Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Jul 27, 2010 @ 10:12 AM
Mike Najjar was the first teacher I invited to perform in the DVD workout that I would be leading during our four-DVD shoot this month. Mike has been teaching at both San Francisco studios since 2007. When he's not wearing his Bar Method Instructor hat, he is also an institutional sales representative in the financial sector. I wanted Mike as a performer because he projects great personal warmth, takes class five times a week, and loves the Bar Method. He turned out to be not only a good performer, but very helpful to our team. During the rehearsals, each of us took turns watching the run-throughs and giving us notes regarding how well we were representing the correct form of the exercises and were in sync with each other.
Mike was both supportive and honest with his feedback.
“You have a tic,” he told me after one run-through. “You’re saying ‘and then’ a lot.”
A “tic” is an unnecessary word or phrase that Bar Method teachers say unconsciously again and again like “go ahead and,” “I want you to,” and “good.” I certainly didn’t want to have tics in my DVD!
“Really?” I responded. “I don’t hear myself saying it.”
We ran through the workout again, and there it was. I WAS constantly saying “and then.” Thanks to Mike, I will not subject the users of my DVDs with a cascade of “and then”’s.
The other members of my group had similarly sweet personalities.
Tera Roth, a teacher at the Downtown San Francisco studio, is studying for her doctorate in physical therapy and is on the left of Mike. Keryun Su, one of my teachers at the SF Marina studio, is an IT project manager whose husband Duke was the subject of one of my previous blogs. She is on the right in this picture. Chelsea Glavinovich, in the picture below, is an amazing, high-energy studio owner who is always cheerful and smiling even though she runs two East San Francisco Bay studios, leads training groups all over the country, bikes competitively, and as of late finds the time to plan her upcoming wedding in early October.
This DVD workout is one of the advanced routines. I named it “Super-Sculpting” because it is an especially targeted workouts, even for a Bar Method class. For example, we not only do “pretzel, which is already a highly effective seat exercise. We give it an extra kick with the use of a ball. Similarly we used our balls to add challenge in thigh-work, abs and “back-dancing.”“Super-Sculpting” had its intended effect on our bodies.
“I was more sore after each DVD practice,” Chelsea told me, “than I have been in recent memory.”
I myself noticed that our “Super-Sculpting” rehearsals added definition to my seat and arms.
On July 7th, the day of our shoot, the five of us met up in the make-up room of the sound-stage in Van Nuys, California, north of Los Angeles. This is where Mike met his biggest challenge as a performer: make-up!
“I never wore makeup before,” he confessed. “I kept smearing it
when I touched my face. Also got a bad taste in my mouth from the lip stuff.”
His discomfort got him a certain amount of ribbing from his fellow performers.
“It was pretty funny,” Tera told me.
The shoot itself went smoother those I’d done in the past. I attribute this improvement to our super-organized new production team.
“I thought it was very efficient and well run,” Mike told me after he’d removed his make-up. “I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
I hope users of “Super-Sculpting” will have as much fun – and get the same great results – as my performers and I did making it.
Next week: Joey Decker and his beginner’s workout.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Jul 20, 2010 @ 11:56 AM
Some time in 2009 my business partner Carl Diehl and I started talking about making more Bar Method workout DVDs. We’d already made two other sets of exercise DVDs in 2003 and 2008. So I was aware of the tremendous energy and focus required to produce them. Exercise DVDs are like small movies. You need to find a good director, a producer, a project manager, a coordinator, a composer, a sound stage, talent, and a crew. You have to create a concept and write the scripts, design the set, assemble the talent, figure out a rehearsal schedule, and work out the costuming. You have to create a budget.
Not only that, performing in exercise DVDs is harder than you’d think. Directors have told me that exercise DVD performers who’ve taught their routines thousands of times to their students are often struggle in front of a camera, and I’m no exception. In both 2003 and 2008 I was surprised at how tricky it was to present The Bar Method to an invisible audience.
This time, I wanted create workouts that more closely resembled the fun, fast-moving classes at Bar Method studios. I decided to create two really hard “advanced” workouts, which even the strongest Bar Method students would find challenging. In addition we’d shoot a beginner’s workout and a pregnancy workout. I’d hire a hip director and composer and feature a larger cast of performers.
By April, we’d located a director that Carl and I both connected to: Packy McFarland, an award-winning creator of instructional videos and infomercials, who enlisted his detail-oriented technical producer, Ted Baker. The picture at the left shows Packy in action on the set.
