To Stretch or Not to Stretch...

Robyn West started this discussion · 1/20/2012

Hi Pole Lovers! This is my first forum topic, yay! Alright, so I need some advice from you guys. How many people stretch before pole class and how many people stretch after? Every class I have ever taken, we were led through a series of stretches always before we pole and sometimes after and I've always found this a little bit odd. I've done a little bit of casual research in my years dancing which led me to believe that stretching a muscle before you performed strength exercises (ie: poling) would actually decrease the amount of power the muscle was able to exert. Now, I'm thinking about all those shoulder, arm and chest stretches that we do before we start poling and wondering if this is actually hindering my performance? I'm not advocating for not warming up the muscle,, getting the blood flowing with a low intense cardio and arm circles, but could our stretches before class actually be hurting our performance? Can anybody shed some light on this? As a dancer, we would always stretch during the warmup but, of course, we were never expected to hold our body weight over our heads. Can I blame the fact that I can't stick a handspring on that shoulder stretch (lol)? What do you guys think?

14 replies

PaulettePoles · 1/20/2012
Studying this myself at the moment too! Short answer- dynamic stretches before you start poling are necessary to warm up the body and bring blood to the tendons and areas you will be working and help prevent injury. After your workout when you are warm you want to do your static stretches. You are right- holding a static stretch before a work out will actually decrease your strength and performance. So.. short of the story dynamic stretch first static stretch last
AmazonLady · 1/20/2012
I always always ALWAYS stretch before poling. I didn't see the importance of it until I pulled my groin muscle several months ago during an invert v due to a lack of proper stretching. I had to take months off of pole to heal! Never again.
Dancing Paws · 1/20/2012
I stretch before and after (not RIGEROUS stretching before, just a gentle stretch.) If it is true that it decreases performance, by how much really?? If you are strength training, and consistently improving your strength, I don't think that little bit of stretching before would counteract your performace that much, especially if you are getting stronger over time. I wouldn't want to pull a muscle. Maybe it would be a bigger difference in the beginning of your pole journey when you are weaker, but as you are stronger I don't see it being as big of a problem. Does that make sense? But it really depends on the degree of decreased strength.
Dancing Paws · 1/20/2012
Interesting...so I typed in a google search and found some scientific journals that say stretching before a workout doesn't protect you from a muscle injury. Sounds like a warm up is more important. Hm, maybe I'll just stick with a warm up and stretch at the end. Interesting...
MariYabe · 1/20/2012
Warm up and light stretching in the beginning and more agressivea stretching at the end of class works best for me. My muscles, ligaments and joints seems more open and receiptive to being pushed then.
Sassafrassle · 1/20/2012
I agree with Pauletter about the dynamic stretches before the workout and static ones at the end - this is something that comes up quite often in discussions of running too (my other hobby). There's plenty of info out there on types of dynamic stretches that are good to do but ones I favour for pole are things like shoulder rolls, leg swings in various directions, hip and body rolls, gentle squats...I personally get the heebie jeebies when people do static stretches before their body is warm as I think that's an invitation for snapping stuff! Part of that for me could be that I'm finding that as I get older, I need more warming in my body to deal with the demands of my physical activities.
dancing in the gray · 1/20/2012
In my studio we do mostly what I would consider dynamic stretches first (hip socket circles, leg flirts/splays in a sequence, prancing) followed by a static straddle stretch, then heavy head drags which is in a straddle stretch but adds dynamic movement to it, followed by more warmup exercises (a variety of crunches, leg lifts, cat cows, etc) and then maybe a moving meditation. What we do seems to work inactively warming me up and stretching me to be able to work.
dancing in the gray · 1/20/2012
Stupid autocorrect. Not inactively.
aliceBheartless · 1/20/2012
I have been having a lot of questions about stretching, especially concerning safety and also efficiency. I want to make sure that all the time that I am putting into it is effective and moving me towards my goal, without also moving me towards destabilized joints 15 years into the future. I want to pole FOREVER! Flexibility training is big right now, but if one doesn't have experience with it and is training on their own, it's immensely important to research. Flexibility training isn't necessarily good for a person just because it's stretching. It's good if it's done right and potentially detrimental if it's done incorrectly. I have found Thomas Kurz's Stretching Scientifically book to be a good resource. I think that you can even get a pdf of the 4th edition online. It's comprehensive and he definitely explains in detail the best way to organize workouts to maximize flexibility and workout gains. My favorite part of this book is that he cites his sources, so if you want to know more about a concept he introduces, you can easily see where he gets his information and look it up from there. Plus, orange is a great color ;) Another free online resource that I liked enough to get printed and bound to have on hand is this... http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/docs/rec/stretching/ It's basically a compilation of flexibility information that can be quite useful. I haven't gotten all the way through it, but am liking what I have seen so far.
Robyn West · 1/20/2012
A clarification... I would never pole without first warming up. I get my heart rate up and make sure to get my rotator cuffs, arms and wrists moving. I'll even do some static leg stretches if I'm warm enough. I am referring specifically to static arm stretches (holding the stretch). Research would suggest that this would decrease strength regardless of how strong you are. Every time you invert you are lifting your body weight so if you do 10 inverts it's like lifting 130lbs x 10 = 1300lbs. If you stretch before you might not be able to lift all that (as an example). And remember in the 80's when you used to bounce in a stretch? I can't think of anyone (short of people training under experienced gymnastic or contorting coaches) that would be caught dead bouncing in a stretch. All I'm saying is that there is a possibility that this could help with our training. I think this warrants some further pole research...
trickivix · 1/20/2012
Dynamic stretches is a good way to start, but static stretches is fine as as long as you don't hold for long. The reason why they say that static stretches would decrease the amount of power is because static stretches that are held for a long time (say 30 secs) will actually tear muscle fibres. Which is also what happens when you do strength exercises. So you're wearing out your muscles before you even start poling... My preference would be to do an aerobic type warm up combined with dynamic stretches, at the end of the warm up, I do quick static stretches (holding for a few seconds each) to lengthen the muscles a little.
RoseMay · 1/20/2012
To warm up for pole dance I do flexibility specific mobility exercises for the legs, a strength specific warmup for the upper body and some physical therapy exercises I need to do. I differentiate because I need strength for the upper body and my legs mostly need to be flexible. The exercises I do for the legs are not stretching, but they move the joints and muscles through their range of motion. The exercises for the upper body include mobility exercises and easy strength exercises, like push-ups and planks. Why would anyone want to stretch before being warmed up? This would feel so weird ...
PaulettePoles · 1/21/2012
static strecthing before a workout can decrease strength up to 30%! Thats HUGE!!! Read http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/sports/playmagazine/112pewarm.html I dont think as polers we can afford to loose 30% of our upper body strength before a workout. I just learned this info myself and have totally revamped my workouts to achieve maximun performance potential.
Mary Ellyn · 1/21/2012
I think the key point in that article is that they are referring to static streches of 30 seconds or more. The major fitness organizations like AFAA and ACE now advise, based on the American College Of Sports Medicine's recommendations, that static stretches no longer be incorporated in a warm up. However they have not completely denounced static stretches of less than 20 seconds - they just prefer dynamic stretching. Another interesting article from ACSM which indicates that short duration static stretches may not actuall decrease strength after all: http://www.acsm.org/about-acsm/media-room/acsm-in-the-news/2011/08/01/-practical-stretching-does-not-weaken-muscles