IRC TESTING - CASE STUDY
Angel and Corinne
My first client I worked with for the case study is Angel.
I would consider Angel a begin-termediate pole dancer. She has a long history of dance and movement experience, but she hasn’t had a ton of ‘fitness’ and exercise background. When we first discussed this training opportunity, she mentioned that she hadn’t gotten very far in pole fitness because she prefers to just dance and ‘swoosh around’ but also because she sustained a serious injury after her first instructor literally pushed her up into an invert way before she was ready, leading her to avoid invert training ever since. She doesn’t have much in terms of pain and injury history, but she does have a slight case of scoliosis.
In our first meeting of three, I asked Angel the following questions:
‘What are your movement goals? Why do you want to do this?’
“Generally I want to get stronger so flow is more effortless and I have more pathways available to me - want consistent and reliable chopper and leg hooks because they’re tools to unlock more flow ability.
‘How do you measure success or intend to measure success?’
“It’s harder to measure the stuff I care about. Trick progress is obvious, but how do you measure that comfortableness with ‘flow’ - because it depends on how so many variables like how my day is going. Therefore, I like to measure my success by how present I am with my body and movement needs at any given moment.
‘How do you like to receive your feedback, how do you like to be coached?’
“I like direct, specific, anatomical feedback, visual and hands on better than verbal unless it’s woo woo — if you push me too hard I will tell you but it’s not a ‘bad thing’ I just am very aware of my body and want to communicate if and when it’s been pushed too far.
My second client I worked with for the case study is Corinne.
I would also consider Corinne a begin-termediate student, perhaps a little more beginner than Angel. Corinne doesn’t have much dance background, but was a swimmer in high school and has experience working in the sports medicine industry. Corinne has had tons of injuries, including two back surgeries due to slipped disks, and often complains of hip and back pain as well as frequent migraines. Corinne and I worked together for years prior to Covid, and she was slowly just getting into her basic invert (what I would call a step swing invert to crucifix) before the pandemic hit and we stopped working together for over two years. In that time, she has not done much pole dancing.
I met with Corinne and Angel together for our first session, and here was Corinne’s answers to my questions about their goals and preferred approach to training.
‘What are your movement goals? Why do you want to do this?’
“I want a good clean chopper and to build better mechanics and learn to invert in the right way if it’s something my body will let me do. A smooth chopper is my goal because I thought I’d never be able to do it because of my back, so re-training my brain to not limit it has been challenging and I want to prove to myself I can safely do this.
‘How do you measure success or intend to measure success?’
“It used to be can I do the thing or not, but now I think it needs to be ‘can I do the thing, without it feeling sucky in my body?”
‘How do you like to receive your feedback, how do you like to be coached?
“I prefer real time in the moment feedback, preference for verbal but ok with hands on. Ok to be challenged even though I will sometimes get frustrated and want to shut down.
We then spent time discussing my game plan which was essentially to meet three times. The first would be a day of assessments without much instruction on how to ‘fix’ anything. Then I would review the videos and create some simple home exercises for each of them to work on for a week or two until our second session, where we would work together to create exercises that specifically targeted areas of ‘weakness’ or lack of coordination using props like blocks, bands, chairs, etc. They could then take the exercises from our second session together home to explore for a week or two before our third session, in which we would clear up any lingering questions and do our ‘after’ assessments. The idea behind this was that without regularly meeting over a longer period of time, it would be hard to make huge strides in strength and that we could instead focus on small alignment cues and tips that were achievable in our time frame that would create small measures of progress in the inverting process.
This is what I wrote about my strategy and hypotheses prior to our first session:
“My strategy is going to be to increase their body awareness through assessment exercises and provide small but tangible exercises and adjustments they can make to their movement habits in order to improve their capacity for control and consistency during inverting. My hypothesis is that Angel, who has tons of dance background and experience teaching dance will quickly pick up the cues and adjustments due to her familiarity with body awareness, and that Corinne will have a bit of resistance to some of the work with self-limiting beliefs. I believe that this approach will work for both types of clients, and that both of them will finish their third session feeling good about the progress they’ve made with their inverts, and more importantly - excited about their potential for growth with their inverts.”
