HOW FLAT-BACK GIVES US THE ABS OF OUR DREAMS
Posted by Burr Leonard on Tue, Feb 09, 2010 @ 11:14 AM
If we could have the abs of our dreams, what are the two top features we would ask for? First, I think most of us would want abs that are flat and firm. Second we’d want our abs to perform well as core muscles, supporting our backs and giving us better coordination.
The Bar Method’s flat-back exercise is vital to giving us abs with both these attributes. Without it, Bar Method students’ core muscles would neither be as toned nor as well-trained as they are. It’s one of my personal favorite Bar Method exercises because it makes you sweat while it carves just about every muscle on your front side from shoulders to knees.
Our panel of physical therapists – introduced in last week’s blog – have their own reasons for appreciating flat-back. Yesterday Mary Dellenbach, a PT in Fort Collins, CO took my class in the Bar Method studio in Boulder. When I asked Mary about flat-back she told me it “really focuses on your rectus abdominus [the ‘six-pack’ abdominal muscle] which in strengthening assists in proper spinal alignment…preventing and relieving back pain.” (Read about how the core works in my blog "
Core Strengthening, Fact and Function.")
Heidi Morton, our consulting physical therapist in Summit, New
Jersey sees many benefits to be gained from flat-back. “Flat-back really engages everything,” she says. “It establishes 'the proper underlying core motor pattern.'” Jayme Anderson, our PT advisor in Walnut Creek, likes flat-back because it helps students make the connection between their abs and their breathing patterns. In her words the exercise is a “good position for allowing one to focus on the connection between the abdominals and breathing.”
Julie Bolanos, both a PT and a Bar Method teacher, sees three positive results that her students get from flat-back:
--greater strength in their abs plus many other muscle groups including the anterior upper extremity muscles, posterior muscles (scapular stabilizers/postural muscles), hip flexors, quads, and intrinsic foot muscles,
--better alignment of the knees and shoulders, and
--more endurance and stamina because flat-back produces “cardio bursts similar to interval training…enhancing, fat-burning.”
The fat-burning effect that Julie mentions works so well because flat-back takes place about 40 minutes into class when students are working aerobically (that is, burning a larger portion of fat calories) and because it is so darned challenging. That second half of class is the perfect time to jack up the intensity of the workout for the best results. Students thereby are burning fat off from around the muscles that they sculpted during the bar-work in the first half of class.
For me, flat-back is the exercise that gives the Bar Method its unique rigor. Twenty-eight years ago when I first struggled through that section of the workout, I liked flat-back because of the long, lean shape it gave my legs. Today, I appreciate it for furnishing me with a level of stamina I never imagined I’d have at age 62.