After taking such a big step, we seemed not to know what to do next.
“You need to write the scripts,” Carl would tell me.
“I KNOW, but I’m too busy,” I’d tell him.
“How can I free up some time for you?” he’d say with increasing urgency.
Finally, some time in May, the project came to life. I emailed two wonderful Bar Method teachers based in LA who have performance backgrounds and invited them to lead two of the DVDs. They are Marnie Alton, an actress, singer and song-writer, and Joey Decker, owner of the Burbank studio and director of his own dance company. Both accepted. Later, Lee Potter in her third trimester with twins (more about that later) agreed to do the pre-natal workout dvd.
Then I started inviting great Bar Method teachers from all over California – and one from Portland – to be the non-speaking performers and all of them said yes. I ended up with enough performers to create an entirely different cast for each of the four DVDs.
Somewhere along the line, Carl and I made a decision we’ve been
very happy with: we hired Michael Doud, my boyfriend, to be project manager of the DVD production. Michael, who also manages our SF Marina studio, has decades of experience as a project manager, plus he has a special knack for working with people. He immediately tightened up the organization of the project and got it moving. Carl was especially happy to pass over to Michael the task of standing over me to make sure I got the scripts written. I myself will forever be grateful to Michael for getting the composing of the music back on track. That job has been mine, but I’d gotten too busy to keep it organized. Thanks to Michael, our very talented composer, Mike Licari, ended up knowing exactly what I wanted and producing beautiful sound tracks for each workout. The picture above shows on the left the director Packy, sitting behind him project manager Michael, in the orange shirt Kelsey manning the time code, and next to her technical producer Ted.
Our DVD project was also blessed with an amazing coordinator, Rebecca Chatfield-Taylor, who is also my assistant as well as a terrific Bar Method teacher. You can see her with her arm around one of the performers in the picture on the left. In her role as coordinator, Rebecca put together the artwork for the set, figured out the costuming for the 18 members of the cast, arranged flights, hotels and other travel, and assembled the bars, weights, mats, balls, straps, cushions and other equipment for transport to LA. During the shoot she sat next to the cameras and help us count the correct number of reps for each exercise. Her calm, smiling face was a tremendous support to me and all the other lead performers.
On Friday, July 9th, when the shoot was complete and we were packing up, it occurred to me why actors spend so much time thanking people. I realized that the production team, not me, was the entity that had adapted my ideas and brought them to life.
Thank you everyone!
In the following weeks: behind the scenes during the making of the DVDs.
Sample and buy the 2008 Bar Method Exercise DVDs.
Find a Bar Method Exercise Studio near you.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Jul 13, 2010 @ 10:11 AM
These days I do most of my teaching at studio openings. I enjoy being part of these events. Typically the studio owners are excited, nervous and sleep deprived. They’ve been up half the night stuffing mats, blowing up balls, folding towels, checking the sound system and plugging in the front desk computers, printers and credit card machines. Usually the walls in the reception room look empty because the photos haven’t been hung. To make up for this, there are colorful bouquets of flowers on every conceivable surface from well-wishers. The whole place looks and smells new.
My role is to welcome the students and give them a great class. Before the class I stand at the front desk and learn each student’s name as she or he signs in. My knowledge of everyone’s name gives me the ability to teach a fast-moving class and connect with many individual students at the same time. I can remind someone by name to relax her shoulders, which usually produces a quick laugh from the student because she knows she has this problem and I caught her at it. I can fine-tune students’ form with phrases like, “Amy, great tuck. Now press your ribs forward a bit more. That’s perfect.” My goal is to give every student both adjustments and praise, even including the other master teachers in class. That way, the effect is a positive one, as if my students were beautiful members of a dance company being coached by their choreographer (me). We coalesce, and for one hour we are a group with a common purpose.
The three classes I taught this past Saturday at the Brentwood, California Bar Method studio opening all felt this way. Brentwood is a residential community in West Los Angeles just north of Santa Monica and east of Pacific Palisades where many film stars and other celebrities live. During the morning, for example, Arnold Schwarzenegger walked by our front door and waved cheerfully at the desk sitters inside.
The Brentwood studio is nestled in a tiny, two-storey cluster of shops that share a central courtyard with potted flowering plants and little trees surrounding a small, stone fountain. You can sit and have lunch at one of its two patisseries or just hang out on benches and at the outdoor tables.