During our first session, we explored the following exercises: spinal differentiation, squat, hip hinge, passive hang, chin up, invert, and outside leg hang. As we did each exercise, I asked each of them for thoughts or feedback on each.
Angel stated that it was easier for her to isolate her pelvis due to experience in belly dancing, but that it was stickier and harder for her to isolate and move through the ribs and thoracic region without the pelvis taking over. She noted that both a squat and a hip hinge didn’t generally feel very challenging to her. Her passive hang felt good, holding for a good 20 seconds or so and she said she felt strong and secure there without any pain in her arms or shoulders, but when we got to the chin up she said ‘I have no idea what I’m doing or what muscles I should be using.’ She was able to do a fairly solid and controlled chin up using a heavy resistance band and she was pleasantly surprised about it. She said she preferred the ‘jump’ into invert because she felt she lacked the hip mobility to lift and hook a leg from the waist hold (she’s explored waist holds in another instructors class who took your Invert Ready program as a student.) She also said she had sort of tried an outside leg hook before, but never really been taught it and she’s never had much success in it, especially in taking her hands off the pole.
Corinne said that she felt the juiciest range of motion around T12, but that her low back and pelvis felt really stuck. She said squats have always been fairly challenging for her, especially with ankle mobility and with trusting her back to not give out. In her squat, she said it was helpful to be allowed to slightly turn her feet out rather than perfectly parallel. She said that weight bearing spaces with straight legs scare her so she bends her knees in the hip hinge. She was able to do a passive hang, but only for five seconds or so and felt it was fatiguing in her grip strength. Using a heavy resistance band, we explored a chin up and she was surprised she could do it and that it didn’t feel as bad as she thought it would. She said she was surprised her invert was still there at all, but that it felt heavy and ‘clunky’ and that she didn’t feel comfortable attempting an outside leg hang.
After our first session, this was the summary I wrote up after class:
“Session 1 Notes:
I think everything worked really well in this first session. I may have over explained some before stuff, like spinal flossing and tips for ‘breaking the bar’ in our pull up spaces, but overall I think we safely got really solid assessments of each of their starting points. I was correct in assuming a lot of self-defeatist attitude from Corinne, but she seems to be really excited about the possibilities this journey may open up for her. Using the resistance band in their pull ups was a huge success! They both got into a respectable starting ‘chin up’ space and felt proud of themselves for being able to get up there.
We did not really do outside leg hang assessments as neither of them have ever really been taught it. Angel has attempted them before with both hands on, but Corinne wasn’t willing to try it since she’s literally never attempted it before, and I respect that.
I can tell both of them will benefit from more rowing and lat pull down exercises, and in using the band and chairs to help them get to a full chin up, where their elbows come more towards their ribs. It’s neat to see folks have the same ‘weak spots’ I did when I started this journey, and also frustrating because to me, that’s a good indicator that the pole industry is really lacking in the overall knowledge of and approach to invert training and techniques.”
After reviewing their ‘before’ videos, I concluded the following:
Angel:
*Though she has great body awareness, she is lacking some strength and mobility that can be addressed over time with consistent strength training exercises specific to her ‘weak’ areas.
*Specifically, lacking the glute strength to drive hips up and fully open in a waist hold/invert so that when she lifts a leg her hips drop and makes it difficult for her foot/leg to reach the pole.
*She tends to start things in a fairly upright position, could use some coordination work on getting horizontal
*In her invert, she was starting already in front of the pole and in a fairly upright position, her hands were high, and she kept her head up looking at the pole as she inverted. She also straightened the arms too early, creating a rounded upper back.
