Intermediate Ladder Barrel

Hi there. Sarah Barticelli here, and I am so excited to be offering you a beautiful short experience here on the ladder barrel. I absolutely love using the barrels, and I honestly use them every day. Rarely do I do a a full session, but this experience should feel really nice on your spine. Most importantly listen to your body and do what feels good to you. Also, be aware that all barrels have some version of ability to move forward and back and in and out. So I've set mine in a position where I know I can achieve all the positions without having to adjust it, but certainly should you need to adjust you should. So listen to your body. Okay?

We'll be a little creative and also, enjoy. That's the most important thing. So I've stepped onto my barrel, and I'm standing. I'm gonna call these the rails. So I'm standing on the rails, and I have my feet close to the ladder portion. Now, if you needed to stand on the floor, you could stand on the floor, or you could brace your feet in a different way, or if you have the standing platform, you could use that. I tend to not choose to use that.

But the key here is that you're set in a way where it feels like you can lean up against the barrel. Let's just extend the arms forward and be for a moment. Take a breath and roll yourself back. Now, if you feel like it's really hard to get down in the beginning, then you might need to choose to do a couple of things. One, you could move your barrel. I'm sitting nice and tall.

And then I'm I'm actually standing nice and tall, but I feel like I'm sitting because I'm leaning back. So I'm pressing my pelvis into the a barrel and I'm rolling over the barrel. My eyes follow my arms. I'm gonna try to get my head to completely rest on the barrel as my arms go overhead and circle around. And then my chin nods in, and I roll up.

And it's like doing a roll up, but into extension. So if that feels good, then you're in the right spot. If you need to your barrel, adjust your barrel, or don't go all the way down, or you could bend your legs if you need to. But I really enjoy this with nice straight legs, circling around, and rolling back up. So again, we've got two straight legs.

We're gonna flex the low spine as you roll back, enjoying that roll down, following the hands with your eye gaze. As your arms come around, instead of flopping as low as you can, Keep the energy east west through the arms, nod your chin in, and then roll back up. Let's do one more like that before we add on. Beautiful way to warm up. Sometimes I'll cue breath and sometimes I'll give you a rhythm to play with, but I also want you to make sure that you're listening to your body and that you're enjoying the experience, so adjust as needed.

So let's feel that you're leaning up against the barrel with your bottom, you're sitting tall, your spine is straight. We'll rotate to the left. We're gonna roll down the left side of the spine, circle your body around, headrests, come up the other side of your spine and back to center. Go the other way. I might inhale here, and then exhale rolling down, enjoying that release through the front body, all the way around up the left side, and let's repeat. So you certainly could move faster if you needed to, but try to feel that you can really let the barrel support your body for a moment.

Enjoy that. Supporting the body as you go back. Or being supported by the, by the barrel, something like that. One more time here, please. Around and back up.

And then one more time in this direction, and then we're going to change a little bit. The choreography. So working the abdominals here in extension will begin standing upright, still in the same position with the legs, round yourself back. Low back down, mid back, Once you get to the point where your head is resting, make sure it's resting. So if you have to adjust your feet, you could walk your feet a little closer and wedge your toes up.

You could bend your knees. So my arms are up toward the ceiling. I'm gonna bend my elbows and put my hands, like, in a prayer position and touch my forehead with my thumbs. So I wanna keep that engagement, that position, if you will. So I'm gonna push my fingers, my thumbs into my forehead a little bit.

I'm gonna press my pelvis into the barrel. I'm gonna press my low ribs into the barrel, and I'm just gonna hover my head and my arms and back down. So I'm pressing my ribs in to use my abdominals, keeping my neck in extension. And relax now. So it doesn't feel good, adjust your eye gaze so that it feels okay. Here, you, in theory, are using your muscles of the front of your neck in a longer position, while using your abdominals as well.

Now nod your chin in and roll all the way back up, sitting nice and tall, arms out in front of you. Let's do that again, exhale to roll down. Find the position where you are resting. I want the head resting. I want the pelvis grounded.

Bend the two knee, or two elbows, not knees, bend your two elbows, touch your forehead with your two thumbs so my hands are together. Same thing. I'm pushing a little bit into my forehead, creating a little bit of tension, good tension, or work in the neck. Ribs are down, and we're gonna just do a little float up and a little float down. So ribs root, pelvis roots to rise. Just three times like that.

And root, and now nod your chin to your throat, and roll yourself back up. And sit nice and tall. Good. Now, that should always feel like a good idea. Remember, if you feel pinching in your back, you need to adjust something so that you can use your front a little better. Let's shift gears. So here, I'm gonna turn around to face the other direction. I'm standing on the rails again. And I want my pelvis to be snuggled up next to the barrel, and we're gonna relax the body over the barrel.

