Roll Back Bar

Hi. This is Elaria from Pilates anytime, and today's class is with the rollback bar. We're gonna use the bar the whole time. And most of the work will be with the upper body holding that bar. Right? And so this is good for many different reasons. You, it's good to become stronger in the forearms and have that strength that sometimes getting older, we lose, like, opening jars and stuff like that. But also if we have goals like, the the traditional ending of the pull up, this is a good way to get there. Right? A lot of times when we want to do those movements, we think about the shoulders, the deltoids, the biceps, the back, and we never think about getting strong in the grip.

That's very important if we wanna do a pull up. Right? So this is how we're gonna work today. My class are usually very layered, So everything can be done at a different intensity, and you can choose yours and you can go with it. So we're gonna start with the bar low, not too far off the bottom of the catalog, the the bottom of the mat. And we are going to start with spinal articulation.

So we're going to get the, bar behind the knees And according to the resistance of the sprints you have, you're going to pull back more or less. So from here, you're gonna go roll back, opening up the lumbar spine. Enjoy the stretch, and then you roll back up. And, again, from the pelvis, roll back, enjoy the opening, enjoy the stretch, and then slowly. You'll come back up and lift.

And, again, articulate down. Open nicely. And come up. Let's do 2 more. Back, back, back, and lift. One more time, back, back, back, and lift up. But this time, we're gonna roll back, hold the way.

So you're going to articulate, release the bar all the way down, lying on the mat. You can get the feet a little closer to you, And now you articulate the pelvis up and you lift and then unroll down. And I love doing the pelvic lift with the with this setting because you really have that pull from the spring. So the springs are pulling your knees in that direction, which is what we always think about, but now we have something more than just thinking about. Right? We have a real help from the bar. Let's do 2 more. You curl and lift.

You reach the knees are forward. You open up the front of the hips. And then at the sternum, you unroll back down. And now on the next one, if you want, you can do almost like a semi circle stretch So you lift up, you reach, your arms go back. Your arms are pushing back as the knees are pulling our admin pull forward. Are pulled forward and you roll down with your spine slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, and really.

Now bring the arms forward again. You can reach to the bar and then slowly you roll backup. Nice. Now we can release this setting and we turn around. So we are going to lie down always low hooks, and we go back to working on the pelvic lift. So I want you to start with the feet together and the knees together.

And the the work in the upper body is very gentle in the beginning. So I want you to just tension the springs a little bit, but not to pull down too much. Okay? So just a little tension. Shoulders are down. The chest is open. And you're going to curl lift and unroll down.

Curl lift and roll down. The arms are still and the pelvis is rolling up and down. Now remember that feeling of the knees being pulled forward by the springs we had before, right? Try to recreate that, intention. One more time, you curl and lift, Open the hips, slowly release the pelvis down and release the arms for a second. Now we engage the arms against same degree of engagement. So not too strong, and we're going to do some pre Pilates for the knee.

So you squeeze the inner thighs with one leg straight, one bent you hold, hold, hold the arms are active. Now lower the leg to how Shen, and you engage, engage, engage, maintain and now lower down that straight leg to the ankle level. Squeeze both knees and maintain maintain maintain. And now slowly release the legs and release the arms. And now we repeat it on the other side.

So light activation of the arms to open the chest to reach long and away. Now the other leg gets long and you squeeze knee to knee. Maintain, maintain, maintain, lower the lag option. You go in, in, find that midline, pelvis in the right position, spine is long, now lower that straight leg to the ankle. And you go pull pull pull pull, release the leg, release the arms.

You can also bend. If you like, and then back up. Now we're going to repeat the same thing, but we are going to lift the pelvis up. So straight leg, knee to knee, engage the arms a little bit, lift your hips, and you go hold, hold, hold. Lower down to Hal's shin, hold, hold, hold, lower down to the ankle, hold, hold, hold, Bend that straight leg, roll down your hips, release the arms.

Same thing. Knee to knee, lift up your hips, engage the arms, and you maintain your hold, Mid line, chest is open, down to Hal Shen. Keep squeezing in. Lower down to the ankle, hold, hold, hold, bend, roll your hips down. And release. Bend your arms for a second.

