THE BAR METHOD BLOG

The theory that the knees should not go forward of the toes during exercise has long been discounted by fitness experts.  Squatting, a form of which students practice during Bar Method’s thigh work, is actually one of the best and safest knee strengthening exercises we can do, according to many recent studies.  One research center, Cambridge Consultants based in the UK, found that: “squatting actually often puts less strain on internal knee ligaments, compared with conventional and popular isometric and isokinetic knee-flexion and knee-extension exercises.” Doing non-impact, controlled quad exercises that bring the knees forward of the toes functionally strengthen and stabilize the knees.  

I've been keeping track of students' feedback on how their knees do after taking class, and most Bar Method students with knee problems have reported significant improvement after taking class regularly for a few months. The reason the Bar Method helps most knee issues, including arthritis, is that its small, non-impact moves strengthen and balance the quads, hamstrings and calf muscles, which we methodically work in Bar Method. These muscles all extend across the knee joint and, as they become stronger, your knees do, too. A Chicago resident named Christina, for example, discovered that the Bar Method helped her to exercise without knee pain. “I’ve had problems with running and many other exercise forms due to a previous knee injury,” she wrote me, “and this has been pain-free for me.” (Read about how Bar Method sculpts a dancer's body.) 

There are however several knee conditions that, if you have them, call for some modification of Bar Method's thigh-work, at least temporarily. You have a small chance, for example, of there being a slight malformation in your patella or knee cap, giving it a tendency to scrape against your knee cartilage during exercise. If you’re a Bar Method student and think you have this kind of patella, you’ll probably need to limit your thigh-work section to the following positions: “chair,” "second position," and "leg lifts.” (see below for details.) You can also restrict the thigh-work section to “holds” rather than the little down and up moves that are usually part of every thigh routine. These modifications will enable you to do the workout with no “bad” pain, plus they will add more strength and stability to your knees. 

 

Another reason you might feel your knees during thigh exercises is that your outside quads are tighter and stronger than your inside quads. A lot of athletes such as former runners and tennis players develop excessively tight outer quads because they use them so much. As a result, bending their knees during thigh strengthening exercises pulls their knee caps out to the side and causes pain. Fortunately, this condition is correctable over time, and the Bar Method can help. If you suspect you’re one of these students, first go to your doctor and get a diagnosis along with a rehab routine. You can then speed up the healing process during your Bar Method workouts by squeezing a ball or a piece of foam between your legs during thigh-work, ab-work and “back-dancing.” 

Whatever the reason for experiencing knee pain in or out of class, make sure to tell your teacher about your problem and ask her or him to help you to do the modifications that are right for you. If you use the Bar Method dvds, try holding the thigh poses rather than moving within them for a few weeks. You’ll know that the modifications are working when you start to feel intense muscle burn in your quads and no discomfort in your knees.

A note to dvd users: Watch for the upcoming thigh-work modification section on our website.

 

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The position that the Bar Method calls “the tuck” is very different

 from Lotte Berk’s original “tuck.” Lotte invented the exercises the Bar Method is based on in the 1960s. She was a Martha Graham-style dancer, so her “tuck” was taken from modern dance and looked kind of like a sexy slump. One of Lotte’s seat exercises was

 actually called “the prostitute.” To do “the prostitute,” Lotte’s students held onto the bar with one hand, rounded their shoulders, and raised one leg out to the side. Conversely, the Bar Method tuck position is very close to a “spine-neutral” stance. It’s one of the secrets behind the Bar Method’s signature long, lean look.

More important than making our bodies look better, the Bar Method tuck addresses common posture problems that our cars, couches, computers, TVs and cell phones subject us to.  These gadgets are great, but they free us from the heavy work our bodies are designed for. Without strong back muscles we tend to slump. Without strong ab and glute muscles we tend to let our stomachs tilt forward and our rears tilt back, none of which is not good for our spines.  The Bar Method tuck position recruits all three of these core muscle areas in order to both strengthen and elongate them.

So how do you do “The Bar Method tuck"? First, you draw your shoulder blades downwards. This action forces two sets of core muscles to turn on, namely your upper back muscles, which protect your shoulders, and your abdominal muscles, which protect your back. You are now holding your upper back a bit straighter than usual, a stance that strengthens your postural muscles. 

