Classical Ladder Barrel

Hi. I'm Lessa Logan. And in this lateral workout, we're gonna do a more all levels workout. However, if any of these exercises make you a little nervous on top of a lateral, you're welcome to do them on a spine corrector. When you work out with me, it's really important that you know. Brave and courageous to replace what you can't do yet with something that you can. So feel free if something gets a little more challenging to repeat something from this workout.

And you can use parts of this workout as a warm up or a cool down. So we're gonna get started with the ab series and the hundred on top of the ladder barrel. So you're gonna hop on up. You're gonna slide on down, get your hips all the way to the edge. You want your spine on the peak of the barrel. And then I like to use my hands here to make sure I'm nice and even before I send my legs out.

And then my arms get between your hips and your knees and start to pump your arms. You inhale for five and you exhale for five. And you might need your legs a little higher, but you can play with how low they can go without your low ribs coming off of that barrel. And you're gonna breathe in and pump your arms from the back. And if you lean to one side on your mat hundred, you're gonna realize it real quick because you don't wanna do that here.

It really forces you to work that side that might not be plain evenly with all with all of our muscles. Couple more cycles of breathing here. Last one. Pull those knees into your chest. You need to sit up for a little break you can. Otherwise, we're gonna lean back down, breaks over. One knee and one leg out single leg stretch.

We're just gonna do three of each without a break. Here we go. One, two, pull pull. And if you need a break, obviously, you sit up and join me when you're ready. Last set double leg stretch, reach your legs out to the high diagonal, arms up overhead, circle the arms around, pull those knees in two times to get that exhale. Inhale everything out.

Exhale everything in in. Inhale everything out. Exhale pull those knees in in. Single straight leg, pull pull switch, and pull pull. So use your stomach to have that leg pull into you a second time while your arms pull from the back. Alright. Double straight leg stretch.

Hands can be on the front of your ladder barrel or behind your head. As you lower and lift both legs, you might not go as low as you normally do on the mat. Last one. Alright. Bring your knees into your chest. Put your hands behind your head if they're not already. Crisscross, go slow.

Twist armpit to knee. It's very tempting because you're a little worried about falling off to do elbow to knee. But try to pull that knee in and get your armpit to the knee one more time you decide. Let's sit on up. That's a workout in itself. Now, we're gonna stand inside of our ladder barrel.

And just so you know, wherever your ladder barrel needs to be is based on the length of your femur. So once you measured your barrel to being a a femur distance from the ladder, you're good to go. You're gonna take this leg across your body onto the ladder barrel this barrel part, and then bend your knee flex your foot. So we start with a little, like, pigeon stretch, if you will. I like to bend and straighten my standing leg just to make sure I'm not leaning in that hip. And then once I know I'm in my standing leg glute, with a flex foot on this right leg, I'm gonna round forward and roll it up. You can even do a little swan at the top.

So a lot of people like to do this. As an ending, I really like it to warm myself up sometimes. So I'll do a third one because it really helps us bring our leg into the workout. Right? Our legs, I should say. Slide the leg to straight. And then push that leg down so that it's you're activating the hamstring here. It's gonna feel like that single straight leg stretch.

And then again, round forward and roll up. If you wanna even have these arms just, like, kinda be behind you but not touching, it will challenge your balance. So the standing leg is working a lot. You should feel like that glute is kind of on fire. Now this part is extra credit, but try. I'll take my arms up and then you slide and slide. So I'm using the standing leg to slide me forward, and then my center to pull me back. Slide and slide. If you're sticky, you might need a catal underneath your calf, but here we go. Once you've done that, you're like, nailed it.

Then without using Just your quad, try to use your whole stomach, lift the leg. One, two, three, take it across the barrel, and then turn. Use your hands to turn on your standing leg. So now you're standing leg is at a 45 degree angle to the corner of your barrel. Bend that leg that's on the barrel, push your foot into it, and then your inside arm is gonna grab the top wrong, the outside arm is gonna go up and over. Oh, standing that standing leg, and then we side bend the other way. So This one's not my favorite stretch, but that's probably because I need it.

