3 exercises to combat microbends for pole dancers and aerialists
One of my personal goals this year is to nail my straight leg inverts (forever a nemesis move of mine) and eliminate my micro (okay maybe macro) bends. Below are three of my favorite exercises to help correct microbends and create beautiful lines in your dancing: seated hip flexion, a standing développé series, and double leg drop.
What is a microbend? A microbend is a small bend in your knees seen most often when inverting. If you are training for a pole or aerial competition or choreographing for a performance, you may be wondering how to correct your microbend in order to avoid point deductions or wow your audience.
What causes a microbend? A microbend may be due to lack of strength or lack of flexibility. In order to decide which one may be contributing to your microbend, we will look at terminal knee extension in a pike or seated position. Grab a foam roller or yoga block, sit on the floor with one leg extended in front of you and place your foot up on the foam roller. Engage your quads to push the back of your knee down towards the floor. If you are unable to fully extend your knee, then this is a great place for you to start. You can hold this as a stretch for 10 seconds (actively pushing the knee down with your quad muscles) then relax. Repeat 10 times. Make sure to check both legs.
If you are achieving full knee extension with no microbend with the exercise above, then the issue may be strength. You can assess your active and passive gap by following this video. You can see when I use a strap to lift my leg, it goes much higher than when I use just my muscles. In an ideal world, your active and passive gap is very small.
Try these three strengthening exercises (ps. if you’re visual, all three of these are in the YouTube video at the end of this post!):
1. Seated hip flexion over a yoga block. This is one of my absolute favorite hip flexor strengthening exercises.
You may need to start with a shorter item and then slowly work on increasing the height. It's best to do this with your back against a wall to make sure you are not cheating by rounding your back and tilting your pelvis. You can start seated a few inches away from the wall and leaning back with a flat back, but work your way up to sitting with your back fully flat against the wall. Complete 3 sets of 10 reps on both legs.
Make sure you straighten your leg all the way out, pointing your toes and extending the leg with a straight knee before your lower your leg. You can adjust the height your leg to make this exercise easier or harder. This series is 8-10 developpes, one isometric hold for 5-10 seconds, and 5-10 pulses. I do 3 sets in parallel to target my hip flexors, 3 sets turned out to incorporate my adductors, and 3 sets turned out with my leg coming out to the side since that mimics what I am actually doing in an invert the best (so killer!).
Keep your low back on the floor while slowly lowering both legs, then bring them back up with control. Only lower down to the point you can without lifting your low back off the floor or holding your breath. I recommend exhaling while lowering your legs and inhaling while you lift them back up to ensure you are not cheating by holding your breath to create abdominal stability. Make sure you don’t have any coning or doming and are using your deep core muscles and not just your rectus abdominis (I’ll write more about this in a future blog). Complete 3 sets of 8-12 (aka to fatigue).
I will be doing this series 2-3x a week for the month of February (and probably beyond)- hope you will follow along with me! I will be doing this series 2-3x a week for the month of February (and probably beyond)- hope you will follow along with me! If you want to, below is a video with all three exercises in a row. You can repeat three times for all three sets- and it only takes about 15 minutes to do the whole series! Of course, take rest breaks as needed. While people often think of seeing a physical therapist for injuries, we also work with plenty of individuals looking to maximize their skills and performance. Come see me for an individualized plan to improve your artistic and athletic performance. Comment below to let me know what you think and if you are interested in a part two with additional exercises!