Corinne:
*Corinne is actually more mobile in her lumbar and pelvic region, and her pelvis has the tendency towards an anterior tilt in general. It’s interesting she thinks is the area that was the stickiest.
*Her hamstrings are really tight and her glutes are really weak, has a hard time engaging what I call the ‘underbutt’ where the hamstrings and glutes come together
*She is very protective of her back, which makes her unwilling to attempt certain positions and seems to actually put her in higher-risk positions sometimes.
*Her invert was pretty similar to Angel’s. Starting in front of the pole, arms too high and straightening way too soon, hips dropping as legs lift off ground, rounded upper back, etc. I did note that what was interesting was that even with a heavily rounded upper back, the pole still appeared to be in the waist and not along the ribs/near the armpit.
Because both of them had some similar areas of weakness, I gave both of them homework exercises like neutral pelvis leg lifts on a chair, thrusty thrustys (hip bridges supported on foam roller) 360 breathing practices, banded pole rows, and straight arm lat pull downs. Because Corinne tends to have some forward head posture issues, I also sent her the article we looked at in our course with 5 exercises to combat FHP.
Due to scheduling conflicts, I then met with each of them separately for the second and third sessions. The following is my experience of each session.
Angel’s Second Session: the goal for this session was to give some alignment cues and discuss her before videos together. I gave her some tangible feedback exercises for things like bringing elbows in towards ribs/waist with pole rows and assisted chin ups using a chair to get to the full expression and then eccentrically lowering out of them. I wanted to leave a lot of time to discuss her ‘jump’ invert, and to show her the grounded jasmine pivot to outside leg hang. Our second session went really good, I could tell she was excited about the material and enjoying the process a lot.
The following is the summary I wrote after my second session with Angel:
“Angel - Session 2 Review:
In this session, we focused on alignment choices and positional awareness in addition to a few strength building exercises Angel can use as homework. We explored pulling on our arms with shoulders forward and back to feel the difference in muscle recruitment and talked about the mid-axillery line of the torso and how to feel when the shoulder is in alignment with it. We also explored some isometrics in a straddle position to help increase capacity for external rotation and strength in a wide V for choppers. I gave her the following exercises: butt chair pull for increasing strength and mobility in hip flexors, straight arm lat pull downs with a leg raise using a low resistance rubberbandit, bent arm rows with a medium resistance band, and assisted chin up at the final position lowering down through eccentric movements. Then we explore waist hold from the ground so she could get the proprioceptive of pressing head into the floor since she tends to bring her head forward and look at the pole in her invert, as well as lowering to waist hold from standing and lifting inside leg. In general, we found Angel will benefit a lot from working on building strength through active ranges of motion in her hip flexors and legs. Angel was able to get her first outside leg hang with both hands off (after numerous attempts at other studios) via the floor jasmine pivot entrance thing. I expect that Angel’s pre-established body awareness is going to help her tremendously as we build strength moving forward. Finally, we worked on the coordination of stepping into a ‘jumping invert,’ as she was previously starting with both legs already in front of the pole and the ‘jump’ was limited and not well coordinated. She will benefit from strenghtening the glutes to drive the hips up and keep the front of the hips open as she continues to work on a closed rib, hip open position in waist holds. This is fun.”
The third and final session was basically designated for ‘after’ video assessments. I spent more time verbally cueing through some alignment and strength things to consider while Angel was actively doing the things. We were both blown away by how much of a difference we could see/feel after such a short amount of time together. The following is my theories I wrote before our final session together:
“Final Session Theories - Angel:
*Theory 1 - If we strengthen the glutes to drive your hips up to the ceiling al little higher in our waist holds, we may find more range of motion with hooking a leg or foot on the pole.
*Exercise 1 - Use a block or chair to lift hips and make leg hook on pole from waist hold more accessible.
*Exercises 2- Use a rubberbandit to lift hips and find toe hook
*Theory 2 - We can use the jasmine pivot to outside leg hang to practice rowing the arms back and chest open and assess the head position more clearly.