Enjoy the opening of the chest. And now we're going to play with them a 4 step movement. Okay? So we started the arms. We pressed down the bar maybe a little more than before, but not crazy. Lift your hips, release the bar, release the hips, press down the bar, open the chest, hips come up, release the bar, release the pelvis one more time, arms, pelvis, arms, pelvis, now reverse, pelvis up, bar down, pelvis down, release the arms. And again, hips up, reach forward, open the chest as you press down the arms, Roll down your spine and release the arms.

Last one. Curl the hips up, down with the arms. Rolled on the spine and release. Ben one more time. And now we do the breathing of the traditional handing.

So from here, the arms and the pelvis move together this time. You're going to go, bar down, hips up. This time you go as deep as you can. You hold, hold, hold, and slowly release. Now let's do the breathing with it.

So we email as we activate everything. Then you'll hold your breath 4, 3, 5, 8 counts as long as you want, and then slowly exhale and articulate your spine down. Let's do one last one. You go. Poll, email, activate everything, maintain, maintain, maintain, and now slowly slowly, slowly release. Beautiful. You can release the bar for a second, and now we come up to sitting, and we do one last exercise with the bar hooked down to the lower hooks.

So so far, the arms were always straight when they were active. Now we start bending and extending. So from here, you need to see how far you need to, far forward you need to set. It depends on the springs. So you we try. We're gonna go forward and back. If you don't fly back, means you are in a good position.

If it's too easy, you need to go forward a little bit. So you go reach and in. Feel the apps active as you push the bar forward and in. And again, reach And in reach and stay, pull back with the shoulder blades, push forward, pull back, push forward. We'll repeat this movement later in the all four positions. So enjoy this here, but we'll come back to it because it's too important of a movement for all the things that we're gonna do later. And one more time, you're gonna go reach, shoulder blades back forward.

Back forward back forward and in. And now we do a little triangle So you go forward, up with the bar, bend it down. Forward active, control, and bend. One more. Out, lift, lift, lift, and bend. Now we reverse. You go up Get tall as you press the bar down, bending.

You lift, press down, lift, toe, and in. And again, up, press down lift, and in. Very good. Now we can bring the bar up to the higher hooks to the top of the tower unit, and we stay standing for a little bit. Standing is important because we really need to connect the work we do lying down to the standing position and to the feet.

Right? So we're gonna face the, bar. We stand tall. We can stand parallel at first, And I want you to activate the bar very little just to have a little bit of a chest expansion in your, pasture. And here we just go with a little rolling and roll of the ankle. And I want you to push the heel forward so that you really get to move and pair, you know, the to diversify the movement of the feet and keeping the toes, to spread and being active, okay, to to keep that extension of the toes and then on the big toe, more most importantly. Then you go curl You stretch the front part of the foot. You come back and release.

And now the other one, you go lift, you curl, stretch, back and release. Now relax the shoulders and to offset the work on the feet, we're going to roll down, push the bar as low as you can, pull the stomach up as if you're doing the push down on the Vunda chair, And you slip into your stomach, can you roll up, up, up, and release? Now little pilates stance, not too big of a V. You lift all, and we do the 100. So you go in a, and x a.

And you go in and x exhale. Exhale. Exhale. Reach down. You go in and exhale deep. We're gonna do one more in and exhale, like, say, like, say, like, say, like, say, reach and release the springs. And now here again, roll down, push down towards the mat.

Pull up the stomach, push the body away from you, and they'll scoop, scoop, scoop and release. Now little activation of the bar is almost like an opportunity to lift the chest and open it up. And here you go. Bend, lift your heels, extend, and lower down. And again, bend lift, stretch, and down. So a little more footwork. 1 more, bend, lift, extend and lower. Now reverse.

You lift chest is open. Now down with the heels, find the connection with the midline. And, again, lift, heels together, put the weight on the little toes, down on the floor with the heels, and a plus one lift, bend, heels down, down, down, and release, release the bar. Again, down. Push it down to the floor. Pull into your stomach slowly up. Up, up. And now before we go lying down and doing different movements, I want you to get long arms, you can have more or less slack on the sprints.

It really depends on how strong they are. And we start squatting. Just find a place and try. You don't know until you try to sit back. Right? So from here, you're gonna go down and up. I'm gonna move back a tiny bit more and then go down and up. Don't go below the level of the knees.

