Exotic Pole Floorwork in Heels: How to Look After Your Wrists and Knees

Floorwork in heels is hard on the wrists because so many moves put your body weight through a hand that's bent back, often while the heels make it harder to use your feet and legs. You can make it much kinder by warming the wrists up first, spreading your fingers and pressing through them, shifting weight back towards your knees, using fists or forearms on sore days, and protecting your knees with kneepads so you don't catch yourself on your hands. If the top of your wrist keeps pinching, or a knee swells up, ease off and get it checked.

I love teaching exotic floorwork, and I also see what it does to students' wrists and knees when they jump straight into a long combo on a cold floor. Here's how I set it up so you can roll, slide and spin for years.

Why does floorwork hurt your wrists?

Most floorwork happens on all fours, on one hand, or in a lean where a hand takes part of your weight. In all of those, the wrist is bent back as far as it goes, and the weight pushes it further. The back of the wrist can get squashed in that position, which is why so many dancers feel a pinch on the top of the wrist rather than an ache in the forearm. Our guide to wrist pain when the wrist is bent explains that position in more detail.

Heels add another layer. Tall platforms make it harder to push off with your feet and slower to get up and down, so you end up leaning on your hands more in transitions. They also make you heavier at the ankle, so a leg swing or a slide can pull you further than you planned, and a hand often shoots out to catch you.

Which floorwork moves load the wrists most?

This is a rough guide to what your wrists are doing in the most common floorwork families and how to make each one gentler.

How should you place your hands on the floor?

Small changes in how your hand meets the floor take a lot of load off the joint. Try these in your warm-up so they're automatic by the time you're in your combo.

• Spread your fingers wide and press through the base of your fingers and your fingertips, as if you were gently gripping the floor. That spreads the weight across the whole hand instead of dumping it in the heel of the palm.
• Turn your fingers slightly out if straight ahead pinches. Many people find a small angle much more comfortable.
• Keep your shoulders over or a little behind your wrists in slow movements. The further your shoulders travel past your hands, the more the wrist bends.
• Soften your elbows instead of locking them, so your arms act as springs.
• Raise the heel of your hand on the edge of a folded mat for drilling, which makes the bend smaller.
• Use fists or forearms on sore days. A fist keeps the wrist straight, and many body rolls and crawls look just as good from the forearms.

Do you need kneepads and a mat for floorwork?

Kneepads are one of the best things you can buy for floorwork, and they protect your wrists as well as your knees. When your knees feel safe, you stop throwing your hands down to save yourself at the end of a slide. Kneeling puts direct pressure on the front of the knee, and the NHS page on bursitis lists repeated kneeling as a common trigger for a swollen, sore knee, with padding as a simple way to lower the risk.

Some kneepads are made to slide on a studio floor and others have a grippy surface, so try them on the floor you'll dance on. A mat is lovely for drilling body rolls, splits and slow transitions, but it stops slides, so most dancers drill on the mat and then take the movement to a clean, dry floor. Long leggings or leg warmers protect your shins and the tops of your feet too, and our guide to what to wear to pole class covers the rest of your kit.

How do you warm up your wrists for floorwork?

Your wrists need their own warm-up before floorwork, and a cold studio makes that even more important. This takes about eight minutes and you can do it in your heels.

1. Wrist circles, 1 minute. Slow circles in both directions with your fingers relaxed. It should feel easy and smooth.
2. Prayer and reverse prayer, 1 minute. Palms together in front of your chest, lower them slowly until you feel a gentle stretch, then turn the backs of the hands together. Mild stretch only.
3. Fist to spread, 30 seconds. Make a soft fist, then spread your fingers as wide as you can, quickly and repeatedly. Your forearms should feel warm.
4. All-fours rocks, 2 minutes. On your hands and knees, rock slowly forward over your hands and back towards your heels, 10 times with fingers forward, 10 with fingers turned out and 10 on fists. It should feel like a mild stretch, never a pinch.
5. Palm lifts, 1 minute. Still on all fours, lift the heels of your hands so only fingers and knuckles touch, then lower. Do 10 slow ones.
6. Knee and hip circles, 1 minute. Standing, circle each knee gently and then your hips, so your legs are ready to kneel and slide.
7. Ankle rolls in your heels, 1 minute. Hold the pole and roll up onto the balls of your feet and down again a few times so your ankles are ready for the shoes.

For a longer version, our 10-minute wrist warm-up for pole and aerial gives you the full routine, and warming up in a cold studio helps on winter evenings.

Masha's tip: Learn every new floor combo barefoot or in trainers first, and only put the heels on once you know where your hands go. Most wrist knocks I see happen when someone is learning the steps and managing the shoes at the same time.

Do wrist wraps help with floorwork?

This is one of the places where wraps really earn their keep. In body rolls, crawls, floor spins and anything on all fours, a firm compression wrap gives the joint a supported, held feeling and keeps it warm through a long session. For floorwork the wrap needs to sit low on the joint without bunching into the bend of the wrist, and a lower 6 cm width tends to feel less in the way when the hand is flat on the floor. If you like more coverage for weight-bearing work, the 8 cm width covers more of the wrist.

Wraps don't fix a wrist that's already sore and they don't replace the warm-up or the hand placement above. Floor dust and sweat build up quickly, so give them a hand wash after a floorwork-heavy week, and our guide to washing wrist wraps shows how.

When should you stop and get your wrist or knee checked?

A tired wrist after a long floor session usually settles in a day or two. Please see a doctor or physio if:

• The top of your wrist pinches every time you put weight on it and it isn't getting better after about two weeks.
• You have numbness, tingling or weakness in your hand.
• You fell on your hand and the wrist is swollen, bruised or misshapen.
• A knee becomes swollen, warm or red, or the swelling hasn't settled after a week or two of rest.
• You have a high temperature along with a hot, swollen joint, which the NHS says needs medical advice.

If your wrist is already sore, our guide to training with a sore wrist shows what you can keep doing while it settles, and wrist pain from pole dancing covers the bigger picture.