Waist-Bending Ladder Barrel

Gonna take you guys through a kind of fast paced but nice, good, thorough workout on the ladder barrel. It is a piece of equipment that traditionally men were brought to to kind of finish their workouts out. They need the stretch, they need the strength slots of good exercises. Some maybe you haven't seen before that are also, uh, very much for guys to work them hard, challenge them to work strong employees. So we're gonna start, because we're gonna talk a lot about the waste and how the waste bins and how many directions we've gotten movement. So I'm having Chris Begin with a theraband. Ramana would say these were like a towel exercises too that you could do coming up out of the shower or something like that. So when your body's all warmed up, you can just take a nice stretch. So just reach one direction [inaudible] gonna come back up and reach the other direction.

And it's real nice to be able to push through one hand and down through the same foot to feel that opposition and come up goods or bodies stretch side to side. Our bodies can actually also roll. So we can roll down through the center. Good. I'm just reached as far as you want to take a nice big reach. Good and roll back up. Good.

And our bodies also arch back the other direction. Good. So just still pressing down into the floor. We're lifting up and return. Nice. So the side side, front, back then we have all kinds of combinations of movements we can do with the band up. Once again we can twist right and come center and twist again. Good.

We can twist and we can reach back to the back corner. So that's a direction our bodies move. Yep. So keep reaching, reaching, reaching, reaching. Right. Almost like we do on short box. Yeah. And return goods to the other side. Twist. Good. This foot is going to ground down as he lifts up and over. Good. Good. Once again, we can twist to the, right now we can reach front.

So that left arm can start to turn good. That direction. Yeah. And Return. And then we can twist the other way and reach [inaudible]. Nicely done. Good. So then we're going to just have the strap up and we're going to go ahead and stretch to the side as we started and we can rotate and circle the body all the way down and around and reach across with that opposite arm and lift up opposite way. We'll go over and that's it. Stretch, good reach. I'm pressing now. Good, good.

So just a quick way to kind of see the movements, you, the ways that we're going to be bending ourselves as we get onto this piece of apparatus too. So you're still kind of doing the movement. So I'm going to take that strap from you. Good. I'm going to throw it off camera and we're going to come here and just start with some side stretches as we did starting with a band. We're going to just stretch to the side so Chris can step here. Depending on your height and may want to have one foot in front of the other.

You could have had a feet side by side. You could step your feet on, you know, the, the wooden part to the barrel. I've seen lots of ways. Um, typically what I'm going to look for on people is just that, that your hips touching and that your waist can conform to the shape of the barrel. Yeah. So to start simple, this right arm is going to stretch over the left arm is going to reach up and over, or is it going to take a nice big old side stretch? Good. And what Chris is attempting to do as he starts his reach his waist literally to the barrel, then his left arm can help him to start to come up. We'll grab on the right arm will come up and over and he's still trying to lengthen. So Chris, if you push down into your feet and lift up into your waist, right, it becomes a whole body stretch. Well, let's go one more time. Right? Arm will go down. Good. Kind of informing the body. Now before you go too far, Chris, can this side get to my fingertips? Jess and the feet are still reaching away, right?

It's still a whole body exercise. Yeah, we got more out of it. Good work. Left arm will come up and over right on will come up and over and again, Chris is pressing into his feet, he's lifting up into everything he's got. That's it. And then we can try it a little more tricky with the hands behind the head. If he had a shoulder problem, you could cross your hands across the chest.

But here we go. We're going to try to touch all our parts and then come back up and over and still press into those feet and find your long ways to lift up and over and once more over we go. Good. And using your center and we'll come back using the legs, right everything you got that's different up and over. Brilliant. We could take it a step further and reach the arms overhead, but we're going to keep moving. So let's turn around Chris. Let's do the second side. Get so starting the same way. Yeah, nice and simple. Left arm will can start to reach over, right on will come up and over there he goes. Now seem from the back.

You guys can see if this hip goes a little bit out of alignment and you're working to keep your hips even too. And then up and good. And Chris wants to go take a swim and here we go. Left arm and right arm and that's it. And he's working to get all the parts of his side over that barrel. Very nice.