You're gonna go sit in the chair and up, sit in the chair and up one more time. And lift. Now we start activating the arms as well. So you sit in the chair, and then you go bar to your chest and lengthen. Bar to you lengthen. Bar to you lengthen and come up. We're gonna add a little something else.

You're gonna go sit on the chair, pull the bar, now try to lift your heels down. Up, down, up, and down, stretch the arms and come up. Everything we worked on right before understanding position. Now you change the grip, you go back where you were, open the chest, and we do three squats. Down and up, down, and up, down, and up, add the arms, down, pull lengthen and up, down, pull lengthen up, down, pull to you, stay.

You go left, left, left, and left. And all the way up. Now we get closer to the pulse. We sit down. We change the grip. And we go to our comfortable rollback bar. Right? Just one time, roll down a couple of times.

You stay You're gonna roll the shoulders. Big circle. 2, 3, and 4 reverse. 1, 2, 3, and 4. And now head comes up, you're round, you curl, and slowly up.

I like to start with the leg span because it allows you to really curl into the pelvis. As opposed to just pulling back. Okay? Again, you roll back, open up the front of the hips, unroll all the way down, And now little chest expansion, you go open the chest and up resist. Get taller as you open the chest, and make sure you're not lifting the lumbar spine too much off the floor when you press the bar down. And again, press and lift, and now slowly slowly slowly come up. Let's get let's use the bar to feel the work in the core a little bit more now.

I want you to put the feet flat, and you push with the feet so that you're not sliding away. And I want you to curl back where you feel that you can work the stomach. Okay? If it's too difficult, just go a little higher. Okay? Keep the sicker And wherever you are, I want you to pull the bar into your stomach and lengthen. It's not too much for the work of the arms. But every time you pull, I want you to feel the navel going back to the spine. So do that without popping the stomach out. Okay? You go pull, pull, pull, and lengthen, pull, pull, pull, and lengthen, pull, pull, pull, and lengthen and then come up. Now some deserved stretching now, one hand in the middle of the roadblock bar, hug your waist roll back down and now swing the arm all around reach, you can stay here.

This is already a beautiful site stretch, or you can get the, right leg, in this case, on side bending left, the in the middle of the catalog, or you can hook your right foot over the left angle to do ankle to go to the maximum of the side body stretch that you can have in this position. Then you can release the leg. The leg goes back to the pole, and you come back to the center, And with that one arm, you roll back up to the middle. Now other side, you're gonna roll back down. This time, I'm opening my left arm and side bending to the right, and then I go reach with my left leg in the middle of the between the poles.

And then with the left leg, I tried to go into hook it over the right ankle. Maintain. I can turn the head to the left. I can reach. Make sure your spine is as slow as you can. Sometimes it wants to arch because the stretch is so big and so powerful.

And then when you want, you can release that hooked leg. You bring it out back to the pole. Come back to the center and slowly roll back up. Perfect. Now here, rolling in and out for the hug. You're gonna go press down to the ankles, pull the bar to you, control, control, control, and lift. And again, press, pull, pull the bar, and lift one more time, down pull pull pull and lift.

Now reverse down. Pull the bar. Scrape your body all the way to the ankle, if you can, and up. And again, back. Pull the bar go all the way forward and lift.

And again, back, pull, and you go pull, pull, pull, and release. Now soften the knees a little bit, be ready to push onto the poles. And for the flat back today, we're going to pull with the arms as well. So we're gonna go pull the bar to your collar bones. If you can, in keeping this relationship, you're going to hinge back come up and release.

And again, pull bar to the collar bones back up and lengthen. One more pull, back, back, back, come up, length. And now the bar is up. You get a little bit of tension, and then keep the springs alive as you go to the side, to the right, and then center. Keep that tension. And you go to the left and up. Keep that tension. Go. Go. Go.

And lift. And, again, go go go and lift and release. Roll the shoulders for a second. And now we do the, the twist and reach, but it's a little bit of a different. We're gonna go with flow.

