floorwork KILLS my knees

monica kay started this discussion · 1/25/2011

so I bruise easily... always have. I have been using arnica for pole bruises and it works great, visually. Physically tho, i can still feel the soreness and pain. I've read that the knees toughen up over time, but I've been practicing pole and floorwork for over a year now and I've noticed little improvement. Am I just being too rough? Do I need to be more careful? Maybe my knees will actually toughen up, if I am patient? Should I just avoid floorwork all together? OH Gawd- are my knees too OLD for floorwork!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! aghhhhh! I'm not sure if I'm being a ninny about this or not, but I feel like I am suffering more than other polers. The day after I do floorwork, just kneeling on a yoga mat hurts enough to cause me to wince in agony. thoughts anyone?

12 replies

inkyfingers · 1/25/2011
I wear kneepads a lot. If I were doing a lot of floorwork without my kneepads, I think I would have a lot of pain, too.
dansm8 · 1/25/2011
I wear the knee pads as well. You only get one pair of knees, take care of them.
monica kay · 1/25/2011
i dance in a club tho- you cant really do a gemini in knee pads! lol... or maybe you can?
inkyfingers · 1/26/2011
ummm - no. I hadn't thought of the club environment. I absolutely can't do a gemini with kneepads! :) I hope you can come up with a way to protect your knees, cuz daily agony like that sounds awful.
amy · 1/26/2011
i find that if i can keep my shin on the ground as much as possible, and push DOWN into the ground with my shin and the top of my foot, it distributes the weight evenly along my entire lower leg instead of resting and grinding it all into my knee. does that make sense? i spend a lot of time doing floorwork, generally, and find that this really helps.
HollySatine · 1/26/2011
I bruise easily too and have also been thinking about other stuff I can do on the floor. What kind of floorwork moves do you do? Maybe you could focus on moves that aren't as hard on your knees. You could try more moves where you're on your back, standing/squating/sitting by your pole (underarm turns, body rolls, backbends, etc) and instead of crawling everywhere maybe you could roll sexily on the ground or something, lol. That being said however, I know it is pretty difficult to avoid using your knees, especially if you plan on being on the floor for a while. Veena has several basic floor moves in her beginner lessons section which you probably already know by now, and I also really like watching other dancers' videos especially for floor work inspiration.
Zewgor · 1/27/2011
In our classes we do floorwork with blankets sometimes, and you make sure your knees are near the edges of the blanket so you have lots of room to move around and not create too much tension, if you can visualize that. The blanket becomes sort of like a moving and flexible mat and take some of the edge off the knees. The only drawback is if you're planning on doing shoulder stands or a moves where you need to keep a solid position, since the blanket can make you a little more slippery. But it's awesome for crawling and kneeling stuff!
GatorGirl4Life · 1/27/2011
Wearing thick sweatpants with knee high socks helps decrease the pain associated with floor work when practicing over and over....When you are kneeling on the floor, try to place the SIDE of your knee/leg on the floor and not your knee DIRECTLY. A lot of students think they have to place their knee caps on the floor as they crawl, pose, perform hip circles/body rolls, etc. Placing the side of your leg and knee on the floor will reduce the amount of stress on the knee joint, and cause less pain and bruising. If you are going to practice floor work for more than a few minutes, I would highly recommend wearing thick sweatpants with socks! When you perform a dance and only do floor work for a few minutes, nix the sweatpants obviously....I hope this helps, because it has helped me and my students out tremendously!!
Angel1201 · 1/27/2011
Yeah, definitely crawl on the insides/outsides of the knee and not directly on the patella. I was going to upload a pic from my teacher cert manual, but I can't figure out how to upload pics from my computer. How do you upload pics now that the site has changed?
monica kay · 1/27/2011
in one of my bespun vids, leigh ann mentions crawling on the insides of the knees and I didn't understand- i'll have to pay attention to my knees when i crawl or do hip rolls because i suspect I am centered directly over the center of my knees... thanks for all the advice everyone. my knees are grateful =) not sure about uploading pics to posts...
Layla Duvay · 1/28/2011
Amy's advice is excellent--I tend to put my weight into the tops of my feet and push down into my fingertips when I'm crawling--really takes the pressure off the knees. Back in the day, we always did our floorwork on a rug or thick blanket--mine was a faux fur throw. You'd bring it out on the stage with you and put it to one side, do your dance and then pull it out for floorwork. It's pretty sexy, and if you get a colour that highlights your skin tone, shows your body off to advantage! One of Shawn Lee's tips that really works is to wear thigh high boots and wrap a sock or legwarmer around the knee.
Might Grip · 1/29/2011
Hi Ladies, As you know, we specialize in products to help prevent bruising and pain while training in the contact sport of Pole Dance. We have been working on a knee pad but have had problems with the design. We have tried straps to hold the pad in place on the knee, wrap arounds that use velcro to keep the pad in place, pull on type knee protectors but all have some type of problem from scrunching up in the back of the knee to the straps rubbing on the skin of the legs. If anyone has an idea about a design for such a product I would love to see it. You can fax a drawing to 866-517-7810 or send the idea in an email: [email protected] If we use your design we will pay you for it or offer a royalty based upon on sales. We do have a foot pad that will be available in the next week or so to protect the ball of the foot during floor work. Pictures are on the web site although they are not available for sale at the moment. Thank you, Joel