BURR'S BAR METHOD BLOG

At the Bar Method, we are dedicated to the proposition that some of our students will be men. We supply our studio rooms with larger weights than women would use and in most facilities provide men’s changing rooms and lockers. We make sure our exercises and stretches are designed to be entirely doable for students with tight hamstrings, and we train our teachers to use instructional cues that are “gender-neutral ( no “ponytail,” “high heels,” “bra-line,” and “ladies” for example) to make sure guys don’t feel as it they’re in a chick flick. Even so – and this is no secret – the overwhelming majority of Bar Method students are women. When you do see a man at the Bar Method, he’s usually the only member of the opposite sex in the class. I was curious to get some insights from a man’s perspective on why more men don’t come, so I asked Ben Winslow, one of our most regular male students, to shed some light on this issue.

Ben is one of the fittest people I know. A graduate of the infantry officer school and a lieutenant in the army, he put himself through college and became a successful litigator. For the past 38 years, he has run his law firm in the San Francisco Marina while pursuing the sporting activities that he loves: biking, swimming, running, golfing, endurance training, and competing in amazingly challenging triathlons. Ben, who turns 68 next month, has completed many “Escape from Alcatraz” triathlons, (a harrowing 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz, followed by an 18-mile bike ride and an 8-mile run), bike races and other competitive events. .

You’d think these activities would be enough to satisfy the most hard-core athlete, but Ben is unusual and not just in his love of physical challenge. He also has an uncommonly open mind. About a year and a half ago when two female lawyers in his firm told him about the Bar Method and asked him, “Why don’t you come with us?” Ben didn’t hesitate. He liked the workout so much that he got his wife to go to the Bar Method studio in Marin County where they live. Over the past year he has made a habit of walking from his office to the studio three-to-five times a week between business appointments to take class.

Here’s what Ben told me about what it’s like to be a male student at the Bar Method:

What first attracted you to the Bar Method?

As you get older, you’re stooped over. Old guys get stiff. I don’t want to be a person who can’t tie my own shoes.

What do you like about the workout?

I like the discipline. I like the routine of knowing what’s going to follow what. I like knowing what we’re going to do next and how many reps so I can do my maximum effort. And the instructors are great, well trained, friendly. They greet you by name. It may help I’m the only guy.

What results have you gotten from the class?

I’ve become a much better golfer. My golfing friends say ‘Wow, you’re really turning your body when you swing!’ I’ve strengthened my core, gotten more limber. Bike riding I don’t have back pain anymore. I used to get an achy low back. In general I have no more low back issues.

I think my body’s changed. I’ve always been very thin and lean. I’m now more muscular with more developed abs and biceps. I like the look you promote which is long and lean, not chunky and muscular. I have more spring in my step. More energy. I always go to guys (touching his toes) and go ‘hey, can you do that?’

Do you ever feel intimidated by what the women in class can do?

It all evens out. I can do more pushups. They can do other things.

Why don’t other guys want to come?

I tell a lot of guys to come and run into the same thing all the time: ‘It’s a chick thing.’ ‘Let me get this right: you get a fabulous workout. You’re around 30 beautiful women. I don’t get it.’ If guys come and try it once or twice, they’d see that it takes a lot of muscular ability, strength, and coordination. If you apply yourself, it’s hard. You’re sore after you do this. These days with more enlightened men, I think they’re missing out on something.

What could guys get out of the Bar Method that they can’t get elsewhere?

Guys will go down to Gorilla Gym and work with a personal trainer, do that. Personal trainers charge a hundred an hour. I look at them and think they’d get much more out of the Bar Method. If you really want to change your life, you go to a class like this.

 

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MAKING THE SUPER SCULPTING II EXERCISE DVD, PART TWO

RUNNERS’ LEGS AND DANCERS’ LEGS: THE DEFINING DIFFERENCE

WOOING THE GUYS WITH VALENTINE’S DAY “MAN” CLASSES

It’s February, and Valentine’s Day is two weeks away. In keeping with the spirit of the day, many Bar Method studios hold special “man” classes to which men can come free either by themselves or with their girlfriends or spouses. My home studio in the San Francisco Marina is holding three of these “man” classes on Saturday, February 12th, and I’m teaching the last one. I love teaching these special men-oriented classes. The Bar Method has the power to “up” a guy’s fitness level above and beyond what he gets from his usual gym routine of weights, abs and cardio, and it’s fun to talk about these benefits as the men make their way through the exercises. Two things I definitely don’t say are that they’re lifting their seats and ripping their arms. Men already have lifted seats, and many have ripped arms. What guys do get from the workout is stronger legs, tighter abs, more flexibility, relief from back pain, stability in their knees, a better functioning core, and – if they’re athletes – amazing sports conditioning.

