Strength Gives You a Body You Can Trust: In Conversation with Sinéad Moore

For the first interview of the series, we sat down with Sinéad Moore, one of the newest additions to the WSF team. Sinéad is a personal trainer and a pole and aerial instructor, and as the conversation unfolded it became clear she is exactly the right person to make one particular case: that strength is what lets you trust your own body, whether you are holding yourself in the air on a pole or simply trying to feel capable again in everyday life.

Not a sporty kid

Sinéad is refreshingly honest that none of this came naturally. She was not a sporty child, more often one of the last picked, and an anxious teenager to boot. What changed things was a doctor suggesting she get more active. She found free yoga videos online, started moving, and noticed something: it actually made her feel better. At sixteen a friend brought her to a pole class, where she could not lift her own feet off the ground for the first three weeks. That was her introduction to the idea of strength, that if she built it, she could do remarkable things with her own body.

CrossFit came later, through a friend, and she fell for it hard. She got strong, got obsessed, and trained five days a week. She was so taken with it that she wrote her college dissertation on the impact of CrossFit on self esteem and body image, a piece of qualitative research that went on to win an award. What struck her most in that work was the gratitude people developed for what their bodies could do, rather than berating themselves for how their bodies looked.

Learning the hard way

Then came the imbalance. Training heavy CrossFit five days a week while also trying to progress in pole took its toll, particularly on her shoulders. She hurt herself chasing an advanced move called the Iron X before she had the strength to hold it. It was a lesson she took seriously enough to go back and study formally, completing a sports therapy qualification and a final year project on the shoulder injuries so common in pole dancers, and how they can be reduced.

The research backed up what her body had already taught her. Pole loads one side of the body heavily and asks you to support your entire weight in the air, often before you have prepared the tissues for that demand. As she puts it, you might not be able to lift a barbell equal to your bodyweight in a gym, yet you expect to hold that same bodyweight up on a pole and wrap yourself into difficult positions. No wonder shoulder injuries are so common. Her project ran an eight week upper body strength phase and measured the improvement, both in how much people could do and in how well they did it, and the conclusion was clear: getting stronger leaves you far better equipped to handle the demands of pole. You cannot prevent every injury, but you can reduce how often and how badly they happen.

Earn the move

One of the sharper points Sinéad makes is about what she calls a plague in the pole world right now: instructors posting difficult combinations and labelling them "beginner friendly" when normal people simply do not have that range or strength yet. Beginners see it, assume they should be able to do it, and throw themselves into movements they have no base for.

Liam draws the parallel to the CrossFit world of roughly 2010 to 2015, when people believed the way to get better at a workout was simply to keep repeating it, rather than building the underlying strength, the front squats, the presses, the strict pull ups, that would actually make the workout possible. Both sports learned the same lesson: you build the base, and you earn the move. Force it instead, and, in Sinéad's words, "your body will show you that receipt later on." Cross training, combining strength work with flexibility, is the not so secret weapon behind almost every impressive aerialist you admire.

The confidence side

If the aerialist thread is about physical trust, the other half of the conversation is about the psychological kind, and it is where the same idea shows up in a different body.

Sinéad describes working with members who arrive feeling lost and apprehensive, and watching them change. She mentions Jill, who walked in nervous and has since progressed into the Strength for Life classes, like watching someone graduate. And she describes another member, Veronica, who had lost the confidence to even go out for a walk because she no longer trusted her balance. She kept coming, stayed consistent, and weeks later reported that the difference was unbelievable: back out walking, feeling stronger, with a huge lift in her confidence. As Sinéad puts it, you come in for half an hour or an hour a few times a week, but the bleed out effect that has on the rest of your life is massive.

It is the same mechanism as the shoulder work, just expressed differently. Strength builds capability, and capability builds a trust in yourself that follows you out the door.

Who Sinéad wants to help

Asked who her ideal client is, Sinéad does not hesitate: the person who feels a little bit lost, does not know where to start, and is apprehensive about beginning at all. The person who has taken the brave, hard step of deciding to do something for themselves, often after a long time of not doing so. "You are welcome," she says. "I embrace you with open arms."

She is also launching an online follow along foundational strength program aimed at beginners and aerialists who want to build a base at home, twice a week, 35 to 45 minutes, with details coming via her Instagram, @movewithsinead.

If you have been feeling lost about where to start, that is exactly who Sinéad loves to help, and you would be in very good hands.

Book your free consultation here.

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