Right. We don't like what we need. After three of these, we do the straight leg one, which is so nice. And it'll be a nice little relief of this. So slide your leg out to straight, and then same thing. Push that leg down.

Oh, every time I do that, I get a nice little hip adjustment, and then side bend over. And it's tempting to kinda linger and make this about the stretch. But I want you to make it about the legs, is are both your legs actually reaching in to the floor or to the barrel? Okay. Now we have that extra credit here, and I'll be really honest, we might think about it together. So we're gonna slide this leg forward and pull it back and slide it forward and pull it back and slide it forward and pull it back.

And again, that lift is supposed to come from underneath here. I'll show you what I do. I take my hand to the barrel, my other hand to the rung, and I just think about reaching into my standing leg, and I lift this leg one, two, three, and then I turn. And I promise you I don't use my fingers too much, but it makes it like a little more like achievable. Right? So it is a cheat though.

We have to acknowledge that we do a little cheat together. Take your bent knee. Sorry. Your standing leg, you're gonna bend it a few times. The foot that's on the barrel, what it's tempting is to lean back towards your heel. I want you to push your hip forward so that you're really opening the front of your hips.

They're even, and then this bent knee needs to stay in line with the standing leg. We don't want it back here or over here, and just push into that foot and then straighten this lady a little extra stretch. Last one. Awesome. Slide that foot down, make do the exact same thing on the other side. So again, go across the body, onto the barrel, flex the ankle, and we round.

And very quickly, you will see what your legs needs us more. And feel free to start with that leg next time. And then hit pause to give it an extra an extra go, or at the end of this workout, give it an extra go because our side that needs more attention should get a little extra reps. Alright. Straight in the leg. Same thing. Round forward.

Spine stretch forward. Roll up. Little baby swan. And I mean baby swan. I mean, like, upper back, not like your neck as a pez dispenser or your lower back is shoving forward. After this one, stand up tall, and then you're gonna slide that leg forward and pull it back.

Turn not to use your hands. This one, we shouldn't cheat on. Okay. It's a little more possible. So I forward and back. And you can lift those arms up sometimes that makes it easier. And then we're gonna lift that leg one, two, three, take it across, turn out, and put that leg up there.

Here we go. This is my other side. If there's ever a quiz, which side is Leslie's side, the left one? Right. What's yours? What's that other side for you? So we side bend and we side bend. And, you know, and Pilates Joe gave us five amazing spine shapes, and I like that the ladder barrel does a lot of side bending options.

We don't get them in a lot of other pieces. So slide that leg to straight. And you wanna push it down. It's gonna help with the pelvis. Right? And then this leg, if you have to bend and straighten a few times to just bring that glute into the party, you can, and we do it again. Side. Oh. And when we say side bend, it's really tempting to go into the stretch of the outside, which does feel good.

What I want you to focus on is the stretch of the inside. How tall can I make the side of going towards? So we don't collapse. And if you're like me and the space between your ribs and your hips is negligible, It makes it more fun too. Alright. Now, here's that thinking about sliding. Thinking about sliding. Thinking about like, oh, oh, we did it. Okay.

So now fingertip cheat. If you want, if you're like, I'm against cheating. Well, then, by all means, have fun thinking about it. Here we go. I'm gonna take my little fingers here and here, and one, two, three. And now we bend and straighten our standing leg to get this quad stretch. And you'll see in a minute why I liked this in the beginning, because now that my muscles are stretched around my hip, and my quad is stretched, the rest of this workout's gonna feel like so much more possible. Right?

So knees together, take a deep breath in, and out. Okay. Grab some light weights. I prefer one pound weights. Okay? I know some people wanna do this more. I promise you one is enough. And then you're going to put your hips on the barrel, and then your feet can be on any one of these rungs. So, like, they could be on the lower rungs and be on the higher rungs. When you do the arm series, this is from your spine corrector, And if you've been working on bigger backbends, this is your homework.