*Exercise 1 - Chair assisted eccentric FULL chin up descent.
*Exercise 2 - Hook to outside leg hang, play with sliding arms down, keeping them bent, pulling the elbows in to your hip bones like we tried to do in our pull up on the rings”
After the third and final session with Angel, I felt really proud of the work we both put into this process. There was a measurable difference in Angel’s ability to differentiate into her thoracic spine, she said she felt stronger already in her glutes and hip flexors, she was able to for the first time ever touch a toe to the pole in a waist hold, and in the jumping invert she was able to make connection with the outside leg and use it to push into the pole to really feel the neutral spine, open chest space. She said it felt like a world of difference. She also already had measurable strength gains in her chin up, as it was fairly controlled doing an eccentric chin up unassisted from the band. We are both excited to continue this work together.
Corinne’s Second Session: Again, the focus for Corinne’s second session was in breaking down some alignment cues and considerations, and helping her find that 360 breathing to create spinal stability and give her more confidence to explore deeper into her ranges of motion. I have a theory that physically, she has room for more but that mentally, the fear of re-injury prevents her from going there. It was my goal to give her props and tangible feedback for her to feel safe accessing deeper ranges of motion and maintaining a connection to core strength and stability.
The following is a summary I wrote after our second session together:
“Notes about Session 2 -
Overall, I’m really surprised with Corinne’s willingness to try and take all of my suggestions as she tends to get pretty hyper fixated on the notion that her body is just limited in certain capacities.
We started with a fairly light and traditional warm up to get the body moving gently and increase synovial fluid in joints - then moved into intentional, effortful movements and CARs. In my assessments, I noticed that Corinne has very limited range of motion in her hamstrings and her pelvis tends to hang out pretty permanently in an anterior tilted position, which encourages a rib thrusting position as well.
I felt that the best thing I could do for Corinne to start was to help her find and access movement in her ribs, because in our first assessments, during spinal differentiation it seems she was moving her pelvis and lumbar spine even when we were aiming to move ribs and thoracic - and what I found was that her inability to access movement in the ribs was preventing her from accessing core strength. We made a lot of progress on finding out how to actually use the exhale to stabilize through the core / spine, but the next step will be to work on how to then access choices of alignment in the shoulders, as they tend to drop forward as we practice a closed rib position.
I introduced a hip bridge / waist hold prep on the ground with the foam roller behind the back - and I found that Corinne actually doesn’t have much awareness regarding where the ‘back of the base of the ribs’ is as she kept placing the foam roller underneath the shoulder blades. When we found foam roller along the base of the ribs, she expressed feeling ‘uncomfortable’ but she was able to practice closed rib positioning a little more easily and we were able to confirm that we need to strengthen the glutes and ability to thrust hips up and open more if we hope to find more success in waist holds and waist hold inverts. I’ve given her the homework of hip bridge thrust thrusty’s, lengthened hamstring isometric exercises, and practicing closed rib isolations with 360 breathing. The other big strength thing we’ll need to work on together is ‘pull strength,’ and not straightening the arms too early in an invert. We started to look at this a little with chair assisted eccentric chin up exercises in which we practiced bringing a deeper bend in elbows and trying to pull them in closer to the waist in the final ‘chin up’ position and then lowering slowly down to straight arm hang with the support of a chair.
Though Corinne can technically get herself into an inverted position, I suspect we’ll have a lot of consistent work to get to a reliably efficient invert practice, especially one we feel secure in to explore leg hooks and other inverted pole ‘tricks.’ One thing I hope to use to help with this is to get Corinne really focused on the exit from the inverts she’s able to find. Since she can get a leg to the pole, I’m encouraging her to use that leg pushing into the pole as a point of leverage to help her pull more through the back and shoulders, as well as coming down more slowly, rolling in towards the pole and trying to bend arms more as she lowers out, rather than hitting a full straight arm space and then slowly sliding down to the ground in a deeply round position.