So from here, little tension in the bar, I want you to tilt to the right, reach down with the right shoulder, both shoulders left and come up. And now stay tilted, reach down with the left, flat, right, and up a little faster. You go and to the left and left, go down left, flat to the right, and left. Now You might not need, but I want you to release the bar for a second, and I want you to get in some, 4 arm stretches. We have been holding already the bar for a while, so some might need this. Anytime you need, I want you to put, the palms on the mat, on the Cadillac, and then you reach and you sit back and you're lengthening the flexors of the forearms, and you give them a little release.

And then you can tilt your fingers out. This is easier, and you can do the same thing. And then the last one, we point the fingers towards the knees and you go and you sit back. You move back only until you can, of course. Right? If you can go all the way back to stay where you get a good stretch.

And I did this now because the next exercise is the tree, And we need a a good grip for that. Right? We need to hold that bar as we roll down and up for the tree. So you go. You can release. You open up. You shake it off a little bit, and now we go back. You sit with straight legs in front of you. You get the bar, and you prepare one foot underneath.

I started with the right. So here, like always, find the lift in your back. The leg is not as important as the back being lifted. And in control. Now from here, you're gonna go point and flex.

Point, flex, point, flex, get even taller, go over to your leg. Now bring the leg back with you Get the bar behind your leg and slide and massage the back of your leg as you roll down onto the mat. Open the chest at the bottom. Now slide massage the legs coming the leg coming back up, and we repeat the left. And, again, you go over. You go back.

The bar goes behind the calf, behind the knee, behind the hamstrings, And now back up, scoop, and lift. And again, over This is the last one, down, down, down, down, down, open the chest, and you go come up. And lift. Now we change. We go to the other side. So we find the lift of the spine, Then we work the ankle with point and flex for about three times. And now here you lift. Left, you go over to the leg, bring it back with you, massage the leg down, open the chest, and up.

And lift. Over again. Come back. The hips stays forward. You unroll down.

Open. And you go skip. And this is the last one left left left left left left over nice massage down, and you go curl lift. And you go up, up, up, and release. Now for the site set up, so we start easy.

And then we can go a little deeper later. So I want you to have the hand in the middle of the bar, and, you sit sideways. Now have your back foot a little higher to respect the level of the hip. So same height, and you just slide down and you go along with your legs. So from here, the bar is pulling you up, basically.

You're going to go up and down. Use light and left. And down. Slide and lift and down. Now last help, neck pull. You come up, down.

Up, down, up. Now we add some arm work. So you come up, you pull, you lengthen, you lower. Come up, pull, lengthen lower. Come up, pull, pull, pull, lengthen lower down. And now we can come up all the way, hold with the other arm, and just do a little mermaid and a little stretch over here. So as you hold the bar up, you shift and you translate your ribs.

To the opposite side for a nice stretch. And then you release, and we go to the other side. So The front foot is low because the hip is down on the catalog. The back foot is a little higher, and you go stretch. And here we go.

Up, up, up, down, lift, down. We get to know the resistance. We then get to feel how our body And now neck pull, you go up, down, lift, sideband, Now, you come up, you pull, you lengthen, you lower, come up, pull, lengthen lower. Lift up. Pull lengthen lower, and now you come all the way up grab the pole with the other side, and now you go shift that way.

Translate side bend a little, reach, reach, reach, and then slowly release. Now we come up kneeling. And in the beginning, we do We don't pull the bar down all the way because we want to use the resistance of the bar as an opportunity to lift more. So kneeling, knees are a hip with the part. You just press down and lift and release.

Press down and release. I want you to feel all these muscles down here. Okay? And again, press press, press, and release. Now single arm, the free one goes back behind the head for neck pull. Press down hold and release. Press down hold and release. Press down, hold, and release it up other side. You go press and let go.

These small movements are really important to initiate the bigger ones, right? So we need to have them strong and precise so that we can move bigger later. Now sideways, I start this way, long arm, exactly the same thing. Press down an opportunity to lift an opportunity to find the right muscles to lengthen the arm out and release. And again, press, hold, hold, hold. You can have your other arm on the hip, and release one more time, press down, find those muscles, and release. The more you connect with those muscles, the less you're gonna strain your neck and trap and everything else.

And again, you go press, hold, hold, hold, and release. And again, press, hold, hold, hold, and release. And, again, press, get tall, tall, tall, and release. Now that we prepare the shoulders and the upper body this way. Now if you want, then if you can, you can go bigger.