Hips even using his feet. That pressure. Oh, that helps you to feel that stretch as well. Yes. And beautiful work. And then hands behind the head. Here we go. And reaching good. Constantly finding how those legs. Yup. Inform the body using your center. Right. Rebounding almost up and over. Right. And then once more, finding a little more connection to that barrel of all your parts, legs still working in opposition. Abdomen. Therefore you, yeah, I dad that Ah, Duh.

Up and over and looking good. Looking good. So we got side to side. Now I'd like you to sit on the barrel again, hopefully to have some times, little padding for the feet. Sometimes these bars can be a little rough on the feet, so it's nice to have something. Therefore you feed her hooked. I was taught to have my hips a little bit in front of whatever like top nodule there is here to come just a little bit in front of that, right?

It helps to help give the lower spine support. So wrapping their arms around the waist. Let's start to now round the spine and we're gonna kind of describe these rolling forward and back position. So small farce. First, let's Tuck the belly in. Good and curl up and over right. And Chris can be using his feet pressing in, lifting his waist in and up away. And when he wants to return, he's going to send those stomach muscles down deeper. Yes he is. And then we could take it a bit further. So now rolling back again.

He's gonna find his spine into that barrel. He's going to make sure it stays into that barrel as he opens his chest. Brilliant Chin comes into the chest. That's at Chris'. Find the space. Find the scoop. Yes, working very hard. One more just for wonderful, nice stretch.

Let's find all those bones into the barrel. Naval to the spine. Once your shoulders are back. Let's take the arms up and over and take and I stretch. If you can touch the floor, fine. If you don't find, don't lose the connection of the back into the barrel. Arms come forward, Chin to the chest. This gets tricky. Now. Got To send those belly muscles deeply in. Brilliant work.

Brilliant. Sitting up tall. Let's place the hands by in the head. Once again, you could have a stick or something if you'd like. Good. Now with Chris, we talked to him a lot about keeping his connection of his ribs into his back. So he's going to think about that as he goes back strong and tall and come up good. And sometimes I almost think of like sort of picking myself up by the nape of my neck. It helps me feel like a line long line from my back out through the top of my head. Good. Last one. Good.

Out of the shoulders into the stomach. Good nanny can grab his arms overhead. Let's start by grabbing one wrist. Good. And let's reach up and over to one side and take a giant stretch. Good. And he's still going to keep the connection of his ribs into his back, his hip, strong and sturdy change hands and go the other way. Good. Now you guys can see. Yeah.

And feel those big stretches you were doing over the barrel. You can still think about how your waist had to lift and lengthen up and over. Good. Last one to the other side. Nice. Good. We're gonna move on and we're going to come back to twisting in a moment. So right now we're just trying to concentrate on the bending side, front back, just to kind of keep it clean and our bodies.

So let's come to that forward position. Once again, the pelvis is just a little bit, Yep, you can find your seeker better. We're going to hug the right knee into the chest or left. Doesn't matter. Good. Good. We're going to begin with a nice tall spine, ribs supporting the back and the right leg will stretch. And Ben three times. Good, good. So all of you guys familiar with this work? Probably from short box on the reformer. The leg stays straight.

We can walk up to the ankle. One, two, three. Good. Bending forward. We're going to reach the head into the kneecap. Good. And we're going to pull the leg long with you. Good. Pulling the waist and again, finding those spots. The waist, the spine is reaching into the barrel and good. We already warmed up with this stretch. So you're ready for it.

Chin to the chest. Navel to the spine. We curl up and just here. Let's keep trying to reach this part back into the barrel and just curl. That's it. Shoulders into the back. That's it. Good. So you're not using your neck to do it. You're using your waist. You're stretching your thigh, right? Let's rule back one more time. So again, naval to the spine. And now with that extra open spine and tip, you get more stretch along the barrel. Good. If you felt good about it, this foot can stay.

The arms could once more reach up overhead and take a nice giant stretch. Brilliant. Let's bring the arms back up into a chin, into the chest. And one last time. Keeping that navel reaching into the barrel. That's it. Strong center, we'll just try to curve into the kneecap. Good. Out of the shoulders, out in the neck, but the waist, how much can the waist scoop in and bring you forward to that knee?

