Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Feb 02, 2010 @ 10:52 AM
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.
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.”
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Jan 26, 2010 @ 11:35 AM
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.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Jan 19, 2010 @ 10:34 AM
“Whatever issues students have in life will show up in how they take class,” Burbank Bar Method studio owner Joey Decker said to me recently. “The classroom is a microcosm for the macrocosm.”
This is so true. The way you take a Bar Method class can act as a reflection of how you’re dealing with the rest of your life. Like life, the Bar Method is a series of challenges. Like life, you are surrounded by others also taking on the same challenges. While you are in a class, you have a chance to observe yourself meeting or avoiding challenges, focusing or losing focus, holding on until the end or giving up a few reps ahead of time, and applauding or criticizing yourself as you work.
When I teach, I notice students who’ve found ways to disengage themselves from the workout. One student I’ve observed closes her eyes during the entire class. By doing so, she misses much of the instruction. Another student comes out of each position every minute or so. She eventually gets back into the exercise but only after having rested enough not to feel it very much. I suspect she does this unconsciously, not due to laziness but to lack of concentration.
Could this behavior teach these students something useful about their lives? Is the student who closes her eyes avoiding some difficult issue? Is the student who comes out of the exercises resisting success?
There are of course Bar Method “A” students, but they are rare, and even those have “B” days. Most of us most of the time appear to be struggling on some level, myself included. My issue when I started taking the Lotte Berk Method in the 80s was that I was so inwardly focused that I was not letting the world in. During class I would stare straight ahead, never looking around at other students. By playing out this behavior in the classroom, I believe, I found the insight and strength to begin to change into a more outgoing person.
Now my struggle in class has swung 180 degrees in the opposite direction. My eyes flit around the room too much. However hard I try to focus on my own workout, I keep getting involved in watching my fellow students’ performance (see this blog!). The message I’m getting during this struggle is that I need to lighten up, accept that all of us are not going to do it perfectly, and enjoy the class. Having become a bit of a workaholic these days, I know that this is what I need to do in my life too.
The next time you take class, you might take a moment to consider what kind of person you are during that hour? What emotions do you feel? Are you able to be with the level of discomfort the exercises require? Do you stay focused? If not, what do you think about? You could find some answers to what’s happening with you in general, and possibly discover a new and stronger part of yourself.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Jan 12, 2010 @ 09:52 AM
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.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Jan 05, 2010 @ 08:26 AM
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.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Dec 29, 2009 @ 10:09 AM
As the year comes to a close, I would like to republish the most popular blog I've written in 2009. At the bottom of the article, I have also included links to my other blogs which make up this year's five most read.
See you in 2010! Have a very Happy New Year!
HOW THE BAR METHOD SLIMS YOU DOWN AND KEEPS YOU AEROBICALLY FIT
Since the 70s, millions of active Americans have been led to believe that aerobics slims you down and strength work tones your muscles. The truth is not so simple.
In fact most kinds of exercise that keep us moving continuously for more than a few moments, strength work included, are aerobic. Stored fat is our most convenient energy source, so our bodies use it as soon as possible, that is, after you've finished the warm-up stage of your workout. Walking, running, vacuuming, anything that raises your heart rate above resting level, burns both carbs and fat.
The question we should really be asking is: how do we maximize the number of fat calories burned from exercise? To find this out, experts now rely less on how aerobic a particular type of exercise is, and more on how intense it is. Want to know which exercise routine to choose when you're trying to drop a few dress sizes? Experts now suggest you rank them by level of intensity. Pretty straight forward: work harder; use more fuel.
So how do you determine intensity? Think back to that old adage: "feel the burn." The burn in your muscles is a good clue that your workout is getting intense. To find out just how intense, try clocking the amount of time you spend during your workout while experiencing a muscle burn. If it's zero, you're not using a lot of calories. If it's a good part of your workout, you're cooking with fire. Want to up your caloric expenditure? Increase your level of muscle burn until you can barely continue. Now you're cooking with dynamite!
