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Bulky body from doing the pole??
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I just wanted to chip in and give my two cents. I am currently studying to be a personal trainer and have coincidentally just completed a unit on body composition and exercise plans. As people have been saying, we are all a combination of ectomorph, endomorph or mesomorph and it sounds to me (although I don’t know you personally so can’t give you specific advice)like you are a mesomorph with some endomorphic traits. This is not a bad thing. This means that you are able to build muscle easily and become stronger in less time! If you were totally an endomorph, it is unlikely that you would be able to see much muscle tone because there would probably be a lot more fat on your arms. Additionally, endomorphs tend to store their fat around their abdomens which you haven’t said is happening.
Another thing to consider is your makeup of muscle fibres. There are two (broad) types of muscle fibres- fast twitch and slow twitch. (or Type I and Type II). We are born with a set concentration of muscle fibres which explains why some people are more long and lean like Veena and others are more muscular. Type II fibres are great for strength and power, but not so good for endurance whereas type I muscle fibres are great for endurance but not so great for power. We all have a combination of fibres.
I also think there is definitely some truth to people using different muscles to perform different moves. This is the case with any exercise and why peoples’ dominant side is usually larger than their other side. If you are really worried about having larger arms (which I recommend not to worry if you can because we are all beautiful and look at the amazing tricks those arms can do!)try engaging your core muscles more because you would be surprised just how much of a large role they play in all movements. It will definitely take a significant amount of weight off your arms.
But to conclude, I just wanted to say that you look beautiful! and that what’s a little bit of fat when we are healthy and can hang upside down off a 45mm pole!
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Muscle is not built on top of fat. That’s just not the arrangement of things. From deep to superficial the arrangement is bone, muscle, superficial fascia – where the fat is, and then the skin.
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I never knew it before pole, but apparently I gain muscle pretty easily! At first I was alarmed, but I’m starting to warm up to my lumpy, muscley self. I love being strong, and having defined abs at 40 after living a mainly sedentary and overweight life is kinda cool. (My pic is from a year ago, I’ve gotten more muscley since, but I kinda hope I’ve maxed out now…)
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I know this is an old thread but my arms and shoulders definitely became more muscular as a direct result of pole! Personally if I had a bit wider hips, I wouldn’t care at all but with my long lean hipped body, I too hope that they’ve maxed out their musculature! Not giving up pole for sure, but I’m
Not trying to bust out of my medium shirts either Lol! My waist is ripped, it’s just my arms keeping me from wearing All small shirts! -
I was just listening to a radio interview with ballerina Misty Copeland. A man called in to ask about how to reassure his wife, who diets to combat her natural tendency to build muscle with exercise. And I remembered reading this post the other day, the most recent of many in this forum, and I just felt mad. And then suddenly I felt like I’d had an epiphany.
What if all of us who think women who build muscle easily are an aberration are just wrong? What if this is as much cultural confirmation bias as it is actual science. Maybe us muscly ladies are the minority, maybe. But I bet if they actually tested this, they would find that we are way more common than our thin-seeking society realizes. We all feel like we are part of maybe 3% of unlucky women who bulk up, but what if it is really 35% or 40%? Imagine if all the women who were so busy dieting and avoiding lifting heavy weights actually just did what they wanted and let their bodies do what came naturally? I wonder what percentage it would be then. Maybe we’d find that its not all that much less than the number of men who build muscle easily (because despite stereotypes about them, a lot of men have to work really hard to put on muscle). Surely then we’d all have to acknowledge that women like us are not aberrations. We are just a large part of the normal spectrum of beauty that also includes those women who eat whatever they want and still look like supermodels.
Maybe this whole not wanting to believe that its entirely normal for women to be strong is just a cultural prejudice of very recent history, when the luxuries of a tiny noble class became the luxuries of a broad middle class and everyone suddenly needed to do a lot less physical labor. Only a couple of hundred years ago (and still today in many developing countries), the norm is for women to do huge amounts of physical labor, carrying babies and endless buckets of water, toiling bent over in the fields or pounding up grain by hand. Sure women have *on average* smaller frames and less muscle mass than men, but surely being strong was still evolutionarily selected for in women, just as in men, and we got stronger and stronger over time. Men would have wanted strong wives to survive childbirth and help them eke out of a living. What good would a waif wife have done you for most of human history?
It seems like a tragedy that we have all accepted this notion that it’s more normal for women to be thin and dainty. I call bullshit on the whole thing. Like men, we were supposed to be strong!
We can’t change change societal norms overnight, but we can at least try to be proud of our own strength, however it manifests in our bodies, and pass that message on to our daughters. And as polers we are the right people to do that, because we know exactly what amazing things our bodies can do.
Alright, rant over. Thanks for listening.
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Honestly I get so sick of hearing how women are afraid gaining muscle, and other women and men talking about how they don’t like women with too much muscle. You’re never really gonna be perfect or good enough by society’s standards. You can only examine what you are and are not happy with yourself. If you gain too much muscle and don’t like it then your only option is lose muscle mass. I guess you can do that by inactivity? I dunno. For me, I refuse quit moving in fear of gaining muscle. I refuse to cage myself like tender veal. This whole thread is sad. Sorry to sound so negative. I sat in my break room at work one day while my coworkers criticized the body of a another coworker who is a bodybuilder. They were bitching about how she was too muscular. The women bitching – one is obese and the other one is underweight and has the muscle mass of a 4 year old who couldn’t tear their way out of a paper bag. Yet no one is rude enough to talk shit about their bodies. Nope. I told them I liked her muscles and would love to look like that. I’m sure my bodybuilder coworker doesn’t flash pictures of them on her phone and bitch about how she would not want to look like them. But I digress.
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“the muscle mass of a 4 year old who couldn’t tear their way out of a paper bag.” LOL
Yeah, I’ve heard everything from I’m too skinny to be careful, you’re starting to look like a man. F U buddy. We all both men and woman come in lot’s of shapes and sizes. I use to wish I had a short muscular body, I just liked how it looked, but now I display my string bean(ness) proudly.
We work hard as pole dancers and no matter what shape our body takes we are awesome.
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I have a muscular body and I’m proud of it. It’s not perfect, but for me, it’s a proof of my fitness and exercise throughout my life. It is easier to have a non muscular, soft body, than a toned, muscular one. I was muscular before I started pole dancing. Maybe my arms and abs have a tad more definition, but I don’t think pole dancing has made a great difference. But it has made a great difference in my mind and body awarenesss. Maybe I’m being positive about my body thanks to pole dancing.
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Pole and yoga have made me proud to be a fit lady. People ask me if I run, if I’m a dancer, if I’m a ballerina, or if I do crossfit. This wonderful world covers that spectrum and then some! What a great deception! No one guesses the answer and it’s a hoot!!!!
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