Blog

For this blog post I delve into an under discussed territory….pole dancing through pregnancy.

This blog is by no means advice, it is derived from my personal experience.

Firstly – ever human body is unique, as is every pregnancy. So what worked for me might not be the same for others. But here is my story….

I knew the instant I was pregnant. I’m very in tune with my body, and one day when taking an online back bending class I felt ‘different’ in my abdominals. I felt a stretch in positions that would never usually stretch my abs, immediately I suspected something was going on. A few weeks later it was confirmed with a positive pregnancy test. I had got what I always wanted, but I was so scared of what this meant for my career. I had always imagined at least I would be able to ‘dance’ in some capacity throughout my pregnancy, maybe with my feet on the ground. I really had no idea what was in store for my active pregnancy at all….

Firstly I made is mission to become fit for pregnancy. I made sure I worked out most days, even if I felt nauseous, I just did simple prehab for pregnancy. I was aware that I was very flexible, and have had a lot of injuries and niggles throughout my career. I had an understanding that pregnancy would emphasise these weaknesses I already had – I honestly thought that pregnancy would break me! I was wrong. Pregnancy did emphasise instabilities, which I looked after with prehab and stability work. But pregnancy also made me feel healthier and fitter than ever and made long term injuries that I had…disappear (temporarily)! I continued to train and teach with my best secret ever enclosed.

During my second trimester I noticed some days I would feel a little weaker, and slower. I put this down to my growing baby/body and adjusting to this new size, muscle length. The next few days my body would catch up, learn to stabilise and feel stronger again. So I never really experienced a feeling that it was ‘time to stop or slow down’. My body was growing, adapting, growing, adapting, etc. When you get pregnant people say, ‘just listen to your body’. For a lot their bodies tell them to slow down, to stop doing certain things. But not many people share stories of their bodies telling them to continue, to train. My pregnant body LOVED training, and my mind for pole felt more creative than ever! It was such a beautiful period of my life for me, surpassing all expectations of what I thought my pregnancy would be like.

Don’t get me wrong, my body was not perfect! Around 8 weeks I got SI joint pain which hung around for my whole pregnancy, I developed an injury in my right hip but I was able to manage these with stability exercises, stretching and pilates.

In my final trimester, when I imagined I would be dancing fully clothed at the bottom of the pole – I actually still felt so inspired and capable of doing more complex pole transitions up the pole. I did adapt my training to avoid anything new to my body, I avoided dynamic moves, anything I didn’t feel comfortable with and I avoided putting my stomach on the pole.

In my final trimester I continued to train, a little slower, with less intent but still so happy and grateful of what my body was able to do. I was lucky not to get tiredness back, I still had plenty of energy. Inverting always felt good so I continued to do them, I found ways to make them easier (using my hip flexors more, or a different transition to invert). Handstands still felt pretty great, I didn’t have to learn my new centre of gravity as I never stopped doing them, so my balance automatically adjusted week by week.

My beautiful daughter was born healthily at 39 weeks with no major complications (just a tear) and my recovery afterwards was really heartwarming (but that’s for a different blog!). I owe my positive pregnancy, birth and recovery experience to a mixture of things including luck, genetics, determination but also a lot of thanks to my training and pilates for making me feel fit for pregnancy, and fit for childbirth

Bendy 

5.10.2022