The location is not far other Bar Method studios, so some of my students on Saturday had already taken the Bar Method for years somewhere else nearby or were Bar Method teachers and owners of other LA studios. Some were students who hadn’t taken class regularly because they lived a bit too far away until now. There were also people who’d taken other bar fitness classes, some skeptical members of the press, and a few brave souls who were new to it all and were willing to jump right in on opening day.
This kind of mix is a blast for me to teach. I can explain the basics of technique to first timers, watch the faces of the skeptics as they feel muscles they didn’t expect to feel and are surprised by how fast the class moves, as well as shooting a few respectful pointers to the experts.
The Brentwood studio owes its existence to Mimi and Mark Fleischman, my sister and brother-in-law. Together they introduced the Bar Method to Southern California by opening their first studio in West LA in 2003 and their second one in West Hollywood two years later. Mimi and Mark's teachers have a reputation for being dynamic, dedicated and charismatic and their desk sitters tend to be outgoing writers, actors, and comedians from the entertainment community. Their busy studios and wonderful team are an inspiration to the entire Bar Method family.
Congratulations, Mimi and Mark!
Read my post on opening the New York City Soho Bar Method exercise studio.
Find Bar Method Exercise Classes near you.
Sample and buy Bar Method Exercise DVDs.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Jul 06, 2010 @ 08:54 AM
Fitness challenges are becoming popular at Bar Method studios around the country because the workout makes such noticeable changes in students’ bodies. The challenges are contests held over three to four months for various prizes. Recently, the Bar Method studio in Redmond just East of Seattle, Washington held a Fitness Challenge that inspired many students to work a little harder than usual. The testimonials that the contestants wrote are inspirational, and I found them fun to read.
Bar Method Redmond has been open less than a year. In early 2009, two Bay Area Bar Method teachers moved back home to the Seattle, Washington area to open their own studio near where they grew up. Bev Currier had been teaching in Walnut Creek, California for years. Maika Manring was a newer teacher in that same studio. The two women were joined by Bev’s husband Luke Currier, who although not a teacher, is integrally involved in every other aspect of the studio.
Bev, Luke and Maika opened Bar Method Redmond, Seattle-Eastside in August, 2009 and less than a year later, it is a vibrant, jam packed exercise center that has touched thousands of people’s lives. The 2010 Fitness Challenge, which was launched in January, excited the entire studio and many participants reached their goals, which varied from weight loss to injury prevention, better posture, greater flexibility, overcoming depression, and simply getting some “me time.”
Studio co-owner Maika explains that “we did not choose the winner of the transformation challenge by the person who changed their body the most. The transformation could be how Bar Method changed their life for the better, be it a physical change, a mental/emotional change, or both. All fitness challengers submitted testimonials to describe these changes and the person that won showed a transformation that embodied Bar Method body, mind and spirit.”
Here is one of the stories that I particularly love from Cynthia and her before and after pictures.
“I joined the fitness challenge with the goal of attending Bar 5 times per week. In reality I made it on average 3-4 times. My overall goals consisted of getting in shape for a looming 10-year high school reunion this summer and fitting into a pair of jeans I have hung on to for way too long!
I was so excited to join this challenge and see it through just as quickly as I had committed to it. Over the course of the challenge I overcame many obstacles along my fitness journey to achieve success: sprained ankle, sickness, family illness the loss of my beloved grandpa. Through each of these obstacles I rededicated myself to my goals by making positive life long changes. I did this by focusing on balancing my diet and eating habits, especially when it was not possible to attend Bar. These obstacles also gave me a better understanding that eating healthy in addition to Bar Method workouts was also a key component to achieving the results I set out for myself. Each obstacle I overcame allowed me to achieve small successes every week and every month I participated in the challenge.
My overall method for reaching my goals was to attain them by balanced, realistic and sustainable means. In short, my recipe for success has been largely based on attending Bar Method classes regularly, drinking more water, getting more sleep, limited alcohol consumption, less soda, less overall calorie intake and generally paying greater attention to what I am putting into my body.
The more classes I attended, the more I came to the conclusion that I love Bar Method! There has not been a single day that I did not experience the sensations of burning, shaking and quivering in nearly every muscle in my body. The combination of pilates, yoga with isometric movements has been the best compliment to my typically cardio-heavy workout regimen. I have never had the muscle definition and dense muscle composition that I have now.
My battle with weight has been a recent struggle of mine. It was not until I entered my late 20’s that I ever had any difficulty managing my weight and staying toned. Bar Method has not on transformed my body but also the way I approach my ongoing fitness goals. Now at 28, I’m committed and dedicated to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, which includes Bar Method regularly! Along this journey I have gained confidence, my clothes fit better (I now fit into that pair of jeans I have hung on to!!!), I stand taller and I have more energy and motivation.