Fantastic. And we'll change sides. Brilliant. Good. So a lot of good stretching. You know, here in California we drive too much. I'm sure where you guys live, you drive too much. Um, so need stretching, especially on the left hip. I think there's something about using that accelerator and like we're all kind of jammed up in our left sides a little bit. Good to three times. So you might feel that left hip really sitting deeply into the barrel, walking up, taking the stretch forward.

Good. And then let's pull the leg and lean back and we'll go ahead and walk down. Good. And he's still trying to reach out long through his leg. Brilliant. He's finding that barrel with his spine and he's going to curve into that and he's not going to use his neck, but he's gonna use his abdomen and this stretch of this thigh. And we got one more to go walking down and back. Good.

And then we can take the arms for the extra giant. Little stretch. Good. I said giant and little and arms forward. Good, good. And up and over. Good. Good. So just watched the neck. Yeah, I think we all tend to kind of overdo it a little bit in that shape. Good. Well done. Stepping off. You good? Good, good, good. So now let's walk to the opposite side of the barrel over here.

And I'm gonna have you put your lower back to the barrel. Yeah, we're going to go in and walk the feet forward at a comfortable space. Yeah. Knees may be slightly bent. Lower back again, connected in the barrel. And now I'm going to have you roll back and just do a simple back arch. So rolling back arms. We'll come over. You're going to grab on. And for a man, you know kind of wide in the chest, actually you might even go ahead and take those hands. Yeah. To the outside. It kind of follows the line of the back a little bit better.

It's a nice stretch. Good feeling. Okay. Arms then come forward. Chin to the chest. Good Navel to the spine. We're finding all those spots you're going to round down and reach forward into the barrel. [inaudible] take a stretch looking good. So that's simple. We could do that a couple of times, but we're going to move on to now we're going to round back once more.

As he rolls up, he's going to go ahead and bend his knees so that lower spine is supported. We're going to key finding the spine into the barrel, making those connections. And as he lays back, he'll grab on once more. Good. You're okay. Where you are good. This time you can lengthen his legs out nice and long. Trying to reach them. Almost like through the floorboards.

Really long without losing connection here. And then the legs are going to separate and open and draw three little circles around. One just low and loose. Good heels can meet in the center. Two and three and then the reverse around one, just keeping them low cause I don't want them to actually grab in his hips. I want him to feel how his stomach has to lift the legs. And then once again, you know, I'm just going to come up and chin to the chest and he's still good. Keeping that connection into the barrel and down you go for a stretch.

That's it. Good. And once more we will roll up and looking for these pieces. Reaching in. That's it. Now he's connecting. Good arms back, up and over. You'll grab once more and a little corkscrew this time. So legs will go together and stay together.

Strong but low and circle one, direction one just small on load two and good. And then that's it. Three each way. Good. So lower than that. Even Chris, don't even lift so high. Right? Almost through the floorboards again. That's it. Using your belly, that's different. Nice. So kind of a different effect. Yeah, arms come up. There are times and reasons to raise the legs higher, but for our purposes right now, we're trying to find the stretch forward in the spine. We're trying to find the stretch back in the spine. We don't need to go crazy into the legs and hips for now. Good work.

And let's go ahead and rise up. Yeah, good. So come to standing for me. Good. And let's turn around once again and face the barrel and go into grasshopper. Yeah. So now nice and warmed up. Been stretching all around. So again, this is a giant big arch. So leaning over the barrel, we're going to grab onto those wooden bars on the sides of the barrel at the bottom here, a more petite person, shorter people.

Some women can come hire, uh, to hold on to one of the bars. He's reaching his legs. He's got his strong center. He's going to extend his legs up that opposite wall up to the ceiling. He's going to bend the knees as the legs extend, he's going to try to lift is that, and then let's go ahead and clap the heels down. One, two, three. Good to make it look really extraordinary. When you bend your knees, Chris, you could raise your chest so you can lift. That's it.