So I like to put my feet on that bottom one so I can just push down more and keep my hips nice and open. And you wanna put yourself on this barrel where It doesn't feel like you're choking in your neck. Right? Then take your weights up to the ceiling. Take a few breaths and let your back melt around the barrel. So can you become the shape of this barrel? So your hips aren't just hanging, but they're like actively pushing into the barrel.

And your upper back isn't just hanging off. It's actively pulling back into the barrel. You're trying to become the barrel. And then you take your arms overhead on it inhale, exhale circle the arms around over the hips, and then bring it back up inhale. And exhale.

And it's tempting to flip the radius. Yes, I'm talking anatomy on your arms. If you can, try to circle inside the shoulder. So instead of the arms flipping around, The right, can you reach the arms up and then have the hands stay in the same rotation at the at the as you circle? It's harder. It's a little more complicated, but it makes you work your arm circles from your upper back.

Now we reverse. You're gonna exhale as your arms go down, inhale as your arms go out to the side and up, and then exhale and then inhale overhead. Exhale. So inhales actually naturally pull you into a little bit of extension, so that is the method. To the madness there.

Alright. With your arms up to the ceiling, inhale, take your right arm overhead, your left arm down by your hips. Exhale, lift the arms up, inhale switch. The arm overhead is doing swimming, it's doing a swan. The arm down by your hip is doing a chest expansion. It's not just hanging, and use your breath to see if you can get longer. Alright. Turn your palms to face each other when they're even. So they're up to the ceiling.

Inhale open the arms wide to the side like a hug. Exhale stay there. So that's why you want one pound weights. I promise it feels better. And then inhale, lift the arms.

Now be careful. It's tempting to bend your elbows too soon. Keep the arms straight until the elbows cross. Bend them. Pull them down towards your center and your head back. Exhale. So it's a double breath. We inhale open. Exhale, stay open.

Inhale close, other arm is gonna come on top. Hopefully, you remember. Elbow over elbow, bend the elbows, pull the elbows towards your center as your head reaches back. Inhale open, exhale, stay open. Inhale close, elbow over elbow, exhale. One more. Exhale, big stretch. Alright. Place your weights in one hand.

Grab your own head and kind of curl on up. Roll up. That should feel so good. Switch your weights out for a handy dandy pull. Okay? And then you're gonna go right back into it. Hopefully, it feels a little easier to go into that extension. It should feel like like a welcome home, or maybe you can get even deeper. Right? Take the bar overhead.

And then same thing, inhale overhead. And an extra pulse on that inhale, exhale the arms come down to the hips. Inhale. Hopefully, you feel every part of your entire back working this extension. Right? Cause when we do big back bends, the whole back is bending, not we're not two pieces.

Right? If you wanna do rocking, this is homework. If you wanna do hybrids on the reformer, here you go. Last one. Alright. Hold on to the pole with one hand. Grab your head and roll on up. Let's put that to the side. We'll grab it in a bit for our Shortbox series, but before we do that, I love to do a little baby swan, because now your back is nice and open. Right? So a baby's one, you're gonna take your heels up onto the frame of your ladder barrel and your hips are gonna go on the barrel.

Then you're gonna interlace your hands behind your head, and then you're gonna round over the barrel. Now if you want to make it a little harder, you can actually take your feet onto the bottom two rungs, like you'd be doing swan. So it's really up to you, but I really love this because you should feel the hamstrings that we woke up from our stretches. So hands behind your head, push your head into your hands, hands into your head. And then reach the crown of your head forward, get into a nice tall back, and then lift your heart up. So we're not shoving the lower back into the barrel, and then pull your stomach up and round down. And again, lift the head, Reach yourself into a nice tall back, and then a little backbend and pull in. It's easy to use your lower back.

I am notorious for. It's something I'm still working on. So be kind to yourself. We're all in a practice here. Awesome.

