

 

**Speaking of Technique**
Stall-Bars-Technique

The theory behind pole moves talks a lot about push vs pull, stacking joints, muscle engagement, and breath. When you’re upside-down, however, it’s hard to remember which leg is your left and right let alone think about all those things!
Lots of work on the stall bars can happen with your feet on floor, or at least just off it, inviting you to work on engaging muscle groups and consider alignment before you go upside-down. This kind of training will build muscle memory and strength to reduce the risk of injury or poor technique in more advanced moves.

 

**Strength**
Stall-Bars-Leg-Lifts

Let’s face it, crunches are boring! If you’re a pole dancer, you probably find lots of other exercise boring, which is one of the reasons you started dancing in the first place! But, what if there was a way to make strength training fun again?
Hanging leg lifts are a great ab workout and will incorporate many more muscle groups than sit ups on the floor. Try them with bent knees, straight legs, to the side, air walking. Your straight leg straddles will thank you!

 

For more advanced stall bar tricks, please check out the experts – Oona and Nadia make their workout look just like kids on a jungle gym! What could be more fun than that?

What to do when you don’t have a pole

December 30, 2015 /

This Christmas break my partner and I are cat sitting at a friend’s place down the road. It’s a lovely house with air conditioning which made the move an easy decision for this time of year. But I don’t have my pole 🙁

What’s a dancer to do?!

DANCE!


I’ve been watching YouTube clips of Merce Cunningham and revisiting some of the ballet technique I learned in my class. The back room of the house has amazing wooden floors so I indulged, rolled back the rug, put on my thigh high socks and flirty dress and spun around to Chino Merino’s new album. Bliss!

 

The nature of floorwork is changing in poledance, gaining influences from contemporary dance and hiphop. Working on carpet at home, it’s hard to come up with new things. The floor boards gave me real freedom to slip and slide and just flow, throwing a little bit of Marlo Fisken in their too!

It has been wonderful to have time to revisit my yoga practice too. I took my mat out onto the grass and down dogged with the ants and creepy crawlies.

The softer grass offered a safer lander for me to work on some freestanding headstands. At home I practice against the pole or the wall, but here wall space is limited. Learning to roll out safely and find balance away from the wall is challenging, but with so much time off on holidays, I was able to dedicate a whole afternoon to refining my practice.

The outcome? I haven’t missed my pole as much as I thought I would. We still have a week or so left here so I still might get withdrawals, but it’s been an enjoyable and productive break. If I had just been at home I probably would have focused on tricks and new transitions, but it’s been great to work on dance, floorwork, and balance. Hopefully I can bring some of this flow and headstanding, back to the pole when I return home.

How do you find ways to still train when away from pole?

Cross Training for Aerial – Part 3: Ballet

November 28, 2015 /

ballet armsLet me preface this post by stating that last Monday was my very first ballet class. Unlike my other posts in the Cross Training Series, this one comes from belief and research rather than actual practice.

After an hour and a half of stretching, barre work, floor spins and runs, I am by no means a ballet expert.

 

What I am, however, is an enthusiastic adult student who got to live out her childhood dreams last night – albeit in active wear and socks rather than a tutu and ballet slippers!

Since taking up pole, I have allowed my dance obsession to take it’s own course. When I’m too tired, or it’s too hot to train, I read about dance, watch dance tutorials, and binge on YouTube clips. My research into ballet, just heightened my desire to join a class, and I really do believe it is going to help my pole dancing.

Coming from no dance background, my childhood was busy with hockey and athletics more than cartwheels and ballet school. My hips don’t like to turn out, I have trouble with neutral spine, and when I raise my arms in fifth position my lats and biceps bulge considerably, interrupting the dainty lines of the rest of the ballerinas #poledancerproblems!

If you were a ballerina as a child, you probably already know how your training is of benefit to your current dancing as an adult. You have muscle memory that supports your posture and ability to point your toes. You may even have retained a certain range of flexibility that helps your lines and success with splitty, flexi pole tricks. Your body may also remember that limp hands spoil the grace of many poses, thus ensuring your lines end with the most authentic and poised gestures –  “like holding a flower or champange flute” as I’ve been told!

These are just some of the elements of ballet that I hope I can bring to my own dance practice. I received feedback from a judge once who offered criticism of not using arms and shoulders enough. She explained, that common with many pole dancers, our shoulders are strong and tight, and may help stabilize movement but also restrict it to the point where we don’t use our arms at all except for holding on. I am hoping that ballet classes can help bring movement into my arms and help me coordinate that movement with the rest of my body.

I was given pointers for using my arms from the ballet teacher:

  • I should carry my arms like holding a beach ball
  • I should lower my arms as if I have an orange in my armpit

These are common cues offered to beginners utilising visualisation to think about engagement and alignment. The ballet teacher also came around and made adjustments to the class to help with maintaining posture.

