Class #1118

Athletic Ladder Barrel

20 min - Class
69 likes

Description

Amy teaches an athletic Ladder Barrel class that works the front, side, and back of your body. She focuses on lengthening the abdominals while working them so they aren't always compressed. With exercises like the Roll Over and Climb a Tree with Leg Circles, you will definitely feel the length in your body.
What You'll Need: Ladder Barrel

About This Video

Jul 10, 2013
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Transcript

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Hi there, this is Amy and I have Andy with me. We're going to do some, I'm giving him some, a short box and some back extension and some stretching on the ladder barrel. And you just did a wonder chair session so he's pretty warm. Um, but if you're doing this and not as warm, I would just take it kind of slow. Go deep with your breathing and we're going to get started. So he'll fold his arms, his feet are flex and they're hooked up into the top of the ladder rung and he's gonna right away. Just connect to lengthening the space between pelvis and ribcage without a shoulders going up.

And he'll take an exhale to round back in the first round back. Basically just kind of to the lower rib cage here on the barrel and Yep, pause, breathe in length in your abs and curl. So there's continuing linkedin curl, linkedin curl, linkedin curl. He says yes and sitting tall. Same thing. So abdominal mo work doesn't always have to be so compressive as we know here is that length with strength. So as he's coming up, it's not getting shorter, is lengthening to curl.

That was really nice and sitting tall. You're going to progress that if you want to or a stay with that one roll back again. Let the back meet the barrel. Now I want you to go further over, so the back muscles now start to play with the ABS. Notice he straightened his legs. His feet are hooked. He's going to get us good stretch out of his hip flexors. He's reaching back.

That feels good for him. You could take your arms long if you wanted to like that. Now again, lengthen. Start to bring your arms towards you. Chin toward chest length and curl. Press off that barrel. Begin to bend your knees and round. Round, round. One more time. Great. And curl arms overhead. Yep, sure.

Excellent. Lengthening all the way through legs, hips, abs, upper back. He's going to take his, even. Maybe an arm circle with your arms would be fine. Yup, and it's going to bring it torso up. It's got really nice curl again, length and curl lacks in those shoulders. Now a little transition for Andy.

I'm going to have him put his hands on the ladder by his feet and move your hips back, Suzy. Adding more hamstring stretch during these transitions and Guinea's pretty warm so the body's kind of melted into stretching. Nice. Okay, beautiful. So a flat back will be next. And again, nicey SCO scooting forward pretty well in line with this first screw there. Now I want you to take your arms up and do a little thumb in there and just reach for a second. Even if your arms come close to your head. Yeah.

And stretch up and stretch and stretch. Lean forward, just a titch and even more of this feel. Okay. So the same thing. Flat back leg. Stay bent here and leaning back and forward and come now forward a little more. So you're lengthening up, out of the waist and come forward. Forward, forward yet and again. Perfect. And if you wanted to go further, good, Andy. I'm short, but I'm going to try to get him to touch forward. Forward. Good.

And then again, this one could be the bigger one. So if you wanted to start, you could then allow your legs to begin straightening and Linkedin just, yeah. Huh. He's incredibly strong. So he can do it. He's going to add that back bend. Now when you come up, think long horizontal line arc in a vertical line. Excellent. I don't think we need more of those. Do the hand one more. He says go ahead. Incredible. So stomach working with back, back, working with stomach. Everything active. The front body, the back body again, the hip extension there, the hip flexor stretch. Come up.

Long lift. Lift again. Strong them. Hands to the bar. Screw your hips back for the hamstring stretch. Okay. And bring the ABS way back in here to the low back. Good Andy. Okay, next to side bend. Great. Um, no, let's stay parallel. And just as stay facing forward would actually you. Yeah, you'll be, you'll love this. So hands backup, you might choose to change it there. So lean it forward again. Okay, so the side band is trunk flection. Choose the side to side bend to a bend there.

So the bed, this is a tricky one because that opposite hip might like to lift, right? And as he stretches to the left, this side, we want to keep down reach and Ben and reach and I'll get off one more here. One on his own. Lean forward a little bit there. Stay there so that lean forward. I don't know if he caught that. Then I want this opposite side. Back to really flower, open and expand. So leaning forward helped you. Can you open the left ribs more? Good, Andy there? I'm sorry. Center leaning forward.

