trickivix
Forum Replies Created
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With regard to the Pilates and not trying to use hip flexors thing – I think I can answer that. I was teaching basic mat pilates a little while ago, and based on what I learnt (to teach it), the focus of Pilates is strengthening your stabilising muscles such as the transversus abdominals, obliques etc, and not the bigger players, such as your 6 pack, hip flexors/legs/quads for abdominal exercises. If you use your 6 pack or legs to do ab exercises, you put less focus on strengthening the stabilising muscles. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use hip flexors if you are training for other things (such as pole). It just means, for the purposes of Pilates, it should be lessened or avoided…
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I would say to concentrate on the leading leg first. Keep it straight and keep it pointed, don’t worry about the second leg until you’ve got the hang of the leading leg being straight and pointed. Try starting small again, don’t try to go straight into the cartwheel mount otherwise old habits will come back and your legs will come in again. Do small swings, keeping that leg straight. And increase to the cartwheel mount when you are used to the feeling of having a straight leading leg.
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I find that sometimes people have a different hand positioning when they do it from an invert – generally a lot further apart than if they'd done it from a handspring. This could probably put your balance off. It could also be body positioning, if your torso normally faces away from the pole from a handspring but your body if facing the pole from an invert could throw off your balance. Pictures or videos would help, hard to say without seeing you do it https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_eek.gif good luck!
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If you're only doing light resistance training, you could just do same range of motion exercises. The purpose of a warm up is to get the muscles ready for the stress you are about to put on them. Depending on the exercises you are about to do, you could just do lighter options. e.g. if you are doing sit ups, you could first start with some slow and controlled ab curls where only your head and shoulders come off the ground (rather than lifting all the way up into a sit up). If you are using weights or resistance bands for your shoulder exercises, do a warm up by moving your shoulders in the same motion without the resistance and focus on the contraction of the muscles. It is common for weight lifters to warm up by first performing the exercise with a much lighter weight, before doing their normal lifting weight. By doing so, they are heating up the muscles and making them more elastic for the same range of motion. You will be using the same concept here.
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No problem at all Pankake. Glad I could help https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif
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Haha I know what you mean – I accummulate fat around my belly, would love to push some of that fat to my chest and to my butt.
Yes, Kegel exercises are for the pelvic floor.
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Studio Pilates have some electronic DVDs you can buy online. The intro of each DVD explains the engagement of the TA and pelvic floor. They call it the 'T-zone'. For each exercise she will say 'T-zone' a lot so it's hard to forget about it. When I was taught, the "check" that you can do is to lightly press with two fingers just on the inside of your hip bones. When you switch on your T-zone, you'll feel it tighten under your fingers. So if you're ever not sure, just check by lightly pressing that area.
You won't need any props. They do crunches in the DVDs but you'll learn to like them https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif The key is to keep your belly flat and not let it bulge out (this is quite tricky at first). If it starts to bulge out, it generally means your T-zone has let go and you are focussing too much with your rectus abdominus (6 pack). These muscles are more powerful, but do not have the endurance so they will get worn out a lot faster and I'd say that's why you feel like you're cramping up.
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Try Pilates – I teach Pilates and the things that you have said sounds to me like Pilates is what will help. In particular, you need to find someone that can show you how to engage your transverse abdominus and pelvic floor properly. This is what "drawing your navel to your spine" is supposed to do. Unfortunately, to a lot of people, these words just means to suck in your belly, but it's not that simple. It's about tightening that whole lower ab area and making your belly flat, not hollow. As AngelVonSpin said with the tutu analogy, you may need to tuck your tailbone under slightly – but this would depend on your current posture. A lot of people tilt their pelvis too far forward (and stick their bums out) which makes it harder to activate these muscles. If you can tuck the tailbone under slightly while still have a little curve in your lower back, it'll be easier to activate these muscles.
I was exactly like you – I used to hate ab exercises, your 'vicious cycle' was exactly what I had. I ended up just refusing to do them. Until I started learning tricks where I had no choice but to strengthen it. I tried just doing ab exercises but didn't see fast results until I did the instructor course for Pilates and realised what I was doing wrong. My core is now a lot stronger and my posture is a lot better (I also work in an office all day). So my recommendation is to try Pilates 🙂 Also… don't do any Pilates classes where they do fast jerky movements, try to find one that focuses on control. A one on one is best… but usually a bit expensive…
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From what I've seen from people who are learning and people who have nailed the handsprings – there isn't a perfect formula. Everyone has different bodies with different strengths, different muscles that they favour, even different postures can influence how you do a move. Some things work for some people but won't work for others. On top of that, every move has multiple entries… so it's no wonder you are getting mixed messages. My initial suggestion would be to pick one grip and one type of entry (cartwheel or handspring), and try to get that one first, before looking at the others. Try finding a tutorial that is explained really well and always start low i.e. only raise your legs a little at first, and increase the height slowly, that way your upper body can get used to the pressure you are putting on it and your body gets used to the movement. Apart from that, the biggest thing to remember is – don't let go of the pole when your legs are in the air! Good luck!