And then as the head goes down, the legs reach up high, higher, good. And reach two, three. Now, Chris is pretty amazing, but one thing I want him to do is keep the length in his back and not shorten so much in here. So I'm going to remind him that's it. To keep stretching and lengthening. Oh yeah, that center's got to work and then extend out. Good and keeping the signs of the body strong and long. One, two, three and fantastic. That looked so good. I'm going to have you stand up. Good work.

You can walk up the barrel or the ladder, but over here on the side. 90 sleet on. Yes sir. Let's walk into the center here and let's do [inaudible] a few little ballet stretches. Yes. So back actually to the bars for me. Good hips against the bars. Good. Just trying to keep this center connected. Trying to keep that left foot grounded. Chris, can you reach your right leg across and up?

Nice. So from the get go, challenging you to find your center or find your length. Yeah, we're going to have you round forward keeping your hips back and roundup. We're going to have your arms slide down the wooden bars as you arch your chest stuff beautiful and come up good. The leg is going to stay long and it's going to go across the body.

And once again, have this left hip. Sorry. Right hip reaching back in opposition. Yeah, and round forward. Oh, that right. It was still reaching and good. You're so gonna love me on the ride home and lift up. Good work. Bending at the knee. The foot comes in. That's it.

Little position here. Again, the right hip, trying to stay connected to the barrel, looking good and rolling up and then an arch back. Good. Let's extend the leg once more and then Chris keeping the length. Can you slide to me and use your center to go back and hold your center and lift the lip and put the like good. And then I want you to just hold the leg down.

I want you to roll up on the toes of your standing leg. I want you to try to rotate all the way to face front. Good. Can you be on your toe when you do that rotation? That's it. So you're going to rotate. That's it. And he's going to try to get this leg right to the side is his body to lower this heel to the floor early int. Good right hand is holding on.

Left arm is going to come up and over. We go for a big old side stretch. Good. And rise up. Left hand down, right arm up. And we're going to take a big old stretch watching this rib and coming up. Good. Good. We could bend the knee. I'm going to move on today. Okay. Just the slides.

So one time I want you to try to slide out and I want you to just send her to return back. Good. I want you to stand strong in the left leg and I want you to try to raise the right leg up and place it down. Looking good. Once again, Chris wrote, roll up on the toes of this foot. Good. I want you to rotate one more time to the windows. That's it. And trying once again to square the hips. Good for people at home.

I'm going to kind of toss this little pad down here. You might want to step up onto this little ledge of the barrel. Good. Yeah. Be Aware of where you're putting your body. Can you bring your hips forward to this bar? Once more? Good. I want you to, again, round your spine forward.

Try to just slide the hands along that barrel. Reach all the way to keep both hips facing, facing, facing. You're going to use your center and lift your back to rise up. Oh good. Very nice work. Hop to the floor. Good. Chris, I want you to go ahead and slide back for me. Good. In this position, I'm going to have you bring your left hand to the right side.

You're gonna wrap your right arm around. Did I take it the wrong way? I sure did. Let's flip it. Good. That's it. And get to left arm around. That's it. And you're going to grab your ankle. Nice. Good. Here you can use the foot to push into the hand. That's it. To open the chest looking good.

I'm still gonna tell him to get his ribs and that's it. So putting that pressure of your foot into your hand opens the thigh differently. Yeah. Opens this shoulder and good, brilliant work. Hands will go forward. Lego stretch out. Good. One more time, Chris, for me. Slide forward. Hips reaching. Good. You're going to try to just go ahead and let this knee bend down.

The body can stay up, right. Good. Knee to knee center. Strong and good. Let's take this foot down. Let's spin around. Let's do the whole thing on the other side. Good. So both hips against the barrel now left leg coming to me without losing a hip. Oh yes. Big Lot of work.

But good discipline to ask the body to do that and get into it that way. Rounding forward. Let's take a breath. Good and rolling up. Good. And I realize you're working so hard and I'm even like, I'm like, I'm holding my breath a little bit cause I want you to do well but relax. Enjoy, right? Yeah. Like Ah, let the body stretch. So second time, let's actually cross the leg. Good.

So rounding forward again. Good. We get beat up in our day. Folks got to unwind. Sometimes and rounding back. Good. Last one with the bent knee, and again, he's working hard to keep both hips in contact with that wood back there, touching. That's it. And then opening the chest. Brilliant.