Completely relax. Now, for the sake of my microphone, my head is gonna be hovering just a little bit. But if you can truly find this place, even where I'm not standing on my feet at all, where you can relax your nose and your forehead or your forehead or your nose into this barrel, it's more ideal because you're creating a more of a grounding sensation Okay? That's what I'm interested in here. Take your arms on either end of the barrel. So I'm in like a goalpost position.

My elbows are a little bit bent, and my arms are just dangling. Push into the barrel to spread east, west, your collarbones, and your shoulder blades. Notice that you're not really using your legs. You're really leaning on, laying over the barrel. So here, I'm gonna spread my collar bones, east west, pushing into the barrel.

I'm gonna straighten my arm. So I'm gonna push into the barrel to spread my back body. Straighten my arms. Pushing into the barrel to spread my back body, straighten my arms. One more time. Push into the barrel, spread the back body, pause. Take the push away.

We're gonna make goal post with the arms. So your thumbs come up, your elbows might go down a little bit, but I don't want them to press into or rest on the barrel. They're just hovering. And then back to where they came from. So goalpost with the arms, ideally head is resting.

And one more time, goalpost with the arms. Now, we're gonna keep this idea of the pelvis pressing into the barrel. I need to just adjust my body a little bit. Pellvis pressing into the barrel. Now, I'm practicing what I preach. And I'm going to just change my gaze looking forward. Send my arms straight overhead so my low back is still rounded. My pelvis is pressing.

My upper back is working a little with shoulders, not up by ears. Bend the elbows, touch the barrel. Lower the body down. Good find goal posts, spread east west first through collar bones and shoulder blades. Lift your days. Head comes back and up.

I'm in a little bit of thoracic extension. I'm still pressing my pelvis into the barrel. I'm gonna extend my arms up to straight shoulders away from ears, bend the elbows, and lower down. One more time, goal post arms. Good. Look forward. Open the chest.

Lobach is still pressing or belly is pressing. Lobach is still slightly rounded. Arms straighten. Bend elbows. And come down from there.

We'll let everything hang for a moment. I like to slip my feet to the floor. My feet are on the floor. I'm standing on my feet. I'm walking my feet so they can be a close as far underneath the barrel as possible.

And then I'm gonna scoop press my pelvis into the barrel, scoop my belly in, press my arms into the barrel until I can pull myself up to a standing position. Let's try that again. Pressing the legs into the barrel, Good. We're gonna roll down until you feel yourself touching the barrel but not resting and scoop yourself up. All the way back to straight standing. Now, again, I'm gonna create the shape of the barrel without actually resting on it, but my legs stay pressing into the barrel.

My hands kind of graze it. I feel my belly hovering, my chest hovering, my face hovering, and then round up one more time like that, please. Looking forward all the way to straight. Good. And then curling down. So keeping a little bit of compression between the legs, the barrel, the arms.

Wonderful. And then roll all the way back up. Now, let's change relationship and work the side over. So for side, any side work, I like to illuminate the importance of using either the outer hip or inner hip according to which leg you're standing on. So here, as I face you, my top leg is back, and I'm just right here on the little wood chunk, on the bottom rung, if that's what you happen to have. And my top my top leg is in back, and my bottom leg is in front. Okay. So first, just use your arm to support yourself here, and we're gonna make this less about needing to do the move. More about what we feel in our legs for a moment. Okay? So you're gonna feel length through your spine, belly is in. I want you to really press through your top leg.

Push up slightly through the heel in your mind. So you're trying to turn your leg in a little bit and try to feel that lateral glute right there in the center. See if you can feel that. Beautiful. I feel it. Go ahead and put one hand behind your head. Put the other hand behind your head.

But good. If this feels good, it is good. If you can straighten your arms and sorta hug your elbows and let your head rest on your arm, that's even better. Okay? Squeeze that glute by pushing up. So I'm not gripping my butt, but I'm pushing into my heel to go up. And I'm feeling my glute as well as my waist muscles. We're gonna go down a little bit.

See where you can go comfortably. Maybe you can go all the way down. And then maybe you can bring yourself back up. Oftentimes, I see this where I shorten the one side and I dump on the other side. I'm really interested in this straight line. And as we go over, I'm really interested in this underside oblique staying connected as I float up first and then straighten my body out rather than collapsing.

Think about that. Yeah. So we try that one more time. With the focus on the glute. Yes. Nice and slow. And here we are. Bam. Put your arm down.