With all these fitness benefits to be had by men, why aren’t Bar Method classes full of guys? One reason, in my estimation is that the classes are full of girls, beautiful ones at that. You’d think this would be a big draw, but no. Guys don’t like thinking they’re being shown up by more flexible, dance-y females. What’s more, they don’t like the idea of standing at a ballet bar wearing socks. The problem with this rational is that, one, we female students are actually in awe of guys who brave the class (but most of them never get this), and, two, the ballet bar and the socks are non-material details that don’t reflect the true machismo-like essence of the workout.

In spite of this general male mind-set, a small group of men do come regularly across the spectrum of Bar Method studios. Who are these unusual male students? Some are athletes who’ve found that the class makes them more competitive at their sport. Others are husbands whose back problems disappeared from the workout. A handful are runners who use it to strengthen, stabilize and increase flexibility their knees and hips, ultimately adding longevity to their running careers. My boyfriend Michael is among the atypical guys who come regularly simply because he likes the workout (see my blog “GUYS AT THE BAR” about his experience.) We studio owners are proud that these men are among our students, but the truth is, most of us could count the number of men who come regularly to each studio on the fingers of one hand.

But there’s always hope. Every Valentine’s Day lots of men come to our “man” classes; they work hard, they seem to get it, and every year I think excitedly to myself, “this is the year!” Then these guys don’t come back. One student from a “man” class I taught a few years back gave me an insight as to why. “I’d love this, “he said, “if I knew there’d be at least a few other guys in class.” Alas, it seems a chicken and egg type situation. The guys won’t come because their buddies aren’t there.

Maybe on the 12th, things will change…… :-)

Happy Valentine's Day
Burr Leonard

2010 was a seminal year for The Bar Method. Twelve new studios opened in the U.S. including locations in Manhattan, St. Louis, Dallas and Miami. In October Vancouver became the first international city to have a Bar Method studio, and in that same month The Bar Method released three new exercise DVDs. To celebrate all this growth, I'd like to honor the blog that received the most views and comments over the past 12 months. By a long shot (almost 9000 views more than the runner up) that blog was MAKING THE DANCER'S BODY DVD, the story of how lead performer Marnie Alton and her amazing team of teachers rose to my challenge and delivered a truly advanced Bar Method home workout.

Happy New Year!
Burr Leonard

MAKING THE DANCER'S BODY EXERCISE DVD

Marnie Alton not only teaches exercise. She teaches her students to be joyful, to remember that life is magnificent, and to believe wholeheartedly in their own strength and beauty, both outer and inner. This might sound like hyperbole, but it is exactly how she teaches. I can confidently say that -- until Marnie moved to England this summer – she was one of the most popular and charismatic teachers not only within the Bar Method but just about anywhere.

Marnie radiates a joyful, no-holds-barred approach to life in her teaching and in everything she does. As an actress, singer, dancer and songwriter, she has lived her dreams. She has acted in around 30 TV shows and movies, played continuing characters in several TV series, and starred in one of them -- detective Karen Yamamoto in “Hot Hot Los Angeles.” She has danced professionally, written, published and performed her own songs, and she is happily married to an executive in the entertainment industry. I was thrilled when she accepted my invitation to lead one of the advanced DVD workouts we taped in last month.

When I designed the two new advanced DVD routines, I intended to create “killer” workouts that resembled Bar Method “level 2” studio classes and that were also safe for home users. Leave it to Marnie to out-do my wildest expectations. Since the routine I led, “Super-Sculpting,” featured body-sculpting moves you can do with a ball, the more flowing, dance-like Bar Method variations such as arabesque and second position fell to Marnie. I actually hadn’t noticed how beautiful and athletic her routine was when I first designed it, but Marnie did. By the time I named it “Dancer’s Body,” she had already seized on the concept and made it the theme of her workout.

