What Are the Benefits of Pole Dancing?

There are several physical and mental benefits to pole dancing. Whether you’ve been pole dancing for years, or are looking to take your first class, you’ll find that pole dancing has a lot more benefits than you might have expected at first. ¹

The Physical Benefits of Pole Dancing

1. Your Metabolism Speeds Up (Burning More Calories)

When you start moving your body more and getting your heartrate up, you might find that pole dancing helps speed up your metabolism, burning more calories.

The body uses calories as a source of fuel – burn the fire hotter, and you’re going to go through more fuel. The more you work out, you’ll find yourself hungry for protein, fat, and calories all day long.

If your body is craving it, find a healthy source of those nutrients, and chow down! It’s okay to feed your body what it needs.

2. Improves Your Flexibility and Mobility

One key aspect of pole dancing is flexibility and mobility. Especially when you start moving into intermediate and advanced pole dance moves, you’ll want and need more flexibility to ace your goals. You’ll gain a lot just by moving your body in new ways, but it also pushes you to dedicate time to your flexibility practice.

Furthermore, even regularly using your body in ways that you might not in your daily routine will help you develop better mobility of your shoulders, hips, and back. Better flexibility and mobility means your body will tolerate more before it becomes injured.  

3. Helps You Develop Better Balance

One excellent thing dance does is it teaches your body how to act and react to new movements that are outside of your typical range. You’ll find that you have a better sense of balance after you begin pole dancing, you have better body awareness, and it even helps you develop your coordination and rhythm.

4. Helps You Fall Asleep Easier (and Sleep Better)

Working out helps relieve stress and removes excess energy that you may have pent up. If you pole dance after work or school, it’s a perfect way to start winding down for the day. Because of the feel-good hormones pole dancing (and working out in general) helps release, you’ll find more satisfaction in your daily routine, which makes it easier to fall asleep, versus a troubled sleep right after a bad day at work.  

5. Improves Heart Health and Stamina

Cardio, cardio, cardio! It’s something many of us lack, so don’t skip flow and routine days. Pole dancing is an excellent way to train your strength and stamina in the same class, so long as your don’t skip the dancing part!

6. More Powerful Grip Strength

When you’re six feet in the air, hanging onto a metal pole with the power of your bare skin to hold you up, you’d better believe you’ll develop better grip strength.

In addition to building the muscle necessary to get up that high in the first place, you have to hold on the entire time – maybe you’re at the point where you are aerial inverting, and if so, congratulations on getting the core and grip strength to do so!

Sure, there are grip aids available, but they’re not going to stop you from using the muscles in your hands, wrist, and forearm.  

The Mental Benefits of Pole Dancing

For every physical benefit pole dancing has, there’s a mental benefit to match. ² Pole dancing is perfect no matter who you are. It’s for those who are already confidence in themselves, and for those who are uncomfortable in their own skin and want a way to break out of their shell and try something new

1. Builds Your Self-Confidence

With pole dancing, you won’t just get a fantastic body, but you’ll be rocking a better self-image and more self-confidence. Who could say no to that?

We often forget that self-confidence is a key aspect of our overall happiness can be a major factor in some cases of depression. What better way to build happiness and comfort in your own skin than to move your body in ways you never thought possible, showcasing superhuman strength, feeling empowered, or letting your inner exotic-self shine in the spotlight?

Strap on those heels and get to building more self-confidence!

2. Relieves Stress

Dancing, working out, and self-expression are all great ways to relieve stress. Pole dancing combines all three of these aspects.

Dancing helps you express yourself and the movements that feel right to you, leading into self-expression. These things are essential to building a habit of creativity and get you moving your body more. Working out helps you feel stronger and produces a lot of feel-good chemicals in your body and brain that combats stress.

3. Reduces Anxiety and Depression

Much like stress, anxiety can be combatted by counteracting the hormones the stress and anxiety produce. Working out, dancing, and self-expression all create those feel-good hormones that will help you feel more emotionally balanced and happy.  

Some cases of depression are chemical, while others are environmental or situational, but moving your body and feeling empowered always does the body good, and pole dancing is a great way to escape, if only for a couple hours a week.

4. Motivates You to Move and Try New Things

Most people never thought they would be pole dancing today, whether they started in a club or in a studio. If you’re one of those people, chances are, it has opened your eyes up to another world of exploring new hobbies, new ideas, and new ways of expressing yourself.

Lyra, aerial silks, trapeze, yoga, yoga trapeze, stilts, you name it. A lot of aerial sports are excellent choices for cross-training.

5. Gives You a Sense of Belonging and Support

When you first get into pole dancing, it can be eye-opening just how widespread and involved the community is.

Because pole dancing revolves around sports, self-confidence, expression, and sexual empowerment, almost everybody within the community feels the social stigma to some degree. That’s part of what makes the pole dance community one of the most inclusive, supportive communities to be a part of.

No matter who you are, what background you have, or what your preferences are, you’ll fit right in and have friends who have your back.

How Does Pole Dancing Change Your Body?

Does Pole Dancing Help You Lose Weight?

Well, this is a bit of a tricky question in the way that it’s phrased.

Chances are, yes, you will lose excess fat with pole dancing. Of course, it’s important to stay consistent with your training and eat a balanced diet as well. Whenever you combine cardio with strength-training and calisthenics, you’re going to wind up losing fat.

You might not lose weight, however. Muscle is much denser than fat, which means that one pound of muscle will weigh more than one pound of fat. ³ So, for every pound of fat you shed, you’re quickly going to gain a pound of muscle – so don’t look to the scale for guidance, look to your body and find confidence and power in the positive changes you see.

Does Pole Dancing Tone Your Body?

Sure, strength and flexibility are great, but does pole dancing help tone your body? The answer is yes – of course it does! But just like with your strength training, it’s important not to skimp. Healthy eating, consistent training, and making sure you get both your tricks and dance in is a key aspect in developing more toned muscle mass.  

What Muscles Does Pole Dancing Use?

Pole dancing uses almost every muscle in your body – just be sure to use both sides, not just your dominant side!

You’ll find that spins, pole climbs, pole abs, handsprings, shoulder mounts, and inverted moves with a split grip are all going to target your upper body.

Pole sits, planks, pointed toes, superman, cross-ankle release, and many other moves target your lower body.

Inverts, caterpillars, janiero, titanic, and many other moves will target your whole body at once. 

References

1, health24.com: 10 Things Pole Dancing Can Do For You, retrieved from https://www.health24.com/Fitness/FitnessGettingStarted/10-things-pole-dancing-can-do-for-you-20151019
2, Naturespathways.com: The Psychological Benefits of Pole Dance, retrieved from https://naturespathways.com/northeast-wisconsin-edition/june-2013/the-psychological-benefits-of-pole-dance/
3, Livestrong.com: A Pound of Muscles Vs. A Pound of Fat, retrieved from https://www.livestrong.com/article/438693-a-pound-of-fat-vs-a-pound-of-muscle/