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Not sure if you mean Southport in Queensland (on the Gold Coast)? If so, I live about a 5 minute drive from it, in Surfers Paradise. I could give you some info about it, if this is where you are headed.
Either way, good luck with your travels, I'm sure you'll have heaps of fun! 🙂
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Looks like most of the moves on your list are very much strength based. If you are poling too often, your body may not have had enough time to recover and build the muscle – not allowing you to get stronger and would actually make it worse the less you rest. I had a similar issue where moves I could always do was getting harder and I started to feel worn out and a bit frustrated. I decided to do less pole and focus on more weight training – abs, arms, back, shoulders… It helped a lot. I felt refreshed… It became easier to get new tricks and I just felt so much stronger.
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Straight edge to brass monkey 🙂
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To me EG ayesha is torso away from the pole, but everyone does everything different, as long as you're safe and stable, that's all that really matters. Having your torso against the pole does make it hard to bring the legs down far enough to become parallel to the ground unless you're pretty flexy. A lot of the time, people that do it this way will end up leaving their legs in the air somewhere… which I guess ends up being somewhere between an ayesha and a straight edge (with legs separated)…
I'm pretty sure the extended ayesha is actually like an elbow grip iron x (?)
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The safeness of the grip comes from the fact that you have an opposable thumb grip to stop you from sliding down (or falling off) when you invert. When using the cup grip, you have all the fingers on one side, and nothing on the side that's closest to your body and therefore you will risk slipping when transitioning into another move. As you've said, there are dangers to the TG, these are more related to possible shoulder injuries as opposed to falling off.
So, back to your question – it is still a safe grip if you switch arms. In fact, Jamilla Deville teaches it that way in her Art of Pole DVDs.
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There certainly is such a thing! And muscle structure also has quite a bit to do with it. Everyone's muscles are different and everyone does tricks differently or rely on different muscles based on where they are strong.
I train at the gym a lot and I focussed a lot on the upper back and the rotator cuff area due to posture issues and a shoulder injury. That training was probably why it only took me about 3 or 4 sessions to get the TG handspring. And no… I'm no handspring freak because it took me a very long time to get the split/basic grip handspring, add to that a bad case of tendonitis…
TG puts a lot of strain on the rotator cuff (upper arm). To get into it, you are in such an awkward, unnatural position… Your arm is never in that position in everyday life… so your muscles aren't in tune with dealing with the stress when you are trying to use it to lift your body weight. So if you are deadlifting into that, you first have to make sure your rotator cuff is strong and flexible enough to handle it. If you are unable to hang there/hold the position, it would have more to do with the rotator cuff than the core strength. Of course the core strength has a lot to do with it, but you should first focus on the shoulders.
And I'm with emotioncatcher – other grips are definitely more impressive 🙂
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Will try to break it down: First you'll have to consider which side you need to invert on. I'm assuming you can do a twisted grip aysha? If you lower arm in the aysha is the left, you will need to invert on the left side of the pole (pole is on your right). Invert into an inside leg hook, your inside arm stays on the pole, if you have wide shoulders, I'd recommend rotating your grip inwards so it's not wrapped around the pole too much (otherwise you can get stuck when you try to extend out). Let go of your outside arm and reach down past your head, thumb down towards the floor – I suggest looking down at where you are grabbing as being upside can be a bit confusing, make sure the arm is extended and strong, you'll soon need to put a lot of weight on it. From there, start with tucking your legs in towards your body before you extend your legs out in a straddle – I find it's better for balancing. In the same movement, you will want to try to extend your body away from the pole (this is where your shoulder can get stuck). Due to the way your arms are positioned, your body will just naturally want to rotate into a standard twisted grip aysha. Hope that helps 🙂
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The difference between the doing the split grip and forearm grip compared to the elbow grip is that you can split your legs and have your torso close to the pole, however, the best way to do elbow grip is to move your torso away from the pole. You need to feel resistance in the elbow pit that is keeping you from falling away from the pole. If you are too close, you won't have enough resistance and you will rely purely on your lower arm to keep you up. The tutorial polergirl is refering to is:
http://aerialamy.com/blog/2011/07/12/tuesday-tips-elbow-grip-ayesha/
polergirl has pretty much covered it, the only thing I can add is that you upper arm (the elbow grip one) should be wrapped around the pole fairly close to your knees (once you've caterpillared up), the arm will be at an angle, not parallel to the floor.