After 4 months I have lost: 1.5 inches off my arms, 2 inches off my chest, 3.5 inches off my waist, 3 inches off my hips, 3 inches off my thighs, and 1.25 inches off my calves!
Sometimes it has felt like life interrupted my fitness plans on my fitness journey but like everything else in life some things do not go as planned, we take a detour along the way, but amazingly we can still arrive at our destination. I have felt this many times over during the course of this challenge. I am definitely a stronger individual because of these experiences and obstacles. Even though I was able to meet most of my fitness goals for this challenge I plan on establishing new goals to continue to strive to meet and stay motivated.
I continue to look forward to my daily dose of Bar Method and warm greetings and smiles from Bev, Luke and Maika. Their smiles encouragement helped get me out of bed, even on the coldest and darkest of winter mornings at 6am and that is what continues to bring me back for more… I love Bar Method!”
Allison, the winner of the 2010 Fitness Challenge, sums up the supportive spirit of the Redmond studio at the close of her interview:
“So, it is obvious I feel a connection both in body and spirit to The Bar Method and am thrilled at the results I am seeing. The icing on the cake is the camaraderie, support and love I feel for the group of people I take with, and for my incredible teachers Bev and Maika.”
Read all incredible results in all twenty testimonials from Bar Method Redmond.
Find a Bar Method exercise studio near you.
Sample and buy Bar Method exercise dvds.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Mon, Jun 28, 2010 @ 09:37 PM
Four million years ago, our ancestors stood up and walked on two legs. Now our two knees, which are the body's largest joints, do the job that four knees used to do and they help keep us in balance, which is an issue when you're more vertical than horizontal. Our knees need all the muscles around them to be as strong and balanced as possible.
By systematically strengthening all three muscles groups that run through the knees - the calf muscle, the quads, and the hamstrings - Bar Method students keep them strong and pain free, which may be especially important for runners or participants in other high impact sports. Here's part of a blog that I happened to run across:
"My current fitness obsession is The Bar Method. Check out Burr Leonard’s Exercise blog at http://blog.barmethod.com/. I have Burr’s two CDs and do the workouts at home. At one point I plan to sign up for classes too – the studio is comfortably close to the Embarcadero Bart station in San Francisco. The effect on my abs and lower back is astonishing, and my genetically weak knees do not bother me anymore." (Click here to read the
entire blog.)
Even if you are not an athlete, the health of your knees is important. Knees carry the weight of most of the body with every step we take. Keeping them strong and youthful requires a pretty simple formula: strengthen and balance the muscle groups that extend across the knee joint.
The long calf muscle (the “gastrocnemius”)is the first of three that
intersect in the knee. You can see them toward the bottom of the picture to the right. This muscle enables us to come up onto the balls of our feet in what could be thought of as a "high heels" position. The great thing when it comes to knee stabilization is that the calf muscles extend across the back of our knees, thereby helping to hold them aligned and straight.
If you have an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury, the gastrocnemius can stabilize the back of the knee in its place. This is why physical therapists give calf strengthening exercises to their patients with ACL injuries. The Bar Method’s starts its leg-exercises with heel lifts for this reason.
Above the knee on the back of the body are the hamstrings. The picture above shows this group of muscles (the biceps femoris, semitendinosus, and the semimembranosus.) The Bar Method is know for it's “seat-work,” which is really a series of exercises for the backs of your upper legs including the glutes. These exercises target your hamstrings, the third major muscle group that extends across our knees. Feel those kinds of sharp cords that run across the backs of your knees. Those are your hamstring tendons. When your hamstrings are strong, they help hold your knees in place. When these muscles aren’t toned, our knees get less support. A side benefit of strong hamstrings is the beautiful slightly rounded shape of the back of fit thighs.
The quads are the muscles in the fronts of our thigh and happen to be our bodies’ largest muscle group. The quads extend across the front of our knee. The intense, non-impact plies, little knee bends where the muscles stay engaged that we do in a Bar Method class, are tremendously effective to strengthen and balance the quads. The Bar Method’s knee bends are safe because students do them while bringing their heels up off the floor, thereby engaging the calf muscles to lock the knee in place.