Using intensity as a gauge, you can now see through the old adage that walking's a better fat burner than running. Truth be known, walking does not burn a lot of calories per minute of exercise. Go for a two-hour run and you'll burn about a half a pound of fat. You'd need to walk for five hours to match that result. Yes, compared with running, walking can burn a somewhat higher proportion of fat calories than it does carbs, but compared with running, it simply does not do a good job when it comes to burning total calories. Intense aerobic activity burn calories like crazy and so is doing away with a lot more fat calories per minute of exercise, even if its fat-to-carb ratio is lower than that of walking. Bottom line: walking is not an efficient calorie burner because it's not intense exercise.
For the same reason, yoga and pilates use relatively little energy. Kick up the intensity with running, biking and other aerobic sports, and you get a much better result: more calories consumed and a gain in aerobic stamina to up your caloric burn during your next workout.
Granted: Running, biking, rowing and other high-energy exercise all do an okay job on the "calories out" side of the fuel equation. To do better - to burn even more calories during exercise and to drop even more jean sizes - you'd need to up the level of intensity you experience during aerobics. But how?
Recently a new student walked into a Bar Method studio to sign up for classes. "I'm going to take the Bar Method once a week, because I love it," she told the front desk manager. "But I'm trying to lose some weight, so I'm going to run on the other days." If this student had chosen instead to take the Bar Method four days a week, she probably would have ended up a dress size or two smaller. Like this student, most fitness consumers believe the best remedy for extra pounds is running. It's only when Bar Method students see their bodies shrink beyond what they were able to accomplish by running do they begin to understand that there's something more you can do to shrink your body besides run. To read how Bar Method shapes muscles as well, read How To Sculpt a Dancer's Body.
The problem with running is that by its very nature it's limited in the degree of intensity it can produce. Unless you're planning a brief sprint, running leaves you no choice but to proceed at less than top speed, simply in order to keep going. If you did attempt to run at top speed, your body would give out after a few moments. This is running's catch 22: It challenges you, but there's a kind of glass ceiling of intensity beyond which it won't let you go.
Here are four other blogs that with the one above make up 2009's most popular.
GETTING IN SHAPE: A BODY SCULPTING TRANSFORMATION STORY
THREE BODY SCULPTING SECRETS USED BY THE BAR METHOD
FITNESS TIPS: WHY YOU MIGHT JUST BULK UP BEFORE YOU SLIM DOWN
HOW TO SCULPT A DANCER'S BODY
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Dec 22, 2009 @ 10:49 AM
As 2009 comes to an end, I look back at the year and feel happy with the Bar Method’s growth. We added 12 studios and became
international, both with a new franchisee in Vancouver and an
exciting new affiliation with Rancho La Puerta, the luxury destination spa in Mexico where our students will receive a discounted rate to relax and regenerate with all the fitness and spa activities there while also taking Bar Method classes taught by our teachers. Here I am at this year's Bar Method San Francisco Marina Holiday Party with my assistant Dannah and my boyfriend Michael.
On January 23rd of this past year, I started my weekly blog, which has become a personally rewarding experience. It has given me an opportunity to express my thoughts on the Bar Method as well as to learn and share information about emerging findings in the exercise field. I’ve explored subjects ranging from exercise physiology and pre-natal classes to posture and the mental side of exercise, among other subjects. I want to express my appreciation to those of you who commented on the blog by sharing some of what you wrote:
…your workout feels so much more satisfying when you've really put some effort into it. Whilst it makes me incredibly tired on one level, I feel really relaxed and the next day have twice asa much energy.
gemma@leggit.co.uk
…I tried on a pair of pants I wore in the winter and they slid off my body. I knew I lost inches but had no idea how much my body had changed…
s_coombs@comcast.net
…I think the Bar Method is the work of genius.
fruiteena@yahoo.com
...Great post. I'm excited to try even harder now.
m-panda@live.com
That's what I love with this program. It is all so well thought out. It makes sense…
debiegmalek@gmail.com
I adore the Bar Method..I myself lost almost 35 pounds since January by watching my portion sizes and doing the Bar Method...!
vanity68@aol.com
Please post more stories like this; they are truly inspirational. Thanks!!!
emcclure02@hotmail.com
Bar during pregnancy is a MUST!!!
deirdrecarew@me.com
I TOTALLY agree! the first few times after completing the class I would get in my car have a huge smile on my face and yell "wooohooo!"
rachel.eaton@sbcglobal.net
I LOOOOVE IT!!!! Quality permeates and transcends as it should do.
debbiegmalek@gmail.com
Happy holidays and a healthy, happy 2010!
