If you&#;re ready to elevate your Pilates practice, the Ladder Barrel is an essential piece of Pilates apparatus to take you up a notch. Its unique design allows you to experience Pilates exercises in new ways. Keep reading to discover what it is, how to use it, and its fun origin.
What is the Pilates ladder barrel?
The Pilates Ladder Barrel is a piece of Pilates apparatus that&#;s what its name describes. The ladder typically has five rungs attached to an adjustable standing platform with a raised barrel surface on the opposing side.
Joseph Pilates, who created the Ladder Barrel, was a beer drinker who had his beverages delivered in barrels. His innovative and resourceful nature drew him to experiment with the beer barrels and metal rings that held the barrel together. He created the Ladder Barrel and Magic Circle by playing with both.
What are the benefits of the Pilates ladder barrel?
The Ladder Barrel, like all Pilates apparatus, is excellent for building core strength and improving mobility. Throughout the Pilates method, you can take one exercise and execute it on several pieces of the apparatus. Taking the same exercise to each apparatus is not only a fun way to keep your practice challenging but can change the intention of the movement. Doing so activates new muscles and deepens the mind-body connection as you learn the exercise in a new environment.
For example, Short Box Series on the reformer is excellent for overall core strength utilizing flexion, extension, and rotation. The Short Box Series suits beginners and those with tight lower backs and hamstrings.
Move the same series to the Ladder Barrel, and you&#;ll experience a much more challenging core workout. The rounded platform of the barrel requires increased core engagement and mental concentration, an essential principle in Pilates. Taking the challenge further, moving the feet to higher rungs on the ladder requires additional flexibility in the spine, hip flexors, and hamstrings.
All movements on the Ladder Barrel allow for a more extensive range of motion in every direction. Additionally, rounding over the barrel on your stomach and back helps stretch the spine and further your spinal articulation. Both are essential for a healthy and pain-free back.
How do you use a Pilates ladder barrel?
Understanding the six main principles of Pilates, along with a solid foundation in Pilates alignment, is vital with any piece of Pilates apparatus, including the Ladder Barrel.
Core exercises like Short Box Series, oblique ab lifts, and Tree are great on the Ladder Barrel. In addition, extension exercises learned on the mat, like Swan, have the potential for more range of movement while lowering and lifting.
The Ladder Barrel is effective for static stretches. Practice a hamstring stretch by placing one leg on the barrel, holding onto the ladder behind you. Next, keep your leg on the barrel while rotating to the side. To stretch the quadriceps, face the ladder, bend one leg and place the front of the shin against the barrel. These stretches help increase flexibility in the legs, hips and back.
If you&#;re interested in trying the Ladder Barrel for yourself and live in the Peachtree City, GA area, visit ProHealth Physical Therapy and Pilates studio. Private Pilates and classes are available in person or online. Schedule a class today!
When have you last used the Ladder Barrel in your practice? Me? Yesterday. It&#;s one of my favorite pieces of equipment. (Shh, don&#;t tell the Reformer.)
If you haven&#;t played on the High Barrel in a while, let me tell you why you should hop on it in your next practice.
The large (Ladder Barrel or High Barrel) and small (Spine Corrector) barrels are the two pieces of Pilates equipment that don&#;t use springs. Maybe that&#;s why many teachers prefer the Trapeze Table, Chair, or Reformer. There is no doubt that working with springs is a unique feeling with incomparable benefits.
But the rounded shape of the barrels has something very special to offer, namely supported spinal movement. The human spine is, as you know, not stick straight. It comes with 5 curves: Starting at the bottom tip of the spine, the coccyx (tailbone) curves inward (concave), one step higher between the two halves (innominate bones) of the pelvis, there is the outwardly curved shape of the sacrum, then follow lumbar lordosis, thoracic kyphosis, and cervical lordosis.
Related: How To Adjust the Ladder Barrel
Working on a flat surface like the Reformer carriage or Trapeze Table the two different shapes are fighting a bit with each other. Who hasn&#;t at one point wanted to flatten their lumbar spine to the table. It feels so nicely supported. But no, don&#;t do that, warns your teachers. Keep your &#;neutral spine&#;. But neutral sometimes doesn&#;t feel natural.
As a result, we have to put all our focus on maintaining our natural (shmatural) curves the way they should be, regardless of the flat rigid surface they&#;re on.
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Not on the Barrel. No! We can melt our curved spine around the curves of the barrel. Now if all that talk about curves is not a great way to get more men into Pilates, then I don&#;t know what is.
Note: You'll find links to the exercises I'm mentioning in this post at the bottom of this page. &#;
I&#;m thinking about Standing Back Bend, Short Box Round Back, Climb a Tree, Bridging, and Side Over.
Another aspect I value about the High Barrel is the ease of use. No springs mean a less complicated setup. If you (allow your students to) practice independently or you teach (or take) Duets or Trios, it&#;s tremendously helpful to have one person stretch their leg and hip muscles with the Ballet Stretches, freeing up the teacher&#;s focus to work a bit more closely with the other person.
Using the Barrel is less scary for a beginner of Pilates because there are fewer moving parts, no springs and clips, ropes, and eye bolts to worry about. What you see is what you get, sort of. No unexpected loss of control and flying pedals.
Some older Pilates practitioners (possibly with knee pain) have trouble getting up and down from the floor, but standing next to the Ladder Barrel, leaning against it, or sitting on it, is more accessible to them. This turns into more options, more exercises, less time spent on setting up the machine and getting into the starting position.
One thing that might have caused you to ignore the Ladder Barrel in the past, is that the repertoire is undoubtedly smaller than on most other pieces. I&#;m thrilled to see that the number of exercises one can do increases every year thanks to some creative and inventive teachers.
But let me tell you, the exercises you CAN do are fabulous. I mean there is no comparison. No other exercise on another piece of apparatus does what the Standing Back Bend does in terms of eccentric core control to improve posture.
There is nothing quite like Short Box Flat Back or Oblique Flat Back. Not even the same exercise on the Reformer. The way the back of the pelvis gets feedback from the barrel. The way the feet can actively press against the rung of the ladder, giving the glutes a chance to help with hip extension.
If you own a studio and don&#;t (yet) own a Ladder Barrel because you&#;re worried that it won&#;t give you enough bang for your buck, think again. Especially, if you own a small boutique studio with one piece of each major apparatus. The High Barrel doesn&#;t take up much floor space and the fact that you can confidently let a student practice independently on it, makes your teaching life so much easier.
I use the Ladder Barrel every time I practice, and almost all of my students have a few exercises that build core strength like nothing else. I hear my student Christine &#;complaining&#; how the Side Sit Up just doesn&#;t get any easier, even after practicing it consistently for a year. Doesn&#;t that show you what a valuable exercise it is. It gives and gives and gives.
The Ladder Barrel offers some of the most beneficial and accessible abdominal exercises in the whole Pilates Method.
Learn all of these exercises in detail
inside the Pilates Encyclopedia membership.
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