Marnie's team of performers were perfectly cast for an advanced workout with "dance" in the title. All of them have long, lean, graceful bodies and are exceptionally focused, accomplished individuals. Katelin Chesna, shown next to Marnie, is a professional actress, acting coach, comedienne and master Bar Method teacher. Marin Van Vleck, to the left of Katelin, in addition to being an actress and singer, is the owner of a new, soon-to-be-built Bar Method studio in Dallas. Michael Lowery is an absolutely gorgeous, dynamic and sweet master Bar Method teacher who has just transferred to Bar Method New York/Soho so that he can attend graduate school at NYU, and Denise Burchard, shown below, is the talented, brainy and beautiful founding owner of the Portland Bar Method studio.

The shoot schedule slotted Marnie’s workout as third in line to be taped. When her team was on stage and ready to go, I sat behind the row of production TV screens with the crew thinking, “just wait til you see this!” and I wasn’t disappointed. From the first words Marnie spoke, it was obvious that she was completely comfortable in front of a camera. She connected to her virtual students casually and cheerfully with a twinkle in her eye. I was particularly amazed that she was able to simultaneously do the workout and continually reel off gracefully phrased pointers on inner resolve such as, “Our muscles are like clay. They’ll sculpt into any shape you choose. Choose long.”

What most blew our minds was that the workout was so HARD. The production crew had already watched two pretty tough routines, but you could have picked everyone’s jaw up off the floor by Marnie’s second set of thigh-work. Then I remembered, “OMG, the last thigh set is the hardest in this workout!,” and the performers launched into the last amazing moments of the toughest thigh-work routine ever put on tape, all the time with Marnie never breaking her relentlessly joyful connection with the camera. 

Adding to the overall dramatic effect were the flexible, balletic grace of the performers, their sweat-soaked, shiny, cut muscles, and their brute determination to hang in there.

“I just had to get into this mental zone,” Marin told me. “It was like a ‘do-or-die’ mindset.”

Denise had a similar experience, “The pressure of two back-to-back, challenging classes with a group of exceptional talent really made me push myself that much further. I surprised myself. My body could do more than my mind thought it could.”

Marnie’s “Dancer’s Body” DVD is just what Bar Method students have been lobbying for: a superlatively challenging workout that will continue to inspire them for years to come.

Thank you Marnie!

Click here to find out more why challenging workouts are so important to make you fit.  

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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There’s no doubt that a Bar Method class feels like it’s mostly intense strengthening exercises.  When your muscles are on fire, they get the bulk of your attention over any stretching squeezed in between the tough parts.

Detach yourself from the burn for a moment, and look more closely at how you’re stretching your muscles during each exercise.  You already know that you stretch after each strength section.  These stretches fall into the category of “passive stretching” and are easy to recognize as such.  You perform them, according to physiologists, when you hold a part of your body in a stretch position with the help of some other part of your body, or by using a stable support such as a bar or the floor.   A split position is a passive stretch because you use gravity and the floor rather than your own power. Now look at a few sections of the workouts you thought were solely dedicated to muscle carving. You might notice that there are additional stretches embedded in many of the strength exercises. One muscle-elongating technique, which physiologists call “active stretching” actually plays a greater role in giving you a dancer-like body than the passive ones. To create an “active stretch” you enlist your own muscles on the opposite side of your body, your “agonist” muscles.   The active stretches in a Bar Method class are less noticeable because they’re piggybacking on some of the most intense strength moves. Click here for more on stretching exercises. 

Consider what’s happening to your thighs and hips during seat-work.   All “seat” exercises in the Bar Method require you to draw your thighs back from your hips and hold them there for up to five minutes per leg as you work your back-of-the-leg muscles.  

By maintaining this position the muscle contractions that you’re using to sculpt your seat are simultaneously pinning your thighs and hips back into their utmost extension -- and deepening that extension with every little “pull-back” and “pulse” that you do.  The double-benefit of this two-pronged-action is both tighter, higher buns and longer, narrower thighs. Click on this link to read more on Bar Method's core strengthening exercises. 

Another example of an “active stretch” is “round-back,” which comes right after seat-work.  Round-back obliges you to hold your legs at a range of motion that is the polar opposite of the way you held them during the seat section.  Now you are flexing one thigh at a time inwards towards your abdominals, and now it’s your thigh that’s the “agonist” for your glutes and hamstrings, which are being held in a continual stretch by the power on the other side of your legs.

Add up all the moments during a Bar Method that elongate your muscles with either active or passive of stretching, and you come up with 35 minutes of exercises that include stretches.  That’s more than half the workout.  So what’s happening during the other 25 minutes?  You’re targeting your arms, abs and other areas where you want extra definition.