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Dec 15, 2009 @ 12:57 AM
Look at a class in progress and everyone seems to be working contentedly. Listen to their interior monologue, and you might get a different impression. Here is what students tell me they are sometimes actually saying to themselves: “I wonder if I’m doing this right.” “I don’t think I’m in the right position. ” “I know I’m off, so why is the teacher walking right by me?” “I wish someone would HELP me.”
This kind of thinking challenges the conventional belief that students don’t want to be touched or singled out while taking exercise classes. If you go with this idea, teachers would do best to simply show the moves and let everyone figure them out on their own. The Bar Method doesn’t buy into this view. Most students we’ve consulted on this issue tell us that they are highly motivated to do the exercises right and are frustrated when they don't feel cared for and tended to by their teachers. As long as teachers adjust their form supportively, they tell us, they appreciate the help.
Our students are smart to feel this way. Isometric systems like the Bar Method, unlike aerobics and boot camps, work by means of precise positioning. If students don’t get in the right positions, while they may get a good workout, they are not sculpting their bodies effectively. The better a student's form, the faster the incredible results we are known for occur.
Of course, we Bar Method teachers must first overcome our students’ unfamiliarity with the idea that their exercise teachers will be adjusting their form. Our first step towards learning how to “adjust” without being intrusive takes place during teacher training. Trainees practice on each other until they learn to administer “adjustments” with so much skill, confidence and positive spirit that they are able to dispel any reluctance on the part of students to receive this kind of guidance – and ultimately leave their students more relaxed and energized.
Here are a few guidelines we Bar Method teachers follow in order to make hands-on adjusting as positive an experience for our students as possible:
Touch the bony places, not the squishy places. We definitely don’t want to mistakenly put our hands on the squishier body parts. The double benefit of this tack is that the bony structures such as the hips, shoulders and the back of the ribs work better anyway when you’re straightening someone’s back or correcting their posture.
Smile (and try not to over-state the issue). When you’re making a physical adjustment, we try not to confuse the issue by talking. Students don’t want attention drawn to them, and too much conversation breaks their concentration.
Aim for improvement rather than perfection. Improvement is the goal we’re looking for. It’s fun for teachers to acknowledge – and students to be reminded – that those little steps of progress add up until they become significant change.
Watch! Some teaches develop an uncanny ability to sense their students’ needs by reading their body language and facial expressions. These gifted and caring teachers can thereby eke out the students who are most hoping for help.
All told, “hands-on adjusting” helps students get workouts sessions that feel targeted. “I like that the Bar Method is never random,” a Walnut Creek student told me last summer. “The teachers are great because they help me find every muscle from head to toe.”
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Dec 08, 2009 @ 09:57 AM
Last Friday and Saturday we had our second annual Bar Method Convention. Both years, franchisees gathered at the flagship studio in San Francisco for seminars, master classes, updated materials, discussion, and fun. In the last 12 months, we have grown from 21 to 33 studios including new locations in Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Canada. Seven studios are currently under construction, among them facilities in Palo Alto and New York City. (See the photo above of Manhattan studio owners Amy and Kristin working out in that city's Central Park).
Both this year and last, the studio owners began to arrive a few days early to take class and meet or reconnect with each other. My partner Carl and I get a thrill watching these reunions. There’s no better word to describe the sight of studio owners connecting but joyful, and I can understand why they feel that way. This year Amy and Catherine, co-owners of the Manhattan and Chicago studios (respectively), came early to teach each other classes in an unused studio room. Later, many of the owners of the seven studios currently under construction arrived bubbling with stories of how hard it was to get all their building permits and how much fun it is now to be seeing their studios coming together.
Bar Method franchisees are a breed apart. They are without exception radiant, talented and driven. They share a passion for and dedication to the Bar Method as a life path.
