Cooling-Down after Pole Dancing

What is ‘Cooling-Down’?

The purpose of warming-up is to prepare the body for rigorous activity, whereas cooling-down is to assist in recovery and to bring the body back to a pre-workout state. 

When exercise is suddenly stopped, blood and waste products like lactic acid, stay in the muscles which can cause swelling and pain.  Post exercise muscle soreness is one of the areas where cooling-down after exercise is most useful. 

Cooling-down with some basic maintenance exercises, after your main bulk of exercise helps in returning the blood to the heart in adequate quantities to relieve the muscles off lactic acid.  The circulating blood also carries with it the oxygen and nutrients required by the muscles, tendons and ligaments for repair and growth. 

When combined with further stretches which are held for longer than the basic warm up stretches, cooling-down can help you increase your flexibility all over.





Why do I need to Cool-Down?

There are many dance classes which, although they will warm you up thoroughly before you start dancing, might not be so enthusiastic about your cool-down once the class is over.

There is a debate among dancers, athletes, doctors and physiotherapists as to whether it has any proven physical benefit - It is argued that a cool-down doesn’t work particularly well.  And doesn’t prevent soreness and cramp.

It is argued by others (some teachers and most dancers) that if you don’t cool-down by a series of gentle stretches at the end of your class, next day (and probably the day after that) will be agony.  You’ll have to make up your own mind about this and listen to your own body.

WE believe that…

*Nobody HAS TO do it – class is only an hour long and you’d only get about 20 mins of pole in if you ALWAYS completed a full warm-up, strength training & maintenance exercises, cool-down stretches, flexibility training AND splits training!  BUT if you are training at home, it WILL make you better, stronger, flexible, faster!
*Spending the extra time doing first some basic strength training exercises as the first part of your cool down WILL improve your core strength, or at least maintain it.
*Adding a few more stretches AND holding them for longer in at the end will improve your flexibility levels and posture
*Regular, gentle stretching can help you achieve the splits
*If it’s practiced by Felix Cane, it’s good enough for us!





Ok, so what should I do to Cool-Down?

An effective process for cooling-down needs to include three major parts, they work jointly to repair and replenish the body after pole dance exercise. Dizziness, nausea and a ‘worn out’ feeling are usual symptoms of an inappropriate cool-down process. For an effective cool-down, carry out a low intensity exercise (basic strength training) for a minimum of 5 to 10 minutes and follow this with a stretching routine.

The Three Elements…

Click on the capitalised sentances to see our set of exercises you can easily follow…

1) BASIC STRENGTH TRAINING FOR POLE DANCE EXERCISES, or more specialised pole conditioning exercises.

2) For the cool down stretches, you could just repeat the BASIC WARM-UP STRETCHES as a quick cool-down if you’re in a hurry, or to improve flexibility – opt for the FLEXIBILITY TRAINING FOR POLE DANCING EXERCISE, and if you’re especially keen to get the splits, follow that with some SPLITS TRAINING EXERCISES.

3) Re-Fuel!  The last part is the re-fuel, just as proper nutrition is needed before exercise to provide the fuel needed for activity, the body requires nourishment for the after pole dance exercise process of building muscles so water, minerals and carbohydrates are all needed.