So from here, you're going to press down all the way. You hold. You open the chest and release. And, again, press down, hold, hold, hold, and release. Let's add a little triceps. You go press down straight arms, bend extend lengthen out. And again, press down. Bend lengthen and release one last time. Press, bend, extend the arms, and release.

Now let's go all the way down, bar onto the mat, and tabletop position. Keep the bar on the mat, drop your rib cage, and push it up. So the same movement we were doing in the very beginning with the shoulder blades when we were sitting up, it's happening now. Right? We drop down hard to the floor, and then we lift. Give me one more. Press stand pull down.

And pull up, and then you come up release. Now we're gonna do something different. So from that tabletop position, The shoulders are still the the rib cage is still, and the shoulder blades come up and down. Up. So the bar is moving with it. Right? Straight arms, up and down, and all the way. Now we do the combination of both. You press down.

And for four times, you drop the rib cage up, rib cage down, rib cage up, down and up. One more. Down and up. Now stay up with the rib cage. The shoulder blades come behind your back. And down. Bar comes up and down. 2 more up, down, up, and down.

And release. And, again, in a different way, we went back to working this raters and to work in that set of muscles that if we have strong, then we can do anything with the the arms. If you need, you can release the bar and you give yourself another little stretch, for the flexors, and then we continue. So from here, I want you to move back a little bit because we do the thigh stretch. We need a little more resistance for this. So here, I pretend I have one piece from the head to the knees.

Okay? The pelvis is in between, as strong as in retroversion. Now from here, my knees are digging down into the mat. I go back back back and come up. I'm gonna move it back a little bit more because I want a little more help from the springs. So, again, this position, this the knees are reaching down. I'm engaging the inner thighs, and I go reach, reach, reach, and come up. Now I'll add a little opening of the chest when I'm down there.

So I lean back, open the chest. Come back to the straight line, lift the arms and body up one more time. Reach back, back, back, open, back to the straight line, lift, and come up. And now let's go into the rolling in and out from here. So you can come closer to the pulse a little bit. You go press down.

Pull to you all the way to the collar bones, lengthen the arms, body up. Again, bar down. Pull all the way to you and lift. One more time, bar goes down, pull pull pull pull pull, pull, pull, lengthen the arms, and lift now reverse. Go back. Pull the bar, curl down to the pulse, and lift, open the chest back, pull the bar, and you go reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, and lift the last one. Pull back to you at the bar, scrape the body, scrape the mat, and lift. Wonderful.

Now let's turn around, and we do the long back stretch. So holding the bar, you're opening the chest and you go down to the bar, and release. Just test it out first. You go press and release one more time. Press down and release. If it works, we're going for the movement and for the, bending of the arms. You press down Keep the bar close to your body.

You bend, lengthen back. And again, press, bend, bend, bend, and lengthen one more. Press, scrape it up, and long now reverse. Bend. Scrape it down to your hips below and release. Bend. Now get taller free up the neck as you press the bar down and release one more time.

Bend, get tall, tall, tall, and release back. Now rest the bar and sit on your hips because we're going to go into the rolling stomach massage. So from here, you're going to hold the poles. Don't get to a full arms, arm extended yet. Stay with the elbows a little soft. And from here, you're going to lift your hips a little.

And down. Lift the hips a little and down. And again, hips and down. And from there, you lift the hips, you send your legs back, and you grab the bar, and you hook it with the back of the knees and roll down. From here, get to straight arms or adjust according to where you wanna be, and we're going to massage the spine. So knees to the chest, knees up to the ceiling, And now stay long with your body. The toes are articulating down with the feet, then you articulate the spine.

Nice to you. Knees to the ceiling, reach her way, toes, ball of the foot, heels, spine down pelvis, again, to you, lift, and roll down the feet, roll down the spine. Last one, and then we change reach, articulate a fit, articulate the spine reverse, lift up and roll down. And again, spine feet. And Roll down.

Spine. Let's do some jumps. Feet. Feet. Feet. Good. Now bounce all the way up and slowly roll down. Now, scooch back a little bit.