Pause for a moment. Change your attention to the leg that's in front. Drive through that leg and feel the inner thigh. Feel it. So push up. Yeah.

And then the same thing. Feel. Focus on the bottom leg now, not the top leg, and let that be what you're pivoting around, if you will. Hopefully, that makes a little bit of sense to you. So you're choosing the arm position that suits you if you have your arms in my position you're sending your head back. And as you go over, your eye gaze is gonna go slightly up to the ceiling to keep you from rolling too much into your back and focus a little bit more the attention on these obliques. Just one more here.

And will lift. Hands can go down. I like to reach over and hold on to the pole, give myself a little stretch in the opposite direction, and then you can bend both knees, slip over, fully enjoy the stretch. I know I didn't give you an opportunity to do that. If you can straighten both legs in this position, wonderful. If you can't, work one at a time until you're able to. Breathe in and breathe out.

And then use your arms to help push yourself up from that position, and let's do the other side. So as you change to the other side, the top leg is back, and the bottom leg is forward. Whichever side you're on, you're gonna use your arm to support for a moment. Tuck that rib up a little bit. Think about this back leg or the top back leg glute.

So I don't want you to squeeze the glute and go into external rotation. I want you to try to find neutral alignment, which feels a little like you have to push up to the ceiling through your heel. Sustain that if you're able to. Two straight legs if you can. We're gonna put the hands behind the head, either just behind the head if you want.

If your shoulders allow, you might hold your elbows and bring your head actively up against your arms. It makes it a lot harder. Now I'm really focusing on my top heel. As I go down, I'm trying to create the shape of the arc, And then as I lift up, it's almost like I'm hovering to straighten out. That's what I want you to think about. Keep your head pressing up against your arms, and it's like you wanna hover to straighten out slight eye gaze up.

Reach over. One more like this, focusing on the back leg, glute helping you pivot up. Undue your arms for a moment. Give yourself a little pause. Shift your attention to the forward leg inner thigh. So make sure your foot can kinda press a little bit up in your mind toward the ceiling.

Same thing with the arms. You choose where to put them. So you can hold the elbows or you can do hands behind the head. Once again, we're gonna go over that barrel. Feel like you're touching without fully resting.

You're gonna hover to lengthen. Think about that cue. Over the barrel, focusing on the bottom leg, inner thigh. And one more time here. Nice and slow. Beautiful.

Put your arm down, unravel here. Allow your knees to bend a little bit and just find a full resting position on the barrel. Hopefully, your head can rest on your shoulder. And I know I have, you know, a tighter neck on one side than the other. So one side, it's like my ear finds my shoulder really easily, and the other side, it doesn't. So just kind of explore the possibilities and see where you can relax here a little bit with bent or straight legs. It doesn't matter.

It should feel like you're at ease in this position. And then just carefully use your hands to prop yourself up and come to standing facing the ladder. So let's actually climb up the ladder to the bottom run and have a seat on the barrel. So we're gonna get a little bigger here. I'd really love it if you could press into the balls of the feet and drive the heels down and feel like you're sitting here. Now, you could adjust your legs on a different rung, but it's my suggestion to stick with the bottom rung right now. Let your arms be out in front of you and you're gonna roll yourself down. Now, can you roll down all the way?

Whoa, and all the way up? Now, if you're not able to roll all the way down, don't stop where you feel you need to. I need to be just a teeny bit lower. My heels a little more down. Okay? That helps me stay stable. So really driving the heels down as your low back touches is key. So your hips are fully opening. I'm in a beautiful extension. Little inversion there.

It feels wonderful and then articulate back up. Sit tall. Now, should you need to because your body tells you to, you could bend your knees. Roll down. I really personally love this with straight legs, and it's a really wonderful way for me to feel open through the front of my body. But then I also have to use my muscles to stack myself back up. Nice and tall. Let's add just a little rotation to the whatever way, the left I've gone, and we're gonna roll down and around just like we did with the feet lower.

The key is just being able to explore the possibility of using your body in different dimensions. Go the other way. So I'm around the world here. I'm down. I'm in a back bend. I'm rooting through my pelvis, and I'm using all parts of my body to come back up. Using my legs as well as my core here.

So be mindful. Those legs rooting through the pelvis back. So the legs working front of the leg is working, especially the psoas and hip flexor last one. Down and around, nice little circular movement, beautiful hang for the neck and the head, and round and roll yourself up here. I'm gonna step down from there and play now with a bigger side over. So here we go. I'm gonna have you drive your facing the front facing you. Doesn't matter which leg you're on, but your bottom leg is gonna drive into the middle of the bottom rung.