Every Bar Method class includes at least three different sets of these plies with the quads at slightly different angles. These multiple positions assure that the quads get worked evenly. The four muscles in the quads include the vastus muscles and the rectus femoris as you can see in the picture to the left. Runners, tennis players and athletes in other sports tend to use their outer quad muscles (vastus lateralis) more than their inner one (vastus medialis). That can ultimately pull their patellas to the side with flexion, causing pain. The Bar Method emphasizes inner quad work to help address this issue.
This blog is the fourth in a series on special challenges we humans face due to our evolutionary journey from four legged creatures to bipeds. Shoulders, backs, and knees changed radically as we stood up, walked, and used our arms to reach over our heads. We can stay supple and healthy by producing and toning muscle around these especially vulnerable areas. Click on any of the links below to read other sections of the series.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Mon, Jun 21, 2010 @ 11:31 PM
For the past couple of weeks, I ve been discussing the vulnerable areas in our human bodies and how The Bar Method strengthens them. Our back is certainly one of our most susceptible body parts. The origin of our back issues goes way back to when we stood up on two legs, losing the relative stability that comes with having four of them. Our back problems got worse when modern conveniences enabled most of us humans to lead very successful lives without doing much upper body work. Twenty-First Century Man could scarcely move all day and still make Forbes 100 Richest list at the end of the year.
It’s a fact that, as reported by the New York Times, people who do not exercise regularly face an increased risk for low back pain. Is it any wonder then that low back pain is the second most common cause of missed days of work (next to the common cold) in the United States? Close to 80% of all Americans experience it at some point and about 50% of us experience each year.
A common misconception about lower back pain is that we can eliminate it simply by doing abdominal exercises. The logic here is that a strong front of the body will give you a strong back. The truth is, to have a healthy back, you have to strengthen not only the front of your trunk but the back itself, and develop good posture and alignment.
Look at the chart above. It shows the superficial layers of the muscles in our backs. I‘m struck by the beauty of these intertwined muscular groupings and impressed by the obvious importance of each of these muscles in keeping us upright and healthy. When I talk to new Bar Method students who tell me they have problematic backs, I rarely hear them ask me about how to strengthen their back muscles. Yet clearly our back muscles were meant to be used and strengthened, especially given that they have a unique role in holding us upright unlike our distant four legged ancestors.
How can we minimize our risk of suffering from back pain or injury? Jonathan Clutt, M.D., a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and About.com writer, recommends “sustained use of back muscles performed two or three times a week at least.” Sports injury expert Owen Anderson of Sports Injury Bulletin reported on five different studies on lower back pain, which all lead to the same conclusion. In the article he urges us to: “consider one last study, a beauty carried out in Teheran, Iran, with a grand total of 600 subjects. These 600 individuals were subdivided into four groups: 150 asymptomatic men, 150 asymptomatic women, 150 men with low-back pain, and 150 women with the same..... As it turned out, among all of the physical characteristics measured, the endurance of the back-extensor (erector-spinae) muscles had the highest (negative) association with low-back pain. The Iranian researchers suggested that low-back-muscle endurance could be used as a screening tool to predict which individuals would be likely to develop low-back disorders.” In other words, just as as Dr. Cluett said above, people should do exercises that employ sustained use of the back muscles and the erector-spinae muscle group is a particular important one to keep toned.
One of the things I enjoy most about teaching Bar Method classes and hanging out in the waiting room with students before and after class is hearing from some of them how much The Bar Method has helped their backs. The Method does that in a variety of ways. In addition to strengthening the abdominals, it strengthens, stretches and aligns students’ backs. Stretching on the stall bars at the start and end of class lengthens the spine and reverses some of its constant compression from gravity. The first 15 minutes of classes specifically strengthens the shoulder, arms, and upper body muscles including the posterior deltoids, rhomboids, and lats. Students use their upper backs consistently during this segment.
The Bar Method’s leg exercises also plays a role in stabilizing students’ backs. At the bar, Students’ back muscles get the very kind of sustained isometric work which strengthens the erector spinae to protect against lower back pain. Then they work their glutes, which act as a support for the lower back and must be strong to protect the spine.
After the glutes are exhausted and stretched, we turn to a series of core exercises. One of the most important of these is called flat back. This move cleverly forces the transverse abdominal muscle (which acts like a girdle around our entire middle) to fire and stay strong as it gives support to our spines. (Read more about this exercise for the deepest layer of muscle in our cores in
HOW FLAT BACK GIVES US THE ABS OF OUR DREAMS.) Stretches punctuate the work to stretch and elongate all these muscles as we strengthen them. Towards the end of class, we do a pose specifically for the erector spinae after which we stretch the back while strengthening the glutes in an exercise we call back dancing but is known to many as a common physical therapy move for people with low back pain.