Next, you relax your lower back. Releasing your lower back muscles is easy once you’ve done the first two steps described above, namely, lifting your chest and engaging your abs. Try this on your own: Stand up and then pull your shoulders down and your abs in. You’ll find that the weight of your rib cage is no longer pressing on your lower back.

The last step in assuming the Bar Method tuck is to grip your glutes, which are also a core muscle group. Your glutes qualify as core muscles because they keep your hips level when you walk and run. Now you’re in the Bar Method tuck, which means you’ve recruited all three core muscle groups: your upper back muscles, your abs and your glutes. Now you’re ready to exercise in a position that:

--protects your spine; 

--improves coordination;

--trains and tones your core muscles; and 

--gives you great posture. 

As a bonus, using the Bar Method tuck will make you a better athlete, since the best athletes really know how to use their core to optimize power and precision.

The Bar Method tuck position has several additional therapeutic benefits. It stretches your hip-flexors (your “psoas/iliacus” muscles), which are connected to your lower spine and upper legs.  When your psoas is tight, so is your lower back. Our chair-oriented life-styles give us a tendency towards tight hip-flexors, and the Bar Method’s tuck position helps to lengthen them. Not to mention that the Bar Method tuck stretches your lower back, which has the same propensity for tightness. Finally, the tuck is great for strengthening your glutes. Because they’re located right under your spines, your glutes play an important role in supporting your lower back.

To be clear, the Bar Method tuck position is a great stance which strengthens lazy core and posture muscles and stretches tight ones when you exercise. It’s not supposed to become your permanent posture. Once you’re done exercising and out into the world, your body will assume its natural stance, only it will now be straighter, leaner looking and more graceful. 

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“I’m a spa person,” Melinda Holland told me last night. “And this is the best spa I’ve ever been to.” It was my last night at Rancho La Puerta, a health and fitness spa in Tecate, Mexico, and Melinda and I were sitting next to each other at the diner table with about eight other people. Rancho La Puerta is just across the border about 45 minutes by car south of San Diego. Melinda, a Bar Method student from Chicago, and her husband Michael, parents of three small kids, are currently spending the week there. “The hikes are extraordinary,” Melinda went on. “The service is excellent, and everyone’s so nice.”

I confess that when I walked up to the Rancho La Puerta’s reception desk this weekend to sign in, I was thinking to myself how not a spa person I am. “Spas are so isolating,” I grumbled to myself. “I’d rather vacation in a foreign city and go exploring.” I also didn’t want to starve. A year ago I’d spent one night at Rancho, and I remembered that the food was delicious and satisfying, but somehow there were very few calories in it. In two days I’d lost two pounds, which I know is the general idea, but I’m already thin enough thank you. This time while still at the airport I grabbed a few giant cookies and hid them in my bag.

The reason I was at Rancho was to help launch the new Bar Method class schedule there. The brainchild of the program is Mark Fleischman co-director of the Southern California studios (his wife Mimi, my sister, directs them). Mark is a long-time Rancho visitor and a big fan of its hikes, food and friendly ambiance. This first week of the program the classes are being taught by Catherine Wendel, co-owner of the three Bar Method studios in and around Chicago. Mimi and Mark had asked me to kick off the week by teaching the first class, and I agreed. (Click here to find out how my sister Mimi and I first discovered Lotte Berk Method in the early 1980's.)

Rancho La Puerta sits 1,600 feet above the ocean on 3,000 acres of meadows, hills and valleys. There are about 80 Spanish-style free-standing “casas” for guests with fireplaces, little kitchens and hotel-style service. Guests enjoy the use of four pools, five beauty/fitness centers, five hot tubs, twelve exercise/fitness rooms, casas that serve as lounges or wireless internet areas, a cooking school and 

indoor/outdoor meditation sites. What’s both charming and frustrating about this village-sized hodgepodge is that the buildings are organized in a maddeningly illogical network of bricked paths leading hither and yon, sort of like a Medieval city. Wooden post signs stacked six high and pointing in multiple directions have an other-worldly effect – like any moment you’ll run into Dorothy and her companions dancing down the yellow brick road.  Granted there are maps posted here and there. Even so, my sister and I (who also had our moments) ran across more than one hopelessly lost female guest. The men seemed to have no such trouble. 