On the barre, I was able to stand behind a girl who clearly was beyond a beginner but seemed to be in the class to refresh her basics. I studied her movements like a hawk, watching her back muscles fire and lengthen as she raised her arms and just floated them around above her head. I could actually see her flatten her shoulder blades against her back bringing new appreciation for the common alignment cue – “shoulders back and down”.

My other light bulb moment from the barre work was observing how my stabilising arm (the one holding on to the barre) was causing my body to do crazy things! It was like my brain was so focused on coordinating the other arm and my legs that it completely ignored cues from the other side of my body. It was only when I was completely out of balance and nearly falling over (yes! while still holding on!) that I realised. The arm holding on to the barre was gripping tightly, white knuckled even, and cramping under my shoulder. My torso became twisted as the tightness on this side attempted to compensate for the lightness I was so seeking with my other arm.

Clearly I was doing it wrong!

These observations provide near endless learning for my body work here on. I plan on taking a full ten week course in beginner ballet in the New Year, hopefully joining a class of true beginners who are open to the ballet teacher to working her magic.

I’d also like to share, perhaps a small consolation. The photo attached is a screenshot from a pole freestyle taken just yesterday nearly a week after my ballet class (when all the DOMs had finally subsided!). I was so pleased to see a little arm flourish appearing to come from nowhere.

Watch this space for more from the barre!

Cross Training for Aerial – Part 2: Handstands

September 10, 2015 /

I have included handstands as part of my cross training series, as I genuinely believe it is an exercise that compliments your pole dancing and conditions many parts of your body to make you a stronger and safer dancer.

I never did handstands as a kid, maybe a few cartwheels here and there, but being upside-down was not something that came naturally.

Through yoga I strengthened by headstand practice, but handstands were only something that we seemed to focus on during workshops, where there is more time to talk about technique, offer spotting, and allow people to work through the fears associated with inversions.

When learning handstands I was constantly demoralized. My teacher at the time wanted me to “bunny hop” up which I found very static and underwhelming.

If you are unfamiliar with this, check out this video. He calls it the “down dog hop” but it’s a clear explanation and visual of what it’s meant to look like.

The bunny hop technique asks you to put your hands on the ground in front of you, shoulder width apart, fingers spread and facing forwards. You then walk your feet up to your hands like a shortened downward dog, bend your knees and spring your legs up to position the hips over the shoulders. This technique takes core strength to hold your legs in a tuck once off the ground, strength in the arms to keep them straight the entire time, and a lot of power through the legs to move your hips into position. This technique might work for some people, but it did not work for my body proportions and strength at the time.

Then one day in 2011, I joined an Acro class at the pole studio. The teacher showed me a more gymnastic inspired way to get into a handstand – the kick up. I see kids in playgrounds handstanding like this all the time! By kicking off one leg, my other leg was free to stretch in the direction of kick, naturally using my body weight to help shift my hips over my shoulders. In one class I was already kicking up further away from the wall and using my legs in a front split position to toy with the balance point.

After 4 years, I still cannot bunny hop! But, I can practice my handstands with the kick up method, and it’s allowed me to begin to feel more comfortable in the position so that I train it more often and find other ways to get in and out of the pose.

After warming up for pole dancing at home, I usually try out three to five handstands against the wall. Kicking up and then seeing if I can take my toes off the wall to find balance. If I’m feeling brave I also try against the pole – a smaller target to kick up against that is easier to hit if you get your butt to the pole before your toes.

The other night I came up with a new way to train my handstands – in the hallway!

There wasn’t any space to kick up, so, facing one wall, I placed my hands on the ground in the centre of the hallway and walked my feet up the wall behind me. At the top, I opened my legs to have one foot on the wall behind me and the other in front.

handstand open legs

 

My arms and shoulders were feeling the burn as I stabilised through this whole sequence, pushing the floor away and clawing with my fingers.

 

 

 

handstand legs together

My goal was change feet, scissoring my legs from wall to wall. I managed about three before I was exhausted and walked my feet back down the same way I got up.
Looking at the video (it’s always a good idea to tape yourself to see your form) I was pleasantly surprised how solid my body was throughout the leg change. I was holding a vertical alignment, with a little bit of an arch in my back which could improve, but the scissor action did not put me off balance.

 

Considering how this applies to pole dancing, think about an Ayesha or Static V and it’s leg variations. You need a solid torso to stay stable in the pose while your legs might go up into a Pencil/Straight Edge, out into a split, or behind you into a back bend.

If you have a solid handstand against the wall, have a go at this variation and see how it benefits your pole inversions too!

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