The result of this blend of strength-work and stretches is a body that features the legs of a dancer plus the carved arms and abs of an athlete, a unique look that is both graceful and sculpted. To read more about how Bar Method carves and elongates muscles, read THREE BODY SCULPTING SECRETS USED BY BAR METHOD.

 

Find Bar Method Exercise Classes near you.  

Order the Bar Method Exercise Dvds.  

Last week, I promised you some surprising scientific evidence on stretching. Here are the findings from studies on stretching that were conducted at universities in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.  

 

Finding # 1. Active and dynamic stretching are both better at increasing flexibility than is passive stretching. You stretch passively when you use your hand, the floor or a piece of exercise equipment to create the stretch.   You stretch actively when you enlist the muscles on the other side of those being stretched - termed the "agonist" muscles - to form your stretch as shown as the picture at the right. In this illustration the hamstring and glute muscles on the back of the leg are stretching the thigh and hip flexor muscles on the front of the leg. You stretch dynamically when your agonist muscles create little pulses of movement to deepen the stretch on the other ("antagonist") side. In this example, small contractions of the hamstring and glutes drawing your leg back dynamically stretches your thigh and hip flexor muscles. 

 

The studies concluded that passive stretching is good at relaxing your body but is not very good at increasing range of motion. The largest increases in flexibility came in studies during which subjects performed a combination of active and dynamic stretches and saved the passive stretches for the cool-down.  Yoga, with its focus on surrender, is mostly composed of passive stretches. Pilates uses mostly active stretches and so is better at increasing range of motion than is yoga.  The Bar Method fuses strength work together with active and dynamic stretching.   Look closely at its strength exercises and you'll notice that they double as active/dynamic stretches for the flip-side, or agonist, muscles.  

 

At the ballet bar students pit strength against length for the muscles of their legs, as shown in the photo above.

 

Finding # 2. You don't have to hold a stretch for very long to get the maximum benefit.  One study in Montreal found that 15 to 30 second stretches work best to lengthen muscles.  Holding stretches

for longer - or repeating them too often - either did nothing at all 

or had the unpleasant effect of re-tightening those muscles.  This finding suggests that yoga classes that give holding pose for longer than a minute could be tightening, not lengthening their students' muscles.    In another study based in Toledo, Ohio two groups stretched their hamstring muscles for different lengths of time, one for 30 seconds and the other for 10 seconds repeated three times. After six weeks, the range of motion gains were equal in both groups.  The evidence in favor of shorter stretches is strong.  If you're aiming for a more flexible body, yoga's long, unbroken holds have no advantage over numerous shorter ones, and can even be counterproductive.  

                          

 

Finding # 3. Strength and Stretch are part of one continuum, not separate features of fitness.   Picture a yogi or a contortionist.  Your mind will probably conjure up a slender, fragile figure.  Now imagine a body-builder or football player.  Odds are you'll be seeing a tight, muscle-bound physique.  In actuality these stereotypes represent extremes of body-type, not end results from physical regimes.   For us average body types, the first step in stretching one of our muscles is to strength it.   Our stronger muscle will in turn add stability to its underlying joint, making it less likely that the joint will fly out of control and get injured (joints are smart).  Then, and only then, the joint allows our muscle to increase its range of motion.  

 

When in my 30's I started taking The Lotte Berk Method, the predecessor of the Bar Method. I was a regular yoga student but had been frustrated by the lack of gain in my flexibility.  I even daydreamed of an operation that would add some length to my tight muscles.  The new workout, which greatly strengthened my muscles, almost immediately began giving me more flexibility.   Today I can do the splits and back-bends that were once fantasies. 

 

The flip side of this equation is the strength you get from becoming flexible.  Simply stated, stretching makes you stronger by giving muscles more ability to both contract and expand.  So unless you're a body-builder solely into fitness to look pumped, you have every reason to add range of motion to your hard-won strength.  That range of motion will translate into greater strength during performance, whether you're lunging for a long-shot on the tennis court or running in a marathon.    

 

Finding #4: Stretching does indeed make muscles look long and lean.  No, this is not a myth.  Muscles that get stretched as well as strengthened look visibly smaller than solely "pumped" ones.   These same muscles are just a strong as their heftier looking counterparts, but they'll lie closer to the bone and appear smoother.  

 

Taking all evidence into consideration makes it clear that any strength workout worth its salt must not just throw a few passive stretches in at the end but must instead fully integrate flexibility training into its routine.  Click on this link to see how Bar Method's effective stretching exercises contributes to to sculpting a dancer's body.