ADHD and Pole Fitness
I Have ADHD — Here’s Why Pole Fitness Was the First Exercise That Stuck I’ve had a complicated relationship with exercise for most of my life. Not because I didn’t want to be active. I did. Every January, every Monday morning, every late night redesign of my entire life in a burst of energy, every “new me” moment! I’d go through phases, all or nothing, I was always one end of the spectrum or the other. I thrived of exercise when I was consistent, but when I fell off, it was hard to get going again. It wasn’t until I was formally diagnosed with ADHD as an adult that the penny finally dropped — and even then, the diagnosis alone didn’t change things. What changed things was what came after it: applying compassion to that knowledge. No more forcing. No more shame spirals. Just gentle acceptance that my brain works differently, and maybe the answer was finding movement that worked with it, not against it. That movement turned out to be pole fitness. The Cycle I Kept Getting Stuck In If you have ADHD, this pattern might sound familiar. The gym was my most regular nemesis. I’d hyperfixate at the start — new trainers, new playlist, new programme. For a few weeks I was unstoppable. Then the novelty wore off and the whole thing felt like punishment. The same machines. The same circuit, repeated. My brain was screaming for something different and I had nothing to give it. Group classes were their own kind of hard. The noise, the crowded room, the bright lights, the overwhelm! The low-level anxiety of not knowing the unspoken rules. Of feeling like the new person. I’d spend so much mental energy managing the environment that there was nothing left for the actual workout. Every time, the same result: I’d run out of novelty, run out of steam, and quietly disappear. At the time, I had no idea this was textbook ADHD. The Second Session I Knew In 2022, I booked my first private pole lesson. I was nervous, but I chose a private 1-2-1 session specifically because I couldn’t face a class. No additional eyes watching, just me and a pole and an instructor. The first session was a revelation. But it was the second session where everything shifted. I remember thinking: I’m going to stick to this. Not “I’ll try.” Not “I’ll see how it goes.” A quiet, certain knowing that this was different. Within that same session I also thought, with complete clarity: I want to teach this one day. Two years after that first class, I took my XPERT instructor training. I haven’t looked back since. Why Pole Works for ADHD Brains Here’s what I’ve come to understand — both from my own experience and from teaching students with ADHD, autism, anxiety, and dyspraxia. Every session is genuinely new. Pole fitness has an enormous vocabulary of moves — spins, climbs, inversions, transitions, flows. You never run out of things to learn. For an ADHD brain wired to need novelty, this is everything. I have never once felt that creeping boredom that killed every other exercise habit I tried to build. It demands your full attention — and that’s actually a relief. When you’re on a pole, you can’t be half there. You’re thinking about your grip, your positioning, the mechanics of the move, where your weight needs to shift. The physical sensation is immediate and absorbing. For a brain that spends a lot of time racing ahead or getting stuck in loops, that full-body demand for presence feels like a genuine rest. Moving meditation — but one that doesn’t ask you to sit still. Progress is immediate and visible. ADHD brains struggle with distant, abstract rewards. Long-term goals just don’t fire the same dopamine response. Pole gives you short-term wins constantly. You land a move today. You feel it click. Your body knows it worked. That feedback loop is genuinely motivating in a way that “you’ll be healthier in six months” simply isn’t. There’s no one to compare yourself to. In a private session, it’s just you and your progress. Not you versus the person next to you who’s been doing it for three years. Not you versus some standard the class is moving at. Just you, where you are, building from there. The Thing I Didn’t Expect: Finding My Femininity I grew up a tomboy. I was never really at home in spaces that felt overtly feminine — I didn’t know how to inhabit that part of myself, and I’d largely stopped trying. Pole changed that in a way I genuinely didn’t see coming. There’s something about pole fitness that sits right at the intersection of strength and grace. The moves require real physical power, but the way they look — and the way they feel when you do them — is something else entirely. I remember the moment it landed for me: strong is sexy. Not in a performative way, not for anyone else. Just this quiet internal shift that my strength and my femininity weren’t separate things. They were the same thing. For the first time, I felt at home in my body — and I hadn’t even realised I’d been waiting for that until I found it. Teaching With This in Mind When I set up Pure Pole Fitness, I didn’t set out to create a specifically neurodiverse-friendly space. I just built the studio I’d have wanted to walk into. Private. Calm. No pressure. Completely personalised. A place where your pace is the only pace that matters. But as I’ve taught more students — many of whom have ADHD, autism, anxiety, dyspraxia, or sensory sensitivities — I’ve realised that what I’ve built is exactly what a lot of neurodivergent people have been looking for without necessarily knowing how to ask for it. I teach the way I do because I’ve lived the alternative. I know what it’s like to feel like every fitness space was designed
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