And now from here, I want you to recreate that lower ab exercise that we did before. So pushing this the bar away a little bit, I want you to curl and release. This is a great setup for the preparation of that lower apps that we did to pull the legs in. So if that movement was hard before, exercise it this way. And then release.

Now we can grab the bar, unhook your legs, release the bar. If you have a longer bar, I want you to put behind the standing poles. If it's short, it's not a problem. Basically, you can get it to it anyway. Now move back so that your shoulder blades are almost off the Cadillac. Now you grab the bar and you open the chest down, you pull the bar to you, lengthen it up, and now slowly. Roll up, push the bar back, and you come up almost like in a teaser with your body.

Roll down your spine, open the chest, pull the bar to you, lengthen, scoop, and now the legs come up together with the body. Control down, and you go open the chest. And now you go lift, scoop, and up, up, up, release the bar, release the legs, you can go forward and stretch a little bit. And now we can do a little bit of a reverse push through over here. So you can do this from the sitting position so you can grab the bar, and bending the knees, you can push back until you feel a good stretch and a good release of the long end of the biceps, Or if this is too much, you can come up to the kneeling position, and you can do the same thing.

So here, you have more control, right? So over here, you can kneel and you go back, and you go and you stretch back only until it feels okay. And then you come up and release. Now we have a couple of more a few more exercise to just stretch and get ready for the final challenge. Right? So I want to get into some leg release. I know we did the tree, but this requires more control.

So similar to the ballet stretch in the fuzzes that we go we do in the Cadillac, I want you to hold on to the poll and you place your foot right in the middle of the bar from the top. Right? You want to have full control. So hold on here for balance. And you go lift your heel at the bottom, press down the bar and release. This is very similar to what we do also on the Vunder chair, right, you press down the pedal as you lift up on your on your toes one more time. Lift, lift, lift, lift, and release. Now keeping the pelvis a squared as possible, go forward a little bit and back forward a little bit and back one more, one small, And now if you have the control, you can hold onto the bar, and you can go forward in a bigger stretch, and then you come back, and you round back. Release, and now we're gonna do with the other one. So other foot, you're gonna go press and lift.

And release. Pretend you have a zigzag magic circle. Engage the inner thighs on top of the hamstrings and everything else that you're using. And again, press, press, press, and release. Now small, you go forward and back, pelvis aligned everything together one more time, forward and back, and then you go reach all the way. Use your arms and then come back and round. Beautiful.

And now we get to the side body one more time with a little press and sideband. So from here, we get the bar. You pull it to your hip and release, press it down to the hip and release. And, again, press it down and release. Now reach up with the opposite arm. Press the bar down. Go and grab the, horizontal pole. And now reach your body away.

Reach your hips away. And with this free one, you can stay and press down. You can pull it to you. Just make sure that the shoulder of the bottom the bottom shoulder is not hiking up to your ear. And then you release and you come up. And now we go, and we do the same thing to the other side. So first, just a little pull We are in the vertical position.

We activate the muscles back here, press down, and, out release, and again, press and release. Now reach up. Go all the way over. Grab. Now reach away with your hips. The bottom shoulder is away from you. And then you can choose to pull or just to reach down to the floor.

Whatever it's easier. Whatever feels good at the end of this class. Lengthened and now all the way up release. Now the class can be in up here. We did a lot of layered work to really build up strength and awareness on the on how the arms should get stronger and how we need to work them to make sure that the work on the upper body does not get to the neck, which is a very common problem. Now If you want, you can follow me into the next step.

I said in the beginning, you can do this to just, you know, for general strength, for the forearms, to open up the jar to just rebalance out your body a little bit, but your your goal could be the full pull up, right, So if we want one day to pull our body up, we need before to be able to release our body down. And that's what we're gonna do now. We do pull the bar down. We rest it on the catalog. We're on the mat. And now we start at the highest position. Right? It's easier this way.

So we are going to lift that the color bumps are at the level of the bar, You lift your feet, you hold your body here, and now slowly, you release, release, release, release, all the way down. And then you come up again. We do two more times. You're going collar bones to the level of the bar. You hold and you go down, down, down, down, release one more time.

You're gonna go lift, hold your body and you go reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, and you're done. So you see how step by step you can really get to, become stronger in your upper body, and feel ready for more new and different challenges. So I hope you enjoyed.