Overall, I’m excited to see how excited both Corinne and Angel get with this material, and it’s my hope that this will translate to all the students that sign up to take my first Invert Ready course.”
Once again, our final session was focused on assessments and doing the ‘after’ videos. She had a limited time frame and had to be done within an hour, so we did a very quick and efficient warm up, then used assessments like spinal differentiation, hip hinge, and squat to continue the warm up before upping the effort in things like passive hang and chin up. I asked if she had any interest in attempting any leg hang work and she said not yet, and I asked if we could work on waist hold a little more and she requested we stick with the step swing invert for now. (I was able to talk her into one waist hold at the end, but she was tired by then and it’s obvious she gets pretty defeated pretty quickly by the waist hold exercises.) One thing that really surprised me was how much more range of motion she had in almost everything we explored once we got the ribs closed, and we learned that because her pelvis tends to hang out in an anterior tilt, it’s important to cue her into a small ‘tuck’ to give stability in the low back. (This also added to her confidence in holding spaces that required strength and effort for longer periods of time.)
The following is what I wrote after our third session together:
“Corinne, Session 3 Notes - Overall, I was really proud of Corinne and really enjoyed this process with her. I expected her to be less willing to try some of the things due to knowing her history with injuries and feeling protective over those spaces in previous classes and trainings together. I think the biggest takeaway for Corinne was learning how to make choices with positioning using spinal differentiation. We learned that her pelvis feels ‘stuck’ in an anterior tilt, and that we have to cue her to ’supervise it’ with a slight tuck in almost all of the things because if we don’t, the low back takes over and creates issues. We also learned that her lack of mobility and strength in an open hip, posterior pelvic tuck is playing a big role in her not being able to get her hips ‘high enough’ in a pole supported waist hold, even when she did a better job of not letting the hips drop when she picked up a leg in our last session. She said she really enjoyed the process overall, and that even though she didn’t get a ton of time to go through many of the exercises I gave her between sessions, she felt a lot of improvement in her inverts - saying they felt the best they’ve ever felt, even before pandemic when she took a huge break off from pole. Moving forward, we’ll continue to strengthen the glutes and back to help her connect to hips open and up as well as open up the chest and front of the body more in her inverting process. Corinne is an interesting client to work with on this material because she’s really stiff, but still lacks some strength. I hope that we can get her moving through fuller ranges of motion, lengthening out shortened and overly-contracted spaces, and build some full body coordination and efficiency as we continue to work together.”
Overall - I felt this program was extremely successful, even in this really short case-study approach. I feel really good about the material and my ability to teach it using various methods (verbal cueing, tactile cueing, visual learning, hands on adjustments, utilizing props in helpful ways, etc.) and I was honestly really surprised how much ‘technical’ stuff and anatomy stuff stuck with me this time around, as usually my brain likes to forget all that stuff and hyperfocus on creativity and dance aspects.
I really did invest myself in this process, and for the most part, I think so did both of my clients. In full honesty, I probably applied more energy and forethought into this aspect of the certification process because it felt like the most applicable and most important, and flat out it was the one I was most excited about. It was neat to see the similarities in my clients, and how those also were similarities in myself. I think it’s an interesting note to the fact that for the last couple of years, I’ve been both of their main pole instructor. I’m really excited to see what happens when I start getting clients that learned inverts elsewhere or that haven’t attempted them yet at all.
Moving forward, my plan is to offer my first Invert Ready Immersive. A 3 month program dedicated to this material and strength training for safe and efficient invert training. Both Corinne and Angel are already ‘pre-registered’ and SO EXCITED to keep working on this material. I think it’s so cool how excited people are getting about strength training and technicalities of the invert process, and I think the tangible results are a big part of that. I thoroughly enjoyed this process and I cannot wait to continue working with more folks on this content! Thank you Marlo!