As this year’s convention got under way, I noticed one striking difference between last year’s event and this one. Last year, we all focused on learning the basic components of studio ownership: management, marketing, and developing our website. This past Friday and Saturday, it was clear that the studio owners had advanced light years in these areas. However, although we did discuss these subjects, our focus shifted to something more essential: the quality of our classes.
It turns out that during the last 12 months while the franchisees have been focusing on this issue, those of us at the Bar Method’s headquarters have been putting in place new programs to increase and maintain quality. We’ve brought on a corps of teacher-evaluators and teacher-trainers. We’ve expanded our teacher manual and have developed an online Bar Method-wide teacher evaluation system. Meanwhile the franchisees have taken it upon themselves to regularly visit each other’s studios. Often the visiting franchisee teaches a few classes, then meets with the teachers at the studio she's visiting to coach any teachers in need of guidance.
What I used to fear as the result of our growth, namely a disintegration of quality, has failed to materialize. The opposite has occurred. Due in part to the dedicated efforts of our franchisees, the quality of our classes has risen and is continuing to rise. I want to thank our studio owners for enabling us to defy conventional wisdom. Their commitment to quality makes it possible for us to bring The Bar Method’s workout to more and more people every year with the knowledge as we get bigger we also get better.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Sun, Nov 29, 2009 @ 10:12 AM
Since opening my first exercise studio in the early 90s, I’ve made many changes in the technique as it was taught then. I had not anticipated this role. My plan was simply to teach the exercise method that I had enjoyed as a student over the previous decade.
The story of how I started modifying the original workout begins shortly after I became a studio owner in 1992. I’d spent two years preparing for this event by training and teaching at the Lotte Berk Method in New York City. Now as a teacher and owner I felt an increased responsibility to keep my students safe from injury as well as to give them the results they desired.
Imagine my concern when a few weeks after opening, some students came to me with back, knee and shoulder strains. I located a physical therapist, Rick Stebbins, and showed him our moves. Rick was impressed with our exercise program because it was non-impact and focused on key muscle groups. However, he said, some of our positions could indeed impact students’ joints. The good news was that he could suggest ways to modify these positions so that they were safer.
When I put Rick’s changes into place, I made an unexpected discovery. The safer positions were also harder. What Rick had done was re-work our exercises so that students’ body weight fell directly onto their muscles rather than their joints. At first, we teachers had to prod our students to get out of the easier, less joint-friendly poses and into the harder, safer ones. Once everyone grew accustomed to the new form, they grew to love the changes in their bodies. In the following years, I sought advice from more PTs - some of them now Bar Method teachers – and their expertise gave me the confidence to be innovative on an ongoing basis. The Bar Method is like a "living language" that continues to evolve. Consistently, whatever changes we made also gave students better results.
I got so much satisfaction out of this process that I began to look for other ways to update the workout. I looked at how well we paced the class, how effectively we targeted the right muscles, how much more intense and challenging we could safely make every exercise, and whether we could teach it better. Today, thanks to the help of both our consulting physical therapists and my fellow Bar Method teachers, the Bar Method class has evolved in all these areas. It has become, for example, faster paced. Old exercises that used to let students rest at moments have been removed. The remaining exercises are now inter-linked so that the next exercise begins on the last beat of the former one. Students now tell us on a more regular basis that, “the hour flies by.”
The workout has also become more targeted. Former exercises that gave mediocre results are gone. New super-effective sculpting moves have been added. Along the way I’ve been careful to preserve the overall intensity of the Bar Method by resisting the trend towards packing exercise routines with lots of different moves. I learned through trial and error that the more you crowd into a workout the less intense it becomes. Exercises need time to work, and the Bar Method gives them time to get the job done, which is one reason students tell us that the Bar Method has a unique ability to make them feel “done” from head to toe. Read more about how the
body sculpting technique works.
Last but not least, Bar Method teachers have gotten better at keeping students in form. The family of exercise to which the Bar Method belongs involves isolating muscles. Without precise positioning, students will miss out. Bar Method teachers, therefore, have learned to work harder to observe their classes and adjust form. More than any other element, this one wins us the most appreciation from our students.