The lego stretch. We'll do one slide. We'll use the center and both hips reaching back into the wood again. Yeah. One time the leg lift. Good and lower. And now we're going to rise up on the standing leg and rotate. And the leg good will be to the side. Good holding across the body, right arm comes up and up and over we go. Good. And that's it.

He's still keeping his ribs connected strong and do his back and feeling the length. Beautiful. Good. And every step of the way you can think about how that original stretch felt over the barrel. So you're finding those parts and coming up. Good. We're skipping one of the variations here. Both hands can hold the barrel. Let's slide. Use Your Center. Use your powerhouse to return. Good. Standing strong in that leg.

Let's lift the leg once. Gorgeous. Place it down. Once more, rise up on the toes. That's it. Rotating. Good little flippy do. We're going to stand on the edge there. Good. Both hips trying to reach into the wood. I want you to round forward. He's still trying to keep both hips squared and he's using a senator rise up in the, lift his back. Great Sir. Let's hop the right foot down. We're going to slide back, get no, you're going to put your left hand over to the right side. Good.

Right hand comes around. You'll grab the ankle. That's it. Good. Pushing the foot into the hand. That's it. So he's got this beautiful open shoulder. The hip gets a wonderful stretch. He's strong in his center. You'll release the foot. Beautiful. Good. Once more. Let's slide forward. Knee to knee. Good.

And Chris is doing really good job of rolling through those transitions. Like those are not easy, but try not to like wiggle yourself out and funny things. Try to go from point a to point B as cleanly as Chris's. It's really good discipline for the body. Good and stepping down. Nicely. Done. Good.

So we can advance the side stretches a little bit and then we're going to kind of move on. So, uh, having a seat now up onto the barrel. Let's place the right foot on the bottom rung. Left foot, turned out on top. Good. So the little stretches that we began with reaching side to side can kind of expand into something else. Good. So probably you're going to bend this knee a little bit. Good. This top leg we're going to try to have right in line with the hip and then very two dimensional hip over hip. So again, good, good opening. Stretching for the hips, the back.

Let's place the hands behind the head. Good. Let's see how long and lifted you can stretch your spine. Good. And we're going to reach out to top of the head to that wall if you can, to the floor back out to that opposite wall, to the ceiling and over to this wall. So sometimes I tell people, think of like a hand of a clock and you want to be that nice long hand reaching, reaching, reaching, finding all the numbers on the clock. Up and over. Wonderful. Let's do one more. Good, good. And here we go. Strong in your belly. He's still trying to find all those spots.

Touching the barrel. Good Chris and lengthening out. Up over. That's fantastic. Cool. Let's spin around. Do the other side. Well done. Well done. Well done. Good. And here we go again. Good, good.

And once again. Out and up and over. Good. Good. Now from this angle, I'm going to watch his front to see yes that those center stomach muscles are connecting into the spine and lifting up and stretching out. Looking good. Looking good. One more time. Keeping this hip stacked and using those center muscles strong in the middle to come up and over looking good. Looking good.

Pause. Nice. We can take that even a step further. We're going to step to the opposite side of the barrel once again. And we are going to do fish tail. Good in the name of the Pacific Ocean. So left arm is going to go up, we're going to reach all the way up and over.

Chris is going to reach to the berry lowest bar that he possibly can and the other arm is going to reach up on top of this next bar above. Good to begin. Let's have both legs long. Strong together. Chris, just one time. Just try to reach for that opposite wall for me so the legs can kind of lift parallels to the ground. Good. You're good. And then back down for a stretch. Good. This time Chris is gonna run reach for that opposite wall.

He's going to keep raising his legs. That's it. As high as he can up and he can even reach to the ceiling and he can even reach to that opposite window and he can lengthen. Link the length and back down. Gorgeous. Step the left foot to the floor. Wonderful. Stand up tall and let's spin around and do the other side. Rock and roll. Here we go. Right arm up and over. Good.

