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I completely understand how frustrating that must be, both the limitations and the continued unexplained pain. I feel like at this age (43), I go from injury to injury too. But no way I am giving up something I love as much as poling. Best of luck to you! Keep us posted.

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Also, check out this thread if you haven’t seen it:

https://www.studioveena.com/forums/view/59166e04-6304-4aca-9c2f-2a46ac110006#bottom

Leesi’s experience was really encouraging

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Just realized this post is two months old. How is shoulder doing??

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Hey Greyeyes! I feel your pain, or at least I used to!

I got a SLAP tear by partially dislocating my shoulder in pole class a couple years ago. The joint was very loose and unstable and was clicking and popping with most movement. I couldn’t do any strenuous exercise involving the arms for months, and pole was off the table. MRIs confirmed the SLAP tear (though these tears don’t always show up on MRIs), and after seeing multiple ortho docs and finally getting a surgical consult, the analysis was that it would be an “active person’s surgery,” only necessary if I really insisted on continuing to pole (incomprehensible to non-polers, especially when we are already women of a certain age 😉 ). Cartilage itself apparently doesn’t heal, but many people who don’t use their arms as extremely as we do have age-related damage to the labrum without really noticing it.

I was very wary about shoulder surgery, but giving up pole was not something I was ready to do. So after nearly a year off, I decided to keep surgery as a last resort and try returning to pole without it.

The good news eighteen months later…I feel great! Restarting pole after such a long period of rest actually made the joint much more stable again, surely from strengthening the muscles around the torn cartilage. (Now I vaguely worry that someday when I do stop pole, that’s when this tear will become a problem again!)

There will still always be a risk of another dislocation, but I make sure to take care of my shoulders better and I don’t push it too much on shoulder flexibility on that side. The tear isn’t limiting me at all in terms of strength or power moves. So I think it can be possible to come back without surgery if you have a tear similar to mine. Taking a year off was really tough, but I’m so glad to be back and strong again.

I wish you’d gotten an answer from Michelle Shimmy! I’d be so curious to know how she came back from it and how she prevents further injuries.

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Hey Ukie! I might be interested in giving it a try. I’ve never done anything like that either. I’m currently taking two stretch classes a week, but we don’t cover the same body parts, so I’m not stretching anything more than once a week at most. When were you thinking of doing it? And what time zone are you in?

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That is so great Leesi! I hope I eventually get to that pain-free point too. I can completely relate on still feeling a bit cautious even though physically you feel strong. Best of luck with it in the future!

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Thanks Veena and Leesi. Leesi, that is such great news! If you can do it at 51, hopefully I can do it at 42. I was worried that maybe my body just couldn’t handle pole and I would never get back to doing everything I could before the injury. After a year of rest, PT, and a little strength training toward the end, poling again has made my shoulder feel stronger and more stable than it had since the injury (which was caused by pole). When does your injury give you pain? My pain is infrequent and random and usually comes when I’m not poling, but just doing something minor like raising my arm to the steering wheel. I’m sure it’s related to pole, but I can’t tell if the pole long term will reduce or increase it. If the pain stays at its current level and my shoulder doesn’t come out of place again, I can absolutely live with it.

Your recovery is so encouraging. I’ve recently started doing handsprings again and am considering retraining my Iron-X. The deadlift is my dream and you’ve given me hope that it’s possible with a SLAP tear. We do do handstand training in class, so maybe that has helped as well. Do you do any other complementary shoulder exercises to work the small stabilizers or other muscles that pole neglects? I try to do scapular warmups (based on Veena’s shoulder video) along with our regular shoulder warmups before class.

I’m not sure having an additional MRI would be worth it for you. I had two MRIs 9 months apart (I was basically only resting and doing PT in the interval) and while my other injuries healed, the SLAP tear didn’t change at all. Plus, like you said, they can’t really tell how bad these injuries are without opening you up. My understanding from the surgeons is that cartilage almost never heals, but strengthening the supporting muscles helps, and short of another subluxation/dislocation, it shouldn’t get worse. The only relevant metric seems to be how much pain it causes us and if it limits our activities. I’m so happy to know of someone who has been able to return to poling at a high level without surgery. You are an inspiration!