Okay. Come on down. And now grab your pole, and I like to put it just kind of right here at my ladder. So it's easy access once we do our short box series. So you'll place your feet ideally on the second rung and not flexing your feet. I know a lot of you wanna hold on with your toes, but I promise you this works better if you don't.

So you're on your arches kinda like doing footwork on the reformer footwork arches. Feet are parallel and her hips isn't apart, and then your hips are off that apex. Okay? You wanna be where your the apex hits your lower back. Wrap your arms around your waist, sit nice and tall in your round shape, and then round back. And I know it's a little scarier. Like, why are my feet not hooked? Because they're pushing down, so you can use the back of your legs, and you can go back as far as feels comfortable. Right? And then you'll roll up and you'll come up.

If this is too much of your hip flexors, you have those other rung. So please use them. But push into your legs, not so much that your hips slide along the barrel, but just enough so you have opposition. Right? We talk about that employees all the time. We're working against ourselves. The head is working away from the feet, and then roll it back up.

One more time. Round it back. Try to get your thoracic spine to hit the barrel before your head. And that way, you know you're not doing it from your neck. And then roll it all the way back up.

Now you get to sit on top of the apex and grab your pull. Hold as wide as you can with straight wrists. Look straight ahead. I like to pick something on the wall to look at. Make sure the arms aren't behind you.

So bring them, slide in front of your ears, sitting nice and tall, stand in the back, stand the backs of your legs, and then lean back and lift up. So you might not go as far as you do on the reformer, but that's actually not the goal here. It's like, how tall can I be though? Can I get taller to go back? And taller to come up. One more time. Lean it back.

If you can see your ceiling, you're not looking ahead. You want I promise you when you look at your ceiling, it gets really scary. Just look at the wall, and look at the wall. Stay nice and tall here. We'll do one side to side.

This should feel very welcomed from all of the stretches we did. Sand those legs side over to the right, do it again to the left. And lift it back up. Alright. Now we'll add our twist in.

So when we twist, if your knees are not at the same spot, you know you did it from your hips. So that's why I love a ladder barrel twist and reach it really teaches a lot. So the feet and knees stay exactly where they are, so do your hips, you twist, and then you lean, and you come up, and then you twist, and you lean, and you lift. So if your hips are sliding around the barrel, Something's not going right. Please keep your hips where they are and move your spine. And it's hard, right? Because we're like, I sure to go further, and we, so we tend to straighten the legs, but you wanna do it from the center.

And now we're gonna go around the world. So we twist, we lean, We open up, we twist, and we come up, and that's a marathon twist to the other side. First, lean, circle around, stand in your feet, and lift So good. Put your bar down. Slide back to where you were for your short box round, and then bring one knee into your chest. Hold the back of that leg.

And so as tall as you can, straighten and bend. So this should feel easier after those standing stretches. And after the third time, walk up your leg to your ankle and pull your head to your knee and pull your waist back. So your lower back should be on that apex, stand in the foot that's on the rung and walk down for your tree. And then walk up. Now I go into full extension. You do not have to do that.

There is actually no award that you'll get when you're there. It's just where your practice is. And especially if this is your first time doing tree here and you feel a little nervous, you might stop sooner, and that's okay. Right? You wanna go where your body is saying it's okay. I'm pushing into my foot so that I feel nice and anchored, and then roll it back up, big stretch, switch legs, grab the other side, And something you wanna make sure of is that your foot is still in line with the hip, it's easy for it to go across on that bar, straighten and bend. And then walk up, head towards your knee, and walk down.

This leg that's to the ceiling is not resting. It's trying to touch it. Right? And that will help you because if it's just kinda hanging there, then it might feel like the weight of that leg is with your upper body. The weight of that leg is reaching up to the ceiling, so it's allowing your upper body to have some freedom to extend. Last one. Alright.

This is where we'll do some side sit ups. So a couple things. You can do your side sit ups with your feet down here. I want you to know that that's an option. Okay? I'm not gonna do them down there, but you can if that's what you need to do. Just make sure your top foot is back. Otherwise, we're gonna go up here.