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Would probably be easier if you posted a video or photo of yourself in the hold? A few tips (without knowing exactly what you are already doing) would be to make sure your bottom wrist isn't twisted in any way, when you are looking down at it, your forearm and hand should be aligned. Another tip is to make sure you don't use momentum to swing your legs up, you should lift so that you slowly put pressure on the arms rather than sudden pressure when you reach the point you want to hold. For me, I don't actually grip with my underarm, the pole is positioned at the base of my bicep and I am using a pulling motion with the top arm, while the bottom arm is doing the pushing motion. And my bottom elbow will be digging into my waist.
In addition to all this technique talk, I'd say you may have a case of tendonitis. The symptoms sound about right – the moment you release the hold (especially if you release it quickly) pain will shoot up your arm. I had this when I was learning how to handspring. I wasn't taking no for an answer and I got tendonitis instead…
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Another common spot for injuries is the ribs.
As for the muscles, I'm like veena, I think muscles are sexy. I combine pole with a lot of weight training and I wouldn't say that I look manly. However… the only muscles that I've gained that I'm not too keen on are the upper traps.
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Oops! I don't think that came out right – I meant that with true grip dead lift you may need to have your hands further apart than a true grip handspring (non-dead lift). I found that what helped me be able to pull myself up with the little push was to have a straighter top arm than what I would have had for the handspring. Hope that helps anyway 🙂 and good luck!
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I was just practising yesterday with true grip using the concepts from Dakota Fox's youtube for twisted grip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmbZS_46LaQ
She breaks it down into two sections – 1. From the floor standing side on to pole, pushing away with your arms, then tilting your hips toward the ceiling and sort of just hanging there. 2. Feet on floor, hips tilted to ceiling, lift one foot up and give yourself a little push with the other foot to do the handspring. Then you just have to put the two together, which is the hardest bit.
I was able to do both 1 and 2 with true grip but can't quite put them together yet. Although, I can't hold an Iron X yet either, so if you can already do that, you'd probably have more luck than me. But I definitely think her tips could help 🙂 The only thing that I should point out for true grip is that your arms might need to be further apart than what you are used to for a normal handspring.
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Haha that's right Ekinkah, the only way your personal trainer friend will help get rid of your back pain is by making the rest of your body sore!
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It seems that there's a perception that chiros only "crack". My chiro is also a sports chiro and he spends most of the time massaging and relieving tension in my tight muscles. He gives me all types of strengthening exercises, stretches and warm up advice for pole and I haven't had an injury where he hasn't been able to fix and be so exact on how long it would take to heal (if I do the exercises he recommends).
Ekinkah, I think when sensual was saying PT, she means physical therapist/physiotherapist which you are already seeing… I think aussies normally refer to personal trainer as PT so not sure if you misunderstood?
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I go to the gym a lot so I do a lot of weights there. I work my back and shoulder area doing all types of rows (seated rows, upright rows, barbell rows), reverse flies, lateral raises, chin ups, etc. If you have some dumbbell weights at home, you should google the exercises, most of them you be able to do at home. Youtube have some good tutorials to help make sure your technique is good and that you're activating the right muscles. There's always a "cheaters" way (like with pole) and doing it incorrectly can lead to injury and will slow the development of the muscles.
If you have a pole at home, you can do a thing my studio calls pole tucks – holding the pole like you are going to invert, but instead of inverting, just slowly lift your knees to your chest and slowly back down. Try doing it without touching the floor. Just remember to keep the shoulders back and activated. Another good one for the back on the pole are like pull ups – place hands above head but don't extend too far and pull yourself up while squeezing your shoulder blades together, hold the squeeze at the top. Don't jump into it, really pull yourself up and then slowly lower your body.
Yeah I know, I don't know what the qualifications are overseas but you need to do 5 years of uni in Australia which is the same as a physio but there are only four universities in Australia that offer the chiro degree, whereas physio is offered at four universities in Queensland alone.
My chiro doesn't need x-rays but you can take one in if you want. I know of other chiros that require an x-ray first. So… up to you… x-rays can be expensive though.
haha I know what you mean, it's good to know you're not the only one that's falling apart.
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Sorry, just re-read your comment about the vertabrae not being aligned. Different to what I have described… I would still see a chiro though…