So it's this right lower back quadrant. Do you feel the difference? Yes. Okay, fantastic. Now no hamstring stretch. We'll get back to it. We're going to do a twist. So same thing. Arms Up, feet still flex to lean forward a little again to this direction yet. Now twist either. Okay. You're going to lengthen out on that diagonal toward here.

If you wanted to straighten your legs, you could. I think I trust you. Good now as you lengthen out. Yup. Go Up, up, up, up, up, twist to the other side. You would not have to take your client this far or yourself this far. He's again really, really strong. He knows his body well. I think he knows his limitations and challenge places. Twist good. Linkedin more. Linkedin, the waist for spine, spine, spine.

Then coming up. That's it. And then come forward. Just a titch there, twist and last one. Keep a little more weight on your right hip. Yes. Good. And uh, and now the transitional hamstring stretch again. Fantastic. Next will be the tree. Just one on each side with a little leg circle inside of there. So we are going to secure that for Andy's foot. Okay. One foot stays flexed, I'll show you. You're like, yes.

So up with the leg. Good. Now straighten that knee and bend and straighten in. Bend. One more. Straightened hold. Walk your hands to your ankle. Good. Now hold for me. Hold on. Stay there breathing. Now instead of just going way back, flex forward first nose to me now. That's it. Now this puts solid. Now take your tree back.

You might even need to bring your hips forward for a little more security. I just don't know. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's it. So the flection first there. Now, where's the length in your waist? That's it. Take that in. Reach the tree back. There's that beautiful vertical line. He doesn't need to go any further than that. Walk in the hands down.

It's up to you. How far you want to arch over Andy? Good. Now could you do a leg circle there like Matt? Work two or three times. Good. Two and three other direction. Beautiful. Two and three. Circle your arms around to your leg. Bring the abs into it. Remember length up, length, the curl length in the curl. Beautiful.

Amny and down. Awesome. Other side feel? Okay, nice. Okay, so long waist, straighten and bend and straighten. And Ben, last one hands. Do the ankle. Breathe in first. Body flexes toward the leg. If you wanted to, Shimmy your hips forward a little for more contact point here and then you're walking your tree back. Good. A vertical line with your leg and then walking your hands down, stretching the opposite size, getting that in. Good hip extension again. Okay, here he goes.

One circle around and two circle around and three is very challenging to hold his hips and balance. Other way. Huh? Good. Andy. Two more open. Circle up. Circle the arms out around. Catch the back of the thigh. Walk up with length curl. Good. Put that foot back underneath the ladder. Run another hamstring.

Stretch forward. So you're much more limber. You're getting with each one of these. Yeah. Great. You can even put your hands under your calves if you wanted to, or the second ladder rung. Good. Okay. Time for some side sit ups now. So come on off the barrel from that position. You can turn it face the front and we'll do you want that? Okay, so top foot is going to hook here.

Bottom foot will be on the bottom ladder rung. Okay. Yeah. Now what I want you to think about, here's this straight leg, this inner thighs active, right? That really solid to your heel. This leg is turned out without letting the pelvis fall back and then that same hand hold like so and stretch out. I'm going to just do something with you. So there's a really good long horizontal line when you come up, think horizontal arc and then try to hit vertical. Good.

And again, so hard without this, you know, this hip wants to just change. Yes. Only one more. Only one. The the Standing Lincoln help stand on it. Stand. Reach out of it. Up and other side. Fantastic. Yes. And you know, it could have done something different with your legs, but this, this is hard. This is good. This is challenging. Which is, yeah.

What would, what would you have done different? I'm not telling you. All right. So yeah, I know three right? Lengthen first. Explore the arch up and vertical and stand on that left thigh leg. You use those adductors. Fantastic. So I've got my hand on his pelvis, one on the incentives, right knee to try to help him hold that form, which he's doing quite well with and rest. Great. Okay. We're getting close to it.

We're going to have you do a side stretch. Oh, he's doing another stretch of his zone. That's fantastic. Yeah. So another side position, I'll have you stand firm out here. Get up on your hip, on the side, and your hands will hold the ladder rung this way or the ladder. Yeah. And so top hand will be this guy. This one will probably go here or the last one. And can underhand grip. Yeah.

Okay. So we're going to start you with your legs together first and give me, there you go. Now Roll your top pelvis forward a bit. It's hard to orient ourselves sideways here. I would love for you to bring your body, your upper body up a little bit. Good. Okay. Now scissors.