And this bottom foot is somewhere in the middle of the bottom rung, and The leg is a straight or as bent as you need it. When my my side of my leg was really tight, I had to do a bent leg. It kinda felt like I was gonna fall off the barrel, but I'm at a point where I can do a straight leg. Okay? Your top foot is turned out just like it was in those stretches, and it can be forward back, somewhere in the middle, wherever feels good to you. Alright. Then we're standing in these legs.

Hands go behind the head, and we're gonna go down, up and over the barrel, and back up. And up and over the barrel, look at all these side bends we have, and up and over the barrel, and reach. One more. Alright. Let's do our other side.

And again, if you found one side needs a repeat, make sure it gets it after you've done both sides. So hands behind your head, shoulders out of your ears, use your legs to side bend. I like to breathe. And if you're like, when do I breathe? Just holding your breath. So just find a good time to exhale.

It makes the exercises easier. Awesome. Okay. Now let's do a couple of a mat exercises to see how that sharp box helped you. So these are a little bit made up, but you can do a lot of mat exercises on the ladder barrel. So I'm gonna have you take your legs onto the rung, and I'm just gonna straighten my legs.

So I'm kinda sitting on that apex, maybe a little bit behind, and then I'm pushing my feet. And if you wanna hook your toes here a little bit, you can, but not so much. Right? Like, that's not what's holding you up. You're reaching. Then take your arms in front of you, and then do your spine switch for it from the mat. And can you feel all that short box work?

Two more? I just like to see, like, how the system works together. Right? Because otherwise, why are we doing a bunch of different exercises? It's because we're doing them all to make sure we get better with those ones that are tend to be on our list we don't like. Like saw. So the legs will stay wide on that ladder barrel.

Tharms will go wide the side, and you'll twist like you did for twist and reach, but this time you'll round, reach for the opposite edge of that ladder, come up in the twist unwind. If you feel one of your feet getting light on, the bars. It's because you're twisting from your hips. So I kinda love the feedback that this gives. Again, to the right, reach, and to the left. Now you can repeat that one, or you bring your legs together for a spine twist. No bending. We just sit nice and tall, reach into your legs, twist to the right, twist a little bit deeper, and a little bit deeper, and a little deeper, and unwind, and twist and to sit a little deeper, and a little deeper.

Oh my goodness. One more time each way. So it's not that we're trying to become an owl, but we are trying to see how much can we twist from our spine versus our hips. Awesome. Okay. Swann.

So I love Swan here. It's one of my favorite places do it. You can always do that swann properly we're doing or just half of the swann. You'll take your feet on those first two rungs he'll see other toes apart. And then you wanna take your waist over this, like, the apex of the barrel because you want it to stretch your back. Alright?

Then your arms are gonna reach, by your ears. Now it's really easy to hang them, like, feel how relaxed you are, or to make them too high, and now you're into your upper traps. So see if you can find your shoulders on your back and then activate them around the level of your ears. And then the first one, we actually don't slide at all. We're just going to lift our center up and do a big backbend over the ladder. Then you're gonna come over into your superhuman stance, straighten your legs from the back of your legs, and then you do a little backbend.

It's not huge. The knees don't bend. You won't see the ceiling. And then you're gonna pull your center in, and around forward and slide down. And again, so stand in the back of your legs, reach your arms by your ears, And now lead your arms from your back, not your fingertips, reach your back up overhead, big backbend, then lower down into a straight line before you straighten your legs. Very important.

Then you do this little backbend, And then you lift your center and slide down, and you don't slide very far. It's like an inch. Okay. Especially if you measured your femur. Let's do one more together. Reach. You only need to do a few big swans to get all the good stuff out of it.

Reach second backbend. It's small, but it's mighty. It's probably the hardest one, and then come in. Alright. So with all that, let's step outside of our barrel.