The other unusual thing about Rancho La Puerta was what made me fall totally in love with the place. On this particular week there were 149 guests from 20 states and Canada, five of whom I already knew. By the time I left, I felt like all these people were my friends. At Rancho you sit with your fellow guests at meals, hike with them starting at 6:15 am if you can get up that early, and attend a wide choice of exercise classes with them. Then you might swim with them, play tennis, learn Spanish, cooking, meditation or photography and then pass them in the corridors while you’re on your way to get a massage. As you navigate through your choice of activities, your enjoyment of the people you’re with becomes part of the experience. This Rancho-style bonding is different from the way it happens at school or camp. It’s more like, well, exploring a foreign city with a bunch of fellow travelers. It’s relaxed, but the experience is complex enough to satisfy an adventurer’s spirit. 

I have to add that if I had wanted to lose weight, Rancho would certainly a great place to do it. I ate my two over-sized cookies, and I had seconds at every meal. Even so I lost two pounds during my two-day visit. It’s also a great place to thoroughly enjoy connecting with people just as people. By the time you leave, you feel kind of like you’ve rediscovered your humanity. I arrived reluctant to enlist fully in the spa experience, and I left wishing I could stay. Rancho has one of the highest guest return rates around. It certainly has me looking forward to my next visit.

 

Click here to find out more about Bar Method Intensive Weeks at Rancho La Puerta

 

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What’s it like to be a guy who’s dating a Bar Method student, especially when she says, “Honey, can you come to a class with me?"  At this time of year some studios offer a special “Valentine’s Day Men’s class” in which guys are invited to take a class for free. A few days before February 14th this year, my boyfriend Michael got into a discussion with his dermatologist about the Bar Method and discovered how many of these men might feel when asked to take a class by their girlfriends. 

Michael grew up in the Southern California beach cities of Redondo, Newport, and Huntington Beach, so he wears a hat when outdoors to protect his skin against getting any more sun. The day of his doctor’s visit Michael was wearing his Bar Method baseball cap, which prompted the following conversation:

Doctor: “How do you know about the Bar Method?  I noticed the logo on your hat when you came in.”

 

Michael: “My girlfriend is the founder of the Bar Method. Have you heard of it?”

 

Doctor: “Yes, I have. My girlfriend is a Bar Method teacher in San Francisco, and she’s been on me for a long time to take a class.”

 

Michael: “Have you taken one yet?”

 

Doctor: “No, I haven’t. Frankly I’m a little intimidated. Have you taken a class?”

 

Michael: “Yes, I’ve taken about six or seven and discovered that they are pretty intense and can kick your butt. I’ve been working out 4 – 6 times a week for over 30 years and I’m in pretty good shape, but these exercises hit different muscles than I’m used to working on. At my first class Burr gave me 4 and 5 pound weights and I’m thinking to myself, this will be a snap, these weights are nothing. However, little did I know that picking up the heavier of the two weights and moving them in small one inch movements would create muscle fatigue real quick. As we pressed on, it just got harder, a lot harder and by the end of all the exercises I, quite frankly, was relieved.”

 

Doctor: “That’s what I’m afraid of. I can do long cross country skiing treks and am fairly fit myself, but I’m a little nervous that I won't make it through the class or afterword I’ll hurt for days.” 

 

Michael: “I didn’t experience hurting for days or even the next day, but I did feel like I got a pretty intense workout and it made me wonder why more guys don’t go to the Bar Method.”

 

Doctor: “Yeah, my girlfriend wonders why more men don’t come and why I’ve been so reluctant to try it. So I made a promise to show up this Saturday morning and take a class. I appreciate the information and hopefully I’ll make it through OK.”

 

Michael: “I’m sure you will do fine and you’ll make your girlfriend very happy. You may even start going on a regular basis. Although it is a totally different kind of exercise than you may be used to doing, it seems to work. In December I went to the Bar Method Holiday party at the Matrix in San Francisco, and nowhere have I ever seen so many woman that were so wonderfully fit. Usually, you can scan across a room like this and get a sense about people and about how they feel about themselves and their bodies. In this room and on this night, the display of confident, beautifully shaped bare shoulders and arms was amazing as well as their fine overall figures – truly remarkable.”