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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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I need to renew as well. Any promos going at the moment? Thanks so much.

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IIt just sounds like he isn’t the right trainer for you. There are so many different ways to exercise, there is no need to do something you hate. Look around for a trainer who has experience in the types of skills, fitness, and nutrition advice that match your goals. Once you’ve found some good leads, I would just tell this guy politely that you don’t think you two are a good match. Thank him for how he’s helped you, but say you need to try an approach that is more suited to you. Good luck!

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What a cool thread to read! I lived in West Africa until a year and a half ago and didn’t know of classes anywhere except South Africa. It’s amazing that at least three other countries in Sub-Saharan African now have studios. If I somehow get a chance to travel through any of those countries, I will definitely check them out!

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Hi Sue, I don’t have an answer for you, but I can relate! Like you, I could quickly do inverts using my strength, but then developed acute pain under the scapula whenever I’d lower from chopper or shoulder mounts. My abs have gotten much stronger now and I deadlift my inverts and shoulder mounts, but I still always have pain when lowering down, no matter how controlled it is. As long as I’m bent at the waist it’s fine, but once my legs start to straighten out with my torso during the lower, I get pain in my midback. To be honest, I now avoid these moves as much as possible out of fear of injury.

At the suggestion of one instructor, I’ve started practicing hanging shoulder pulses and shoulder body waves to build strength for shoulder lowers. I also need to start working on dragon flags to strengthen the back and ab muscles that hold the body in a lever, and maybe that will help. It would be great if someone with an understanding of the specific muscles involved has suggestions for how to train them. Good luck with it. I feel your pain!

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Thanks for your responses Veena and Cantetinza. This certainly gives me something to think about, since my pole studio really focuses on strength-based moves. The flex classes are broken down so we do either an hour of back/shoulders, an hour of front splits training, or an hour of squat splits training. I guess the moves to avoid afterward would depend on what we’d been stretching.

I’ll have to try this carefully and see whether it’s something I want to keep doing, or whether I have to suck it up and start coming 5 days a week to avoid doing the classes sequentially. Last night, I went to pole after a squat splits session and toward the end I minorly strained my hip doing a handspring combo, which I wouldn’t have thought would be a problem. The following hip in the handspring just felt too loose and opened farther than it should have. Luckily the pain only lasted a few minutes, but it was worrying.

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If you have been working on apprentice, you could try to go straight into extended butterfly from there. Basically, in a split grip, use your knee to lever up the outside leg and get your ankle around the pole. From there, when you are stronger, you can push up and out into extended butterfly. To build up to that, you can get into the position by just sliding your lower hand down the pole after hooking your ankle, so that you are just pushing away from the pole, but not up. Whether this is doable or not would depend on your apprentice, but it might be something to try since you’ll be starting with your ankle on the pole rather than having to get your stuck calf to release, Just an idea.

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I ended up googling what Phoenix Hunter was talking about and came across this exact article, written by Roz “The Diva” Mays at http://www.pdbloggers.com/2014/07/dont-call-big-girl-coaching-plus-size-pole-dancers/

It seems this poster is the very same Roz Mays! Here is a link to her video on coaching plus size athletes:
http://upa.tv/body-and-pole/roz-mays-free-active-seminar-coaching-plus-size-athletes/
(the video plays after the gym advert)

Thanks for sharing Diva!

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One of the things that struck me when I first started poling was that there were so many non-traditional dancer body types, both amongst the students and instructors. The first class I took to try out pole, the instructor was a larger woman who didn’t look particularly athletic. But she amazed me with the way she could effortlessly lift and hold her body in different positions. Maybe it’s just by chance, but in pretty much every school where I’ve taken classes in two countries, larger women were at least half of the class, so I never felt left out or daunted because of not having a typical dancer’s figure. (By the time I personally started pole, I had dropped from plus size to average by American standards, but I’m still rocking some seriously large thighs, a copious booty, and ack, so much cellulite!).
I have had two skinny teachers comment on how us ladies with larger thighs have much more solid seats, leg and knee holds, and if I’m anything to go by, that might just be true. Also, a pole buddy of mine who has skinny legs but a pronounced stomach is amazing at all the armpit/stomach holds, like Yogini, Teddy, and Rocketman. So maybe having a little more to work with can even have certain advantages, once we build up the strength to support it.

