Safety during your pole fitness workout is important. Period. Regardless of whether you are taking a pole dancing class at a local studio or if you are solely learning to pole dance through online pole lessons, there will be a time when you want to try a more advanced pole spin, move or trick at home.

Attempting more advanced pole moves is only natural as you progress. Challenging your body is how you reshape your body into the lean machine you want it to be. Challenges are a good thing but can turn dangerous without careful forethought.

When you start to learn more advanced moves like an inverted crucifix, for example, it is important that you use a spotter. The problem with a spotter is that if you are learning pole fitness at home, then you may not have anyone around to use.

Some girls use pillows at the bottom of their fitness poles to compensate for not having a spotter at home, which is cute 🙂 but not smart :/ There are much BETTER and safer ways to do this.

Let start by first saying, there is no substitute for a good spotter when doing advanced pole tricks, use one when you can.

For those of you who don’t have one, here are two critical tips that will help you learn #poledancing more safely when you are alone:

Learn How To Exit The Move On Your Fitness Pole Before Attempting It.

Many times women get in the middle of a move and stall out and need to come down. If you don’t know how to exit you could get stuck and fall to the ground.

You should also learn how to exit the move in the middle of learning it, not just at the end of the move. When you are learning, most women cannot get all the way through to the end of the final pose, they stop somewhere in the middle when attempting it due to a loss of strength or just sheer awkwardness. This is normal, so prepare for this to happen and use it to your advantage.

Study your exits well before you begin.

Start The Move At The Bottom Of The Fitness Pole

99% of the time when you see a pole dance move (especially an inverted move) you will see it executed from a standing position. Don’t start there. Start to learn this move as close to the floor as you can. Sit on your bum or start by squatting as low as you can. Learn the move as close to the ground as possible for that move. Almost all moves that are done really high up on the pole can be learned from the floor first. Always learn from the floor first.
Doing this alone will drastically reduce the bumps and bruises caused by learning pole.

Here is a video lesson about how to do the “Superman” or “Superwoman” pole dance move where I show you how to learn from the floor first as I have described above:

The other thing you can do to protect yourself when learning advanced pole moves at home is by using a pole dancing crash mat for the base of your pole dancing fitness pole.

I recommend a mat 4 inches or thicker. They do make mats as thin as 2” for home use, I feel that 4” is worth the added expense and protection is will give you. The heavier and bigger a person you are, the wider and deeper the mat should be.

Please remember that injury will only set you back for weeks. Muscles mass begins to decrease after 72 hours of no use. Being down for weeks is a huge setback. #Polefitness is fun so don’t let a stupid mistake get you injured and setback. They are easily avoided 🙂

Enjoy life, be brave, and live happily!