 

After telling me this story, Michael gave me his personal thoughts on why the idea of taking a Bar Method class can be a bit intimidating for guys. “I think having all those fit women around can make a guy feel a bit unsure,” he said, “especially if they can do the exercises better than we can.”  

 

I asked Michael why guys wouldn’t want to come simply because of all the attractive women in the class. “There isn’t time to look, gawk at, or lay your best line on one of the other students,” he explained. “The building of each exercise upon the next leaves little room to let your mind wander for even ten seconds. If you do, before you know it you’re five beats behind and the segue to the next exercise has passed you by, and then you can look really stupid trying to catch up.”

 

Even so, Michael still thinks it’s too bad more guys don’t come to the Bar. “Maybe if they did,” he said, “they’d meet some of the most interesting, fit women around, and I should know.” 

 

If we could have the abs of our dreams, what are the two top features we would ask for? First, I think most of us would want abs that are flat and firm. Second we’d want our abs to perform well as core muscles, supporting our backs and giving us better coordination.

The Bar Method’s flat-back exercise is vital to giving us abs with both these attributes. Without it, Bar Method students’ core muscles would neither be as toned nor as well-trained as they are. It’s one of my personal favorite Bar Method exercises because it makes you sweat while it carves just about every muscle on your front side from shoulders to knees. 

Our panel of physical therapists – introduced in last week’s blog – have their own reasons for appreciating flat-back. Yesterday Mary Dellenbach, a PT in Fort Collins, CO took my class in the Bar Method studio in Boulder. When I asked Mary about flat-back she told me it “really focuses on your rectus abdominus [the ‘six-pack’ abdominal muscle] which in strengthening assists in proper spinal alignment…preventing and relieving back pain.”  (Read about how the core works in my blog "Core Strengthening, Fact and Function.")

Heidi Morton, our consulting physical therapist in Summit, New

 Jersey sees many benefits to be gained from flat-back. “Flat-back really engages everything,” she says. “It establishes 'the proper underlying core motor pattern.'” Jayme Anderson, our PT advisor in Walnut Creek, likes flat-back because it helps students make the connection between their abs and their breathing patterns. In her words the exercise is a “good position for allowing one to focus on the connection between the abdominals and breathing.” 

Julie Bolanos, both a PT and a Bar Method teacher, sees three positive results that her students get from flat-back: 

--greater strength in their abs plus many other muscle groups including the anterior upper extremity muscles, posterior muscles (scapular stabilizers/postural muscles), hip flexors, quads, and intrinsic foot muscles,

--better alignment of the knees and shoulders, and

--more endurance and stamina because flat-back produces “cardio bursts similar to interval training…enhancing, fat-burning.” 

The fat-burning effect that Julie mentions works so well because flat-back takes place about 40 minutes into class when students are working aerobically (that is, burning a larger portion of fat calories) and because it is so darned challenging. That second half of class is the perfect time to jack up the intensity of the workout for the best results. Students thereby are burning fat off from around the muscles that they sculpted during the bar-work in the first half of class.

For me, flat-back is the exercise that gives the Bar Method its unique rigor. Twenty-eight years ago when I first struggled through that section of the workout, I liked flat-back because of the long, lean shape it gave my legs. Today, I appreciate it for furnishing me with a level of stamina I never imagined I’d have at age 62.

 

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In the fall of 2004, Kate Burgess, a marketing executive who lives in Chicago, developed severe back pain. She went the round of doctors and therapists, took anti-inflammatory drugs, tried injections, massages, back braces, chiropractic care and physical therapy. Kate had been athletic before the onset of her back pain. She remembers feeling “so incredibly sad to quit all the sports I was involved in.” 

Finally after years of searching for a cure, Kate managed to find some relief from acupuncture. Nonetheless her doctors told her that she would never be able to do a sit-up or a crunch again. She continued to look for solutions anyway and, as she tells it, “decided to give Bar Method a shot.” That was a year ago. Today, Kate says, “I can do things that professionals told me I could/should never do. I am in this ‘better place’ physically (and thus emotionally).”