You're gonna bring your hip to the outside of the ladder barrel for some side overs. Prefer to do side sit ups instead, you can. I like to think of this as like kneeling side kicks. So your arms are gonna be out to the side. And if a little trust fall here, you're gonna take your top leg out, and you're gonna side bend over, over, grab your top rung and the third rung, some people by based on height might want second and fourth. Okay? And then you where you are on the barrel should feel good to you. I know that's not very precise, but I have really long legs, so we might be in a different spot. Than, if you have really short legs and a long torso. Alright. The arms are not pulling.

They're reaching. So play with where you want those hands to be, and you want your head in between those elbows. Right? So now we're gonna take both legs and reach them down. And lift them up, and reach them down, and lift them up. And so it's this nice stretchy side bend using those legs away from the arms.

Now push the legs up hold it there, take the bottom leg, reach it to the floor, could it touch the floor? Lift it back up to the top leg, reach it to the floor, lift it to the top leg, reach it to the floor, lift it to the top leg, and then here we go. We're gonna do a little trust fall. We're gonna slide down, leg hits, stand up. Makes me feel like I'm one of those like gymnasts who sticks to landing. Here we go.

So tip over a little trust fall, maybe pull yourself on. My fun size folks, you might have to lie on your stomach and flip over. Please be careful. Slide both legs down, and reach. Slides the wrong word.

Reach both legs down, and lift them up. And reach, and lift them up. One more time. Hold it up. Get that top. I hit the level of the top hip, lower the bottom leg, and lift. And if you need to repeat this on one side, well, you know what to do, and then we slide off and we land.

And then wouldn't be a lateral exercise or workout without a big back bend stretch. So place your hips to your ladder barrel. I like to get the sacrum in there. So my knees are gonna be bent, and they're a little wider than hips distance apart. Arms wrap around your waist.

You round back. You stretch your arms over and you grab the first rung. And I just like to reach into my arms and reach into my legs, and it's like a big, good morning stretch, but with the support of a barrel. Then you take those arms off. If you need to grab your head, you can. Otherwise, you reach them over, like you're doing spine stretch forward, but standing, and then you pulse one.

Two, three. And then you bend the knees, slide back. Maybe you can grab that second rung, maybe. And then big stretch, send your feet, send your arms, walk up to the first rung, arms reach to the ceiling, round forward, into a spine stretch for the legs straighten, pulse three times. And go back. This one, we're gonna add on if you want. You don't have to. So you take your hands to the second rung and to the third, and maybe your feet takes flight.

You squeeze the legs together, you draw little circles like a little corkscrew, circle to one side, then to the other. So it's tiny, and you're just circling. Now you shouldn't feel like your legs are hanging off your back because your back is reaching into the barrel. Right? Once you've gone three in each direction, stretch the feet down, grab the second rung, grab the first rung, lift your center, and round. Pulls three times. Okay. We're adding on.

You don't have to. You can stick with what we just did. We're gonna round back. We're gonna walk our hands down to that third rung. Some people will grab the fourth rung.

Make sure I like to pull myself over the barrel a little bit, so you might want to as well. Now the legs do big circles up and around one, and two, and three. If you're getting a hip click, it's a sign we have to work on the hamstring of that leg, the glute of that leg. Last one. So just use it as information. Place the feet down. Walk your hands up to the second room, slide your feet to the floor at the first rung, take those arms over, and spine, stretch forward, pulse one, two, three, roll all the way up.

And honestly, one of my favorite ways to end. Anything on the ladder barrel, lie on your stomach. Don't touch anything with your hands. Just hang here. And just let gravity pull your upper back.

And your legs and just let the barrel stretch your back. And then I want you to take your some time. You can stay here. I'm gonna come up because I want you to think about, like, what exercises were a struggle? Or maybe even a little fearful, write them down.

Because we can actually explore that. The more we do these exercises and compare yourself to yourself or myself to myself, right? Every day is a new day in your body, and the ladder barrel is here to kind of help put things into your body. As you can see, it teaches great, great extension and side bending. And if you struggle with those on your mat and reformer, this is your homework.

This is your workout for you. Thank you so much for moving with me. Have an amazing day.