People know that The Bar Method gives you flat abs, toned thighs, and a lifted seat. What they might not have known until now it that it also gives you a strong, stretched, supple back!
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Jun 15, 2010 @ 09:20 AM
A major focus of The Bar Method workout is to increase the stability of one of our most delicate joints, namely the shoulder. People injure their shoulders so much for a simple reason. The human body developed through ages when our upper bodies did a lot of heavy work, which served to develop enough muscle around the shoulder joints to stabilize them. Today our survival needs don't include much upper-body strengthening activity so we have to add it in. The Bar Method addresses this situation by paying special attention to the shoulder muscles.
After a brief warm up of leg lifts, the first exercise in a Bar Method
class is for the shoulders. Called “shoulder walks,” we do it off the beat of the music and it serves as a quiet, nearly meditative start to class allowing students to turn inward and click on their “mind-body connection.” From there, the class continues with biceps and triceps exercises, push ups and reverse push-ups focusing on pecs, triceps, and deltoids. Upper body muscles continue to play a major but supporting role in all the exercises for the rest of the hour up until the last cool down glutes work before final stretch.
In last week’s blog,
EVOLUTION, WORK AND WORKING OUT OR WHY PEOPLE NEED MUSCLES, I talked about how the human evolutionary journey from four legged to upright creatures caused certain vulnerabilities in our bodies, especially in the shoulders, knees and backs. Man's ability to rotate his arm 360 degrees enabling him to climb, throw, and carry require the most complex and delicate combination of coordinated muscles in our bodies. According to Dr. Lev Kalika of Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization, “The anatomy of the shoulder joint is in fact the highlight of human evolution. The versatility and mechanics of the motion of the shoulder is far more complex than of any existing precision machine.”
The shoulder joint is often compared to a golf ball sitting on a tee.
There is no snug, safe socket enclosing the end of our arm bone. This is what makes the shoulder so vulnerable. Instead, it relies on a complex system of muscles called the rotator cuff to girdle the shoulder joint in place. In addition to the rotator cuff, which is not visible, the deltoids and triceps, as shown in the picture to the right, are visible and, along with other nearby muscles, contribute to the workings of the shoulder.
Here's a letter that a grateful Bar Method student wrote to Summit, New Jersey Bar Method studio owners Jen Hedrick and Angie Comiteau:
I want to let you both know how thrilled I am to have found Bar
Method! It really has changed my life. I have belonged to gyms, played organized sports, dabbled in road races, had stints with personal trainers...you name it...for as long as I can remember.
About a year and a half ago I started having severe shoulder/rotator cuff problems. Normal everyday activities such as lifting the kids or even a carton of milk out of the fridge became excruciating. At times the pain prevented me from sleeping. I saw doctors and physical therapists and was very discouraged. Eventually I turned to The Bar after hearing how great it was....I have a lot to learn as far as technique and positioning are concerned, but I thoroughly enjoy and learn in each and every class and constantly feel challenged, energized, and overall, simply healthier. Most importantly, my shoulder pain is totally gone! It's nothing short of miraculous. I've got my life back and no longer feel incapable.
Thanks guys...I appreciate all that you do...Elizabeth
Shoulder exercises, however, are not only good for you; they look good on you. Sculpted arms and shoulders are perhaps the hottest red carpet trend in physical fitness today. Harper’s Bizarre says, “Arms are the New Face” Michelle Obama’s gorgeous upper body created an uproar as people gossiped about her sleeveless wardrobe. Self Magazine talks about “A-List Sculpted Arms.”
Just as Bar Method creates a distinctive looking butt with a lifted base and a slimmed down side punctuated by a dimple, so does it create a distinctive arm and shoulder. The deltoid is augmented making it more prominent and it tapers off in a triangular point like the end of a heart on the top of the upper arm. The neck muscles or trapezius above it is lengthened and unbulky. The biceps are shapely but not too big. There is a small tear drop shape right below the collar bone that is formed where the deltoid and pecs meet. Firm triceps and defined pecs make up the rest of the look.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Jun 08, 2010 @ 09:51 AM
Have you ever have ever had a problem with your shoulders, back or knees? Last year, I was giving a talk at the famed destination Spa Rancho La Puerta in Mexico and I asked the members of the audience there that question. Nearly everyone raised their hand. The odds are that you have had some of these issues, too. Most people suffer discomfort or disability in these areas at some point in their lives.