Andy slowly take one leg back when they formed a hold and scissor, the other set once again and once again. Now try going into bicycle. It's a little funky. The balance is challenging steel. Explore the stretch from head out through your toes. Pause. Go the other way. So try to reach the foot back to me. Reach and reach. You know, I'm here. One more. Each side.

Reach and reach like together. Now let me give you a side stretch. And so lower the legs toward the floor. Start to slide your hip towards your feet. And as if you're going to almost put your feet on the ground, but not quite. My objective here is to try to give you a stretch through your hip.

Does that feel okay? Yeah. And ribs and he's going to breathe and then keeps sliding down. So your feet land on the ground. Transition. Roll to your tummy. Yeah. And then you'll approach the second side. Better side. Yeah. All right. So yeah, the look, just bring your bottom ribs up a little bit. That's it. Okay.

So this is your top leg goes back and it, Yup. Trying to emphasize whichever leg goes back, which is really hard. Especially this part bicycle. So I'm back here. Now start to bicycle. You got it. Reach, pause. Other way. Back Pedal. Yup.

And I'm a right here. Reach one more each side. Reach where? Reach from the hip. That's gorgeous. Legs together. And then slowly start to slide this hip off. Melt yourself into ooey gooey. Stretch across the it band, the glutes, the obliques, that lapse and end up with your feet on the floor. Andy, role to your tummy.

Good. One more stretch. You're going to come up to standing and you will turn around with your pelvis, the back of you facing the back. And I'm going to stand like this just in case our barrel slides, you're going to do a backbend. Your hands will be than holding the ladder Guinea's very strong. He doesn't have any back problems. As you can see, wide grip for any is great cause his shoulders are fairly broad. Okay, you're doing all right.

So what I'd love to you for you to do this is really intense sister. Bring your legs out and up to the sky and he's going to do a really slow rollover. Okay. This is pretty advanced. Awesome. He went for it. So yeah, I was going to have him do this with toes tucked there, which he did. Can you do it again? Yeah. Okay. Slow Peel. He's limber enough.

Most people, you know, men especially is really intense hold right there. So there's a little push with the feet. Really try and get the length in cass, hamstrings. Good. You want to try something fun? One leg up hold. Extend the hip. Fantastic. And chain slowly with control. You could also change legs up in the air, but we're going to do it there. Can that knee extend? Nice, Sandy.

Good reach, excellent and foot down. You satisfied? You want another one changing? Yeah, he's going to change in the air. Okay, so this change in the air, he knows his body well strong. Tommy is very strong. Do you need me here? Okay. Be careful. Right?

So what I want you to do then for bringing this to join the other pause. Roll your spine down. Start reaching your sacrum from the barrel. Yep. Good. Nice. Lower the legs reaching out. This is his last moment of glory there, Andy. Excellent. Okay. Feet down to the ground.

Chin to chest. Hang out for there. If you want to. No roll down. Touch the toes. Keep your bum against the ladder. And last stretch for Andy for his hamstrings. He's just going to take three to five breaths. Good athletic ladder. Barrel session. Great model.

And you can roll yourself up. He's going to roll on up while [inaudible]. How do you feel? Fantastic. Yay. Thanks Sandy. Cool.

Comments

Beautiful class, Amy. This will have to me my next piece of equipment for my studio. The small arc on the reformer has to do for now....:(
Incredible control - gorgeous!
Glorious! So glad to have another ladder barrel class. Great cueing of length and strength, Amy.
1 person likes this.
Thanks everyone! Andy is truly wonderful to work with and is very strong so some of the things in this class may need to be modified for other students/clients. Glad you all enjoyed it! I have another ladder barrel class coming soon, similar, but it's me only and I do a few other exercises on it. Stay tuned!!
Raymond Harris
Thank you Amy, it was a great session. Andy, it is always a joy to watch you work, your an inspiration and very strong. Love Pilates with strength! Thanks guys!
Thank you Raymond! Keep up the great work yourself....we need more men to represent!!! Thanks for commenting!
How cool was this Amy?!?!? I never even thought of bicycle, don't know why..I felt like a dork, confusing for me to do perched up on the barrel. Thanks for the Sunday morning workout!
Amy.. you never cease to please!! I've just done this workout with Andy! Shame I wasn't in the same studio as you guys ... maybe next time :) Awesome class, thank you both
Hi Anita....thank you! I'd love to have you in the studio with me sometime.....let's make it happen!! Thanks for your support and your comments!

So smart and well designed. One of the best ladder barrel I've seen!
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