Kate shares her positive outcome with hundreds of Bar Method students who came to the technique with back conditions. The reason that Kate and so many other students have benefitted from doing the Bar Method workout is that it was designed with back rehabilitation in mind. Two exercises in particular, “round-back” and “flat-back," which were reformulated from the Lotte Berk Method original exercises with the help of physical therapists, are highly effective at both rehabbing problem backs and maintaining healthy ones. 

What precisely are the benefits of these two exercises?  To get an informed answer I asked four physical therapists, all of whom take the Bar Method – Mary Dellenbach, a PT in Fort Collins, Colorado; Heidi Morton, our consulting PT in Summit, New Jersey; Jayme Anderson, a PT who consults for us in Walnut Creek, California; and Julie Bolanos, who is both a PT and a Bar Method teacher in San Mateo, California. 

“Round-back”, says Mary Dellenbach, “assists in proper pelvic alignment” by stretching your hamstrings. “Using your abs while stretching your hamstrings assists in strengthening your core muscles, also key in preventing and relieving back pain.”

Heidi Morton loves “round-back” not only for core strengthening power but also for its ability to align and strengthen knee muscles. As an open chain quadraceps strengthener, in which the feet are off the ground and therefore the body's weight is not a factor, quad muscles get a chance to work across the knee to evenly contract and lock the quads into place thereby balancing and stabilizing the patella.  

Jayme Anderson says that “round-back” helps students learn better use of their abdominals while breathing. “Research is emphasizing the importance of the coordinated interplay between the diaphragm, the pelvic floor muscles and the deep intrinsics, and the abdominal wall. Round-back ”happens to be,” she says, “an effective activator not only of the abdominals but also of the pelvic floor.”

Julie Bolanos sees many benefits from “round-back," among them:

--stretching of the thoraco-lumbar spinal muscles,

--strengthening of the anterior upper extremity muscles, coupled with co-contraction of posterior muscles,

--strengthening abdominals, hip flexors, quadriceps, gastrocnemii, anterior tibialli, and intrinsic foot muscles,

--endurance and stamina,

--pain-relieving for clients with spinal stenosis, and

--alignment of the patello-femoral joint.

 

(Read more about how The Bar Method works as preventative physical therapy.)  

In answer to those of you who wrote me last week asking about “round-back” and “flat-back,” they are core stabilization exercises that are taught only in the Bar Method studio version and not in the home dvds. The reason we can’t offer them to those of you at home is that they require a securely wall-attached bar, a piece of equipment that most home users don’t have access to. In the future we plan to develop a bar for home use that will work for “round-back” and “flat-back.” Meanwhile both the dvd and studio versions of the workout effectively sculpt and elongate your body. The studio version however does so more efficiently for now since it includes “round-back” and “flat-back”.

NEXT WEEK: Physical therapists talk about the benefits of “flat-back.”

 

 

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A few years ago I took a class from a new teacher who accidentally reversed two exercises called “round-back” and “flat-back” (they are taught only in the studio-based classes and not on the dvds). Most students, myself among them, find these exercises two of the toughest in the workout. That day when the teacher reversed them, they became easy. My heart-rate slowed down, and I did not feel challenged for the rest of the class. Was it my imagination, or did switching the order of these exercises rob them of their edge?

The answer is yes, exercise order can make or break your workout. The Bar Method recognizes this dynamic and uses it to maximize results. Take the above example: Round-back and Flat-back are designed to raise your heart-rate and burn away fat. Flat-back is the harder and faster exercise, and placing it second makes it exponentially harder because your muscles are already pretty fatigued when you get to it. That state of near exhaustion is what you want to get to if you’re aiming for quick body change.

Similarly, The Bar Method places push-ups after its free-weight exercises so that push-ups become intense enough to serve as a bout of interval training. That way, you wrap up the upper-body work section by burning fat off the muscles that the free-weight exercises just sculpted. Why end with push-ups? Because they work a larger portion of your body’s muscles than free-weights do. Yes, if you reversed the order and did push-ups first, the free-weight work will seem more challenging, but free-weights just don’t engage enough of your body’s muscles to ever be a serious burner.