Why are people prone to having weak knees, bad backs, and unstable shoulder joints? The reason lies in man's evolutionary journey from four legged creature to human being. The human muscular structure was originally designed to fit a four-legged frame, one we still share with most other mammals. It may seem strange to us that an elephant, a four-legged animal, has two scapula, a sternum, two humerus bones, two ulna bones, two femurs, patellas, tibias and fibulas just as we do.
You can see in the picture above how many muscles we share with horses including traps, lats, pecs, biceps, triceps, glutes, quads and hamstrings. As our bodies evolved, we humans gained arms, hands and bigger brains. These additions provided us with spectacular survival skills but our evolution came at a price.
One significant difference between our anatomy and theirs is that horses and elephants have a limb on each corner of their torso like a table. You probably wouldn’t design a table with two legs leaving the rest of its structure hovering vertically in space. Neither would evolution unless it had a really good reason. Evolution built us the way it did to enable us to have an extraordinary spectrum of survival skills including building dwellings, making clothes and fires, hammering out tools and weapons and then hefting and throwing them, climbing trees and mountains, traveling with our children and possessions on our backs, and chasing down other mammals as well as running from them.
Most mammals have a relatively simply survival strategy. They hunt down their prey, breed and take care of their young. When they’re off work, they sleep. We, on the other hand, survive by keeping busy. Even with our vulnerable two-legged structure, we evolved to become the best overall athlete of all animals. Other animals can beat us at individual skills like running and strength. We would win the best average of all physical skills combined, and until fairly recently every human alive was an athlete living a life of non-stop, bodily multitasking. Compared to other animals, we are built to be total physical workaholics and the muscular system that resulted protected our bodies like suits of armor.
Contrast this lifestyle with today’s. Before age one we might be placed in a baby walker. Our parents toted us around in strollers, then in cars. We got to play, but soon we were in school at desks, and after school in front the TV. Later we became transfixed by computers and cell phones. In our youth we participated in sports for a few hours a day give or take. Finally we settled down with American Idol, Facebook, Twitter and texting.
So here we are with a two legged body that has been radically altered to suit this A-type physically active, multitasking creature. The very activities we humans had to perform to enable us to survive also protected our joints and backs by keeping us super-fit. Yet we've now multitasked ourselves right out of the need to be active with our bodies. I'm not knocking this amazing achievement. However, the drastic adaptations that evolution made to our bodies left us with a number of physical weaknesses, especially in our shoulders, backs and knees that can only be overcome by building a very strong muscular structure, something that was a natural result of all the survival activities man used to engage in. (Read
WHY BAR METHOD CREATES MUSCLES THAT ARE SUPREMELY FIRM, LEAN AND SHAPELY for more on how Bar Method workouts build muscle.)
The situation today is that we no longer have the high level of fitness - and the muscles that result from it - that was once an inevitable part of our lives. In the next three weeks, I’ll take look at the three parts of our bodies – our shoulders, backs and knees -- that are especially vulnerable to injury, and examine how exercise can re-endow these areas with the stability they need.
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Jun 01, 2010 @ 11:46 AM
People have varying attitudes towards food. Some people cherish it as a major source of pleasure. Some struggle with eating too much of it, and others are simply obsessed with it. I myself am the type of person who’s relatively uninterested in food. I don’t cook, I eat mostly take-out, and I don’t know much about recipes, restaurants and what makes a meal memorable. For this reason I’ve always found the world of “foodies” somewhat intriguing and mysterious. I learned a little bit from “Julia and Me” (with Amy Adams and Meryl Streep) which taught me that Julia and Julie loved butter and spent a lot of time in the kitchen.
The last thing I would have imagined is that a lot of foodies are as addicted to exercise as they are to food. Recently a Bar Method
student named Beth Griffin, who happens to be a foodie, set me straight. Beth is a “food blogger” (another phenomenon heretofore unknown to me) with gorgeous photographs and great recipes at
http://www.sweetlifekitchen.com/. We met at a
teacher training session in L.A. where Beth was training to be a Bar Method instructor. Foodies, she told me, tend to love exercise, and they blog and tweet about it all the time. When I looked her up on twitter at
http://twitter.com/oursweetlife I saw that she had tweeted to a friend: "I've made it MANDATORY MONDAYS at #BarMethod, it makes my week so much better & I can burn off wht I ate thru the weekend!"