So the reason we're going to do the first variation that's it is so the folks at home, if that other variation feels like too much, go with this one. Strong in your legs, strong in your back. Here we go. Legs are lengthening and they're still reaching. Beautiful and come down and then you can enjoy this stretch. Now the ribs are going to get stronger, the shoulders are going to get stronger, and second time we're going to reach for that opposite wall. Good.

We're going to reach and lift up. That's it. We're going to keep reaching for the ceiling. His arms are saying strong. His back. Hustings strong. He's reaching. Then he's going to continue to lengthen back down again. That's it. He went for an extra press. Good.

Lengthen all the way to that opposite wall and once again, stand on that right foot and grow tall. Spectacular stuff. Good. Come back onto the barrel. Good. We skipped a variation of the short boxes doing the twist. So we're going to come back to that now. So having a seat. Okay, good.

And then feed on her. Good. So as you can see, those first things that we did, just kind of bending side to side, going front, going back, you've seen all those. Now we're expanding out into these twists and these other kinds of fabulous variations that we did just standing. So again, kind of starting with something so that your body sees the movement, knows the movement, then adding like, oh, how can I encourage my body to get more strength? Do more things, because I now have equipment to kind of work my body against. Good. So let's just place the hands behind the head and a simple twist like we do on short box. We're going to twist, we're going to reach out with a long spine. We're going to center and untwist and go the other way around and reach out.

That's it. And lengthen and center and good. Now we're going to add on. So we're going to try to reach all the way over to the floorboards. We're going to Lincoln done up in, over and to the center. Beautiful. And happen over, here we go. Huston.

Okay, good. Let's have you turn around. Let's have you do a swan get. So you've got a choice here actually from the side. Feet could be down on the floor or you could come up on. Yep. Good, good. Now, the biggest reason why I wanted Chris to do this was right here. Drop your head. Drop your legs just for a moment.

Just drop them, right? Yeah, cause I figured maybe you could use this. Good. Good. All right, so here we go. Okay, so pushing the hips forward a little bit. That's it. Pushing the feedback. You got it. You're going to scrape your fingertips along the floor boards to that opposite wall up to the sky, and he's still thinking of length. Good. You're going to lengthen out just one time for me. Let's stretch.

Beautiful work. Let's keep the ribs in and floats your shoulders up. Let's open the back up one more time. Go for an arch. Beautiful. Lengthen out. Once more, scoop the belly to return back over the barrel. Drop the head and drop it all out. Once again, let's just drop the legs. Let's just hang out. Good. That got that got back up. I got up, I got, I got, I got, I got let. Oh my God, that was well-placed.

Yes. Okay, good. Let's stand up. Let's walk to the opposite side of the barrel. Once again. Good. Now Chris doesn't have any problem with any sort of big belly situation at all, but this actually was given to men who just kind of had just like that mass in front of them that couldn't kind of just didn't do much, you know, so you just kind of beat it out like, like almost like a rolling pin or something. Like just need out the tissue a little. Okay, so jumping off stomach, you're gonna lay over the barrel. You're going to grab onto this bottom wrong. That's it. Good. And kind of using this idea that we use, you know, the length and the grasshopper and so forth.

He is literally going to swing his legs and jump off his belly. Good. Two, three. That's it. Good. Chris, you're going to come forward now and place your hands all the way down and we're going to go into our hands down. So he's going to connect his arms into a back. Good. Now you see how your ribs and belly are still touching. Yeah.

Can you go back down for me? So similar to your approach to jumping off your stomach. I want you to rise up and bring everything with you, Chris. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Up. That's what I want up, up, up, up. Yes. To make your hand stand. Good. Are you reaching as long as you can.

Oh good. You're going to try and push up bend and stretch one, reach longer. Bend and stretch to lengthen. One more, Ben. And then stretch. Reach everything long to come down. Nice. Good. So if you need some help at home, put this against a wall or if you're doing it at someone's studio, find a wall. That's where you're not going to break their windows. And uh, and then you can swing your feet and kind of like dance the feet away from the wall a little bit and give it a shot. Or maybe your feet. Stay on the wall and then you get, go ahead and stand up for me a little bit by little bit. You work with your feet away from the wall? Yes. All right. I think we've been doing all directions. Have a good day.