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Thanks Red! I’d love to check out those classes if there is any way I can find the time. I will definitely look into it.

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What glowing recommendations! Now I’m just sorry I’m still recovering from injury and wouldn’t be able to fully benefit from a private class. Can I ask how much the private classes cost?

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Thanks so much Joni. Have you been to the studio? Any info on how the classes are organized (ie. more dance based or tricks, what kinds of things do they do in each level, etc.)? I see mostly beginner on the schedule, but maybe that could be fun too if they do a lot of dance moves and transitions, as my normal studio focuses on tricks.

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Wow Maria. You sound just like me. I’ve been out two months today thanks to a shoulder injury, and I keep reinjuring my right hamstring as well. I’ve just started back at classes, but so many things are off limits for weeks still as I wait for my shoulder to heal further. It’s both discouraging and exciting to go to the occasional class right now. I have lost so much strength and I’m less flexible than I’ve been in years. But, my motivation has never waned. Struggling with things that used to be easy could be disheartening, but I just keep thinking every time I do, I’m one step further along in my recovery. CI won’t be able to throw myself back into it completely until the end of July, but I think every lit bit I can do now will make that eventual re-entry easier. My physio says our muscle memory will make learning things again much easier and faster than they were the first time.

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I agree with dustbunny and cherished, certain pole moves can be a great way to build up your core strength. I don’t do any ab work off the pole, but my core has gotten so much stronger just from regular pole classes. One of the instructors at my studio has us start every class with a series of knee tucks, v-leg raises, aerial fan kicks, etc. And “working the negatives,” ie. doing slow, controlled dismounts, really is a great way to build strength and get those straight leg deadlifts. At first it may seem hard to lower yourself slowly to the ground every time, but you will quickly get a sense of grace and progressive achievement that will motivate you to keep making every v-out a controlled descent, and then every exit from a shoulder mount, iguana mount, handstand, forearm stand, you get the drift. I have no patience for traditional ab work, but just working on all those controlled descents has given me core strength I wouldn’t have believed. The best part is it barely even felt like work because I was so busy concentrating on trying to make those pole exits look smooth.

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I’m still trying to think how best to explain the feeling at the top of the move. For me, I swing up and am balanced with strong arms, and then I tuck in my butt and tighten everything and it feels like my body (without moving the arms) is lifting toward the ceiling, as if standing up straight but in reverse. Hope that makes sense!

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Hey there. You didn’t mention how strong your straight edge is. Can you get into a solid straight edge via other entries, such as from an inverted crucifix, from a handspring, or even from an elbow grip ayesha? If not, I’d suggest working on that first, since then your body will know what position and balance it’s trying to achieve already before you add the momentum component. For example from an inverted crucifix, you could go into a aplit grip ayesha into a straight edge facing the pole, and then rotate that 90 degrees to be side on to the pole. Feeling confident in that position will really help you commit to the momentum of the cartwheel knowing exactly where you are going at the top of the move.

I’m injured at the moment, so I can’t check my actual body positioning, but I seem to remember the key to positioning for me was tucking my butt in and squeezing it and pointing my toes to the ceiling, so get everything is in a stacked, straight line. I think it’s similar to the position you use to do balanced freestanding headstands and shoulder stands. Also, going into it, make sure you are really committing with your head. If it doesn’t go completely upside down, it throws off the rest of the balance completely. Cartwheel is one of my favorite moves, but I find I’m still nervous about doing it on my weak side, and being nervous means I don’t completely commit my head. Then my body can’t get into the right position and it’s just not going to happen. Just one of the many things I’ll be working on once my shoulder finally heals. Good luck! Cartwheel is so much fun and it sounds like you are really close.

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Yes, TG airwalk. One of our instructors taught us that in class. It takes a lot of strength, but can be very graceful on spinning pole.

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Hey. I have a similar set of rings. I find them nice to squeeze when I’m sitting in front of a computer at the office, almost like a stress reliever. I much prefer the rings to the spring-loaded squeeze bars strengthener I have. That one I find hard to use and it hurts my palms. The rings don’t hurt, so I use them a lot more.