Safety is another reason the Bar Method puts free-weights before push-ups. The human shoulder tends to be vulnerable to injury because of its unusual flexibility relative to other joints. To have our cake (sculpted arms) and eat it too (less fat), the Bar Method starts with the gentler exercises to allow the shoulders to warm up before launching into push-ups.

Most important of all for body change, the Bar Method’s exercise sequence sculpts long, graceful muscles like those of dancers. Their ballet bar workout starts with plies to warm up their thighs and ends with battements to stretch their hips. The Bar Method class uses the same progression. It starts with leg raises that engage your thighs and ends the standing bar work section with seat exercises that extend your leg behind your hip. In the second half of the class, the Bar Method starts with thigh and hip work (round-back and flat-back) and ends with hip stretching (back-dancing). (For more on stretching, see “How to Sculpt a Dancer’s Body")

The three-fold beauty of this sequence is that it generates plenty of intensity to slim down your body, maximizes joint safety, and constantly elongates your muscles from the initial warm-up to the final stretch.

 

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On December 21st, Diane emailed in this comment on my blog about the importance of HANDS ON ADJUSTING:

 

“Interesting blog - I have to respectfully disagree as far as preference when adjustments are being made. Personally I prefer to be told exactly why I'm doing something incorrectly….”

I agree with Diane on her preference for teachers giving her verbal, not physical, corrections. Giving students verbal cues on how to correct their form is a quicker, more efficient, and simpler way of communicating. The reason we Bar Method teachers also correct physically is that students have different learning styles. Some learn verbally by listening to the teacher. Some learn visually by watching the teacher. And some learn kinetically by feeling the position the teacher helps them achieve. We want all our students to get the best possible workout, so we use all three modes of communication. Students who learn kinetically often cannot find the correct positions no matter how precisely teachers demonstrate and describe them. It is for these students that we reserve hands-on adjustments. 

In any case, you can be a visual or verbal learner and still benefit from an occasional hands-on adjustment. I’ve studied this technique for almost 30 years and still appreciate the teacher adjusting me. In “fold-over” for example, students’ heads are facing downwards, so we can’t see our positions. I often wonder if my hips are square during that exercise, so it’s reassuring when the teacher gives my hips a tweak. 

Over the years, I’ve learned to appreciate the extra connectedness that hands-on help gives me to the workout. I hope that other students like Diane will also find some value in this mode of guidance as well.

 

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This past year, many of you wrote in with thought-provoking questions that got me thinking. Here’s one of my favorites from 2009:

On December 29th, Lucy wrote in that:

“I was doing the Barre Method every day for about 4 weeks and my hips started bothering me. They are now really tight….”

What gave me pause when I read this question was that Lucy’s experience is pretty much in sync with how muscles respond to strength exercise. On a cellular level, strength-work causes microscopic tears in muscle fibers. Our muscles then repair themselves by generating more fibers than the original number. These new and more numerous fibers then knit themselves more tightly around our bones in an effort to stabilize the stressed area. 

This muscle-tightening phenomenon will cause people who do only strength-work and no stretching to develop shorter and shorter muscles until they’re muscle bound, an unpleasant condition you probably want to avoid.

The good news is that stretching not only counteracts this tightening process. It can make you more flexible than you were in the first place. The reason is that your joints can detect how supported – or not – they are by the muscles around them. The stronger your muscles, the more stability they give to their underlying joints. (Just ask your physical therapist if you have one). Joints will allow muscles to elongate when those muscles can adequately maintain control over an increased range of motion. Conversely, joints will not allow weak muscles to elongate because those muscles would lose control if allowed an increased range. Strengthening your muscles, therefore, gives you a chance to also increase your flexibility.

How does all this, you ask, relate to Lucy’s experience? The answer is that muscles take longer to become flexible than they do to get strong. Bar Method students typically take class for several months before they feel more flexible. Many students actually get temporarily tighter before the stretching kicks in. Lucy therefore is likely to begin to feel more flexible in her hip-flexors after around three months of classes.

 

Click here to find Bar Method Exercise Studios near you.  

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