The REAL Guide: For Strippers, by a Stripper
A popular club in the industry has an article with the same title, touted as having been written by fitness professionals. It sounds like good advice on the surface, but it’s clear that either a man wrote it, or the club manager asked a random fitness coach for advice and they made it up based on their limited experience actually being a stripper. Let’s explore what they got right first, and then we can dive into the things that are technically correct, but miss the mark for experienced strippers.
What They Got Right
A stripper’s diet- protein, healthy fats, and complex carbs. No notes.
Consistency and rest days are important. They are important for recovery, to avoid burnout and to avoid injury!
Squats are necessary! The problem is that this entire article focuses on surface level aesthetics, not taking into account the lived experience of strippers. Squats won’t do what you want them to do aesthetically if you don’t have mobility in your hip joints, and accurate muscle lengths at rest, something that is only achieved with a combination of mobility + trigger point therapy + dynamic & static stretches. This is because other than needing correct form throughout, you also need the correct depth.
HIIT workouts make workouts quicker. This is true, and I recommend using Tabata timers to keep yourself on track and high intensity throughout the HIIT section of your workout, but HIIT isn’t the only thing that makes workouts quicker.
Compound exercises also make workouts quicker, and train your body to work synchronously while targeting more than one muscle group. For example, instead of squats as a standalone workout, I recommend traditional deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, and then sumo squats. Deadlifts workout your entire body, RDL’s focus on glutes and also help train your low back in a different plane of motion. Sumo squats have a wider stance, allowing for more depth in the squat. I would also throw in some reverse lunges for balance and stability.
Like I said before, this advice does seem to be from a fitness professional. It’s the advice that most fitness coaches would give their clients if they knew that they were strippers. But if you’ve been here a while, you know that strippers need specialized advice based on their lifestyle.
What They Got Wrong
First and foremost, the entire article focuses on aesthetics as the primary motivator. While external motivation might drive a stripper at the beginning of her career, more often than not, about 5 years in, she will begin to notice the aches and pains, the fatigue, and might not care to keep going to the gym with the same consistency. That’s when the motivation driver changes from an external focus to something internal. Functional strength training. Mobility to help with the aches and pains. Trigger point therapy to help with the stiffness and soreness in her muscles and fascia.
Is cardio important? Yes, but not only because we want to be toned. We need to be able to keep up on stage, during dances, and throughout the night.
Is strength training important? Yes, but not solely to sculpt and define muscles, but to help us with endurance throughout the shift, on stage, and in dances.
Pole dance, as a workout is not enough by itself to give you a “stripper body”. Pole dancing is the performance part of a training regimen that includes yoga, strength and conditioning, balance and stability, flexibility, and mobility trained especially for pole and aerial arts.
“Pole dancing engages your entire body”- Palomino LV
This should have gone under what they got right, because the sentence itself is correct, but they missed the mark by putting it in a section that says arm strength is the most important muscle for pole work. That is so wrong, it’s painful to see a prominent club write something that is just factually incorrect.
Pole dancing engages your WHOLE BODY! Climbing engages your inner thighs, back, and core before your arms. Yes, arms are important, but if you don’t engage your thighs, you’re sliding back down. Don’t engage your back? Your arms will tire very quickly. Don’t engage your core? You’re not moving up, down, or into a trick.
Engaging your largest muscles first in a full body workout is the key to longer endurance, functionally better form, and aesthetically beautiful and graceful movements.
Overall, a decent article, and one that I would have taken to heart had I read it before I had the knowledge I do now. Let me know what you think in the comments, and as always…
Happy Hustling babes! 💕
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