The top foot is gonna drive into the second rung. So you have ability to hold on, but I'd rather you didn't. Now use your hand for a moment, like I am, to lift yourself up out of your leg and feel this idea of rolling that standing leg. I'm gonna call the bottom leg, the standing leg, to neutral alignment. Now, touch your inner leg because that is where the power comes from to hold this. You need that inner thigh working, that inner leg, the hip flexor working to be able to lift your arms up. Now, rather than going into the side over here, can you keep the leg like this roll your body.

My hand is down, roll your body open, look look toward the ladder, but above it, and then roll your body back to the side. Now, if you can do that with no hands, that'd be amazing. So roll your body back into it. Oh, yeah. And roll your body. So I'm pushing a little bit with my top leg, and I'm pulling myself back into that shape. Just one more time, please, pushing We're gonna pull back into the shape. We're gonna lift the arms up if we can, and we'll go over how about just three times. Nice, big side over, ideally recognizing the importance of the legs here.

One more time. And we're up, hand down. That was my end range. Step off. Let's do the other side. So facing the other direction, you have your bottom leg is in the middle of the rung, the middle of the bottom run, top leg a little forward, use your hand to help get organized and actively feel the bottom leg kind of in your mind rolling to neutral, look at it and make sure your knee is facing forward, not down to the floor. Touch your inner thigh, feel it working.

Stay for a moment. Can you be here? Push to the top leg a little bit, push into it and hold. Now, can we roll ourselves open to look at above the ladder and roll yourself forward. Oh, that side's harder for me. Roll let your arms be involved and roll yourself through.

And one more time. And roll yourself back through. That is the whole body, my friends, two straight arms up, and three times down and up. Please use breath. Feel the power of the leg there.

It is very involved in this, my friends, both legs. Up up, up, up, and then we step down from there. And the final beautiful move here, affectionately, I'm calling this the Titanic. We're gonna stand on our two legs, on the tracks, if you will, heels wedged up against the barrel. Hans can be where it's comfortable.

My suggestion is to be as wide on this top rung as you can be, but you can always suggest that. Got my heart rate up on that last one. Stand tall through your spine, and feel your body as straight as possible. Allow your elbows to straighten so you feel stretch a little bit and come back in. Now, if your hands were much narrower, you'd probably feel a deeper stretch, and certainly you could do that. But considering where we're gonna go, I suggest wide.

So press your body forward. Allow your elbows to straighten, but feel your shoulders involved downward. Come back in. Part two, you let your arms straighten. Keep the grip with the hands.

Press the pelvis forward, look up as you do, and see if you can touch the barrel with your pelvis. Hoist your belly in, use your upper back, and come back to the first shape, and then back to the very first shape elbows bend. So elbows are bent. I'm standing up. Plank or straight body.

I let my elbows straighten. Now I press my pelvis getting a nice little hip stretch there. Bam. And then I look up, chest is open. Beautiful. Now I'm gonna keep this. I'm gonna let go with my arms.

I'm gonna reach my arms around, let my head go back further perhaps. So my hands are up toward behind me. And then we're gonna straighten the body out on the barrels from leaning into the barrel straight back flat feet. Press the pelvis into the barrel. First look forward, decide where you feel comfortable going, see if you can circle the arms around and maybe you'll find exactly where you left off.

And then you're going to use your core and your arms, and you're going to pull yourself back up. And back standing. Let's try that one more time. Okay? So you're gonna lean forward. Let's start over, Sarah, standing nice and tall. First, let your elbows straighten your body as long. That's what I wanted to say.

Press your pelvis forward. Find the barrel. Stop at any point. Look up, open your chest. Feel support lifting up.

My whole back is an extension as my arms reach behind me. My head is relaxed back there. And then I'm gonna push into my pelvis and send my body into a straight diagonal line. And then I'm gonna push into my pelvis lifting out of my low back as I go back to the shape I was just in, circle the arms around. Hopefully, you'll be able to find that ladder of that rung and then you're gonna use your core and your arms to pull yourself back up. And just to finish up, let's take three breaths hanging over the barrel. Head is relaxed.

Maybe your feet are even dangling. Your shoulders are hanging up by your ears, breathing in, then breathing out. While lying on your belly here over the barrel, see if you can direct the air to fill your lungs, your ribs on the backside, breathing in. And breathing out. I'm gonna slip my body back down, my feet to the floor rather than on the tracks.

And just like we did a little earlier, nestle your legs so they're close. To the barrel and you feel a little compression there. So you're using your abs not just stretching. Once you feel you have that, you can bend your knees should you need to or keep them straight if it works. Just roll yourself up to a standing position.

And I thank you so much for playing.