THE EXERCISE STUDIO FOR REHABILITATION BENEFITS
Posted by Burr Leonard on Fri, Jun 05, 2009 @ 07:12 PM
For more than a decade the Bar Method Exercise Studio has worked with physical therapists to modify its workout for students nursing injuries. This long-standing practice of collaborating with medical professionals has helped take the Bar Method as close as it can get to being a form of physical therapy. These experts have helped formulate the exercises to perform as a safe way to rehabilitate injured muscles and joints. You can of course find many rehabilitative features in a number of exercise systems. This said,B Bar Method's exercise classes has been especially methodical in its effort to incorporate every possible rehab benefit into its technique, plus a few more.
• Non-impact strengthening: When you're injured, you certainly don't want to jump around during exercise. Pilates, yoga, gym routines, Tai Chi and many other workouts submit your joints to no impact and are less jarring to injured areas than, let's say, kick boxing. The Bar Method is also non-impact but goes farther than other such systems by giving more strength, and in turn more stability, to your recovering muscles.
• Gentle, controlled back stretching: Every year, one half of working Americans suffer from back pain. Because stiff backs get tweaked more easily than do supple ones, stretching reduces the likelihood that the problem will occur in the first place. More immediately, stretching can reduce or eliminate ongoing back pain. The Bar Method Exercise Studio has its origins in rehabilitative back therapy and continues to be geared towards helping students' backs. Its deepest back stretches occur late in class when the back is fully warmed up, and it includes less twisting than yoga and Pilates, one reason some yoga students with injuries switch to its more orthopedically-oriented exercise class.
• Core strengthening: One common cause of back pain is core weakness. Of course Pilates and the gym will blast your core - if by "core" you mean abs alone. The Bar Method considers the glutes and upper back muscles an inseparable part of your core and works them with equal vigor. The Bar Method also ties its core training in with body kinetics by working your stabilizer muscles against those in your limbs and by throwing in a few balances just when you're least expecting them. These added elements enhance core function by allowing the core to practice "turn itself on" when needed during movement.
• Precision: People often get injured in the first place because their body movement got careless. Any exercise system worth its salt will address this condition by urging you to perform its exercises with good form. As you might have gathered by this time, the Bar Method is famous for coaching its students on precise coordination.
• Balance: Being accident-prone is also a result of an out-of-balance musculature. The Bar Method pretty much stands along in its mission to re-activate muscles that have gotten lazy, for example in your rear end and inner thighs.
• Alignment: Bad posture can have a corrosive effect that can over time end up as an injury. One problem with seeking to improve your posture by taking Pilates or by using equipment is that you rarely get to stand upright and work against gravity in those systems. The Bar Method, of course, keeps you upright and square-shouldered for most of the class, thereby training your body to keep itself that way on into your day.
• Range of Motion exercises: After an injury the first thing to go after is your range of motion. Muscles that are healing tend to knit themselves more tightly together than before the injury in order to guard against getting re-injured. It follows that one of the first things physical therapists check their patients for is loss of flexibility. More than any other physical movement system outside of a clinic, the Bar Method acts gently and methodically to restore range of motion. Students begin with shoulder work and proceed through each major muscle group, taking their joints from one end of their range to the other. The exercises themselves help keep joints balanced by alternating between the front and back sides of the body. This progressive technique gently brings back flexibility and often improves it.
• The Ballet Bar as Rehab Tool: The second aim of physical therapists is usually restore their patients' kinetic acuity. Look around a physical therapist's clinic and you'll see balance balls and wobble boards. This and other similar paraphernalia are used by physical therapists to restore patients' coordination. In place of such equipment, the Bar Method uses the ballet bar. The bar's advantages are that injured students can work on strength while fully stabilized, and they can pace themselves during the balances by using the bar more or less as needed.
• The Modification System: The Bar Method is not one technique but two. Inside the first one, there's a whole other set of exercises for students with delicate joints. Teachers lead both classes at the same time by guiding their injured students through the modifications that have been set up for each exercise. Don't worry. Your condition won't slip through the cracks. Bar Method front desk managers ask you about any injuries, then pass this information onto your teacher. During class you can then choose whether or not you want to take the options your teacher suggests for you. With this system in place you don't have to risk overdoing it. The modifications are there like a good set of training wheels that you can throw off when your muscles are good and ready to go full speed.