Another Bar Method studen Diana Hossfeld has a popular food blog
“I eat, I run, I write, I read I Bar Method, and then I do it all over again. (especially the eating part)…"
“A new way to look at dessert: how many Bar Method classes is it worth?"
”Abs still sore from Bar Method class on Wednesday night – nice change from usual source of stomach pain (eating too much)”
Then it hit me: Food. Exercise. Of course they go together! Where have I been? Foodies need exercise to burn off what they eat. Plus, foodies love physical sensations (butter on the taste buds for example) and exercise, plus its aftereffects, happen to be physical sensations.
To find out if my new theory was right, I asked another foodie who is also a Bar Method-ite to tell me how she feels about exercise. Her answer told me that I my assumptions are right on.
“The more sugar I eat the more time I spend at the Bar Method!” Jamie Cantor told me. Jamie is the owner of Platine Cookies at
http://www.platinecookies.com/ - an amazing, highly reviewed bakery with sweets and savories based in Culver City. She also has been a Bar Method teacher for six and a half years. She confirmed the pleasure-seeking link between eating and exercise: “Chocolate contains some chemicals that interact with the brain to make you feel good. In a similar vein, good exercise sends endorphins that can boost your mood as well. So I really see a connection between being a foodie and a Bar Method junkie!”
Diana of “Diana Takes a Bite” came clean about the addictive appeal of combining working out with eating: “The hunger factor plays a role in the link between physical activity and ‘foodie-ism’,” she said. “Exercise – especially intense exercise – makes us hungry. And food always tastes better on an empty stomach.” Like Jamie, she is also up front about the “calories in/calories out” factor. “I turn to exercise as an antidote for my less virtuous eating behavior,” she admitted.
Foodies, I’ve decided, are some of the most enlightened people around because they’re experts at appreciating the simple pleasures of life. “I've been known to buy one pound boxes of See's chocolates -- for myself,” Diana freely admitted to me. “Sometimes I even have the counter girls wrap them up like I'm giving them to someone else.” Who but a foodie could conceive of such a wonderful act of pleasure-seeking whimsy? Cheers!
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, May 25, 2010 @ 10:36 AM
I love music, like a lot of people. When I’m working out, rhythm and melody inspire me to move gracefully and to feel strong inside and out. One reason I love the Bar Method is that it is an exercise form that resembles music itself. Like music it has an orderly structure, an intense focus on form, and it has drama.
Last month I was delighted to get an email from a professional musician who gave me her expert view of these similarities. Margaret Wacyk is an award-winning concert pianist, composer and writer who has performed at New York City’s Carnegie Hall and other cities in the US and Europe. She is the founder of a music school, lead artist in numerous classical CDs, and is working on a book on playing the piano. Even with her busy career she finds the time to take four-to-five Bar Method classes a week at the Bernardsville studio in New Jersey.
“I see so many parallels,” Margaret wrote me, “between the methodology of the Bar Method and that of music: Focus, small range of movement, and intensity on each and every repetition, which in music translates to being intentional and shaping each note you play.”
Like Margaret, I think that the Bar Method is unusual in the realm of exercise techniques in its musicality. Bar Method exercises use simple rhythmic units -- “on-tempo,” “pulses,” “in threes,” “two-counts,” and others – just as songs and concertos do. These simple tempos when combined into phrases create an infinite number of patterns. Our human brains love to follow such patterns, whether we find them in a song or – for us Bar Method lovers – within the design of an exercise sequence.
The Bar Method also shares with music its devotion to form. Music sculpts melodies, while the Bar Method shapes bodies. “Meter organizes musical time on the small scale, while phrasing organizes musical time on the large scale,” writes Robert Jourdain in his book, Music the Brain and Ecstasy. The Bar Method is similarly built of “sets” (exercises) that require focused precision and that, like musical phrases, end with a final dramatic release. According to Jourdain, listening to melodies makes our brain more alert. Bar Method's precise, structured choreography has the same awareness-enhancing effect on its students’ minds.
Finally, music and the Bar Method share the ability to make life feel beautiful and ecstatic. (See last week’s blog
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE: THE INNER WORKOUT for more on the intensity students experience under their seemingly calm exteriors.) In this realm where exercise and music meet, Bar Method classes can create a cathartic experience for its participants.
”The Bar Method has not only changed me physically,” Margaret told me in her email, “but it has really proved once again, that all great principles connect and stretch interdisciplinary lines. Thank you.”