Ladder Barrel Love: Short Box Edition

What has your Ladder Barrel done for you lately?

If you’ve been reading for a while, or even if you just joined last week, you know of my deep love for the Pilates System.

Last November I purchased a 2nd Ladder Barrel for my studio.

Oh, I was super excited.

I debated whether I needed 2 of them, but I’m building a gym, right?

What if there are 2 students who both want to use the Ladder Barrel and there is only one??

Disaster!

There’s also JoJo to think about…if he ever deigns to venture onto the Ladder Barrel I won’t miss a valuable twinning moment.

My first Ladder Barrel (LB) is made by Gratz Pilates. I purchased it in 2010 and it’s a fan favorite.

The Round apparatus: so cozy and inviting. She’s a dear, really.

This time I had my sights on the Contrology Ladder Barrel, due to a few factors:

• Ease of adjustment in size – smaller – standard – larger. Not anything goes, but a few subtle choices
• Very VERY firm upholstery, and
• All 4 rungs are evenly spaced.

I knew I wanted these details, but I didn’t quite understand what they’d do to me.

You don’t know until you know…

(Please know this post is not sponsored, and my love for the Contrology Ladder Barrel is based on what it has done to my body and my Pilates workout. But full disclosure, I’m a Balanced Body affiliate and my links will give you 5% off at checkout if you decide you simply can’t live without one .)

Dangerous, We Don’t Allow…

I hadn’t realized the benefit and feedback that’s possible with firm padding on Pilates apparatus. I wasn’t looking for plush comfort in an apparatus, but again I didn’t know what I didn’t know, right?

If you struggle to get an idea of what goes on (or does NOT go on) on the back of you, the firmer the padding, it turns out, the clearer the picture of what the back of you is doing. Makes sense.

Not gonna lie, firm padding always tells you the truth, and sometimes you can’t handle the truth.

I’ve got an imbalance in strength side-to-side, and one side of my back struggles to contact the apparatus in lying down positions. It’s kinda like being a 3-legged table LOL

Ok now for the Pilates Project!

Cause I’ve got a f*ck-ton of them LOL

Again if you’ve been reading for a while you know that the Short Box Series has been the bane of my Pilates existence since before the turn of the millennium.

The Short Box has nothing to offer me: no springs, I’m plopped up there on a box with my feet strapped in and stuck out into… the air. Super not helpful.

And seated. I can’t even smell the danger enough to use my stomach.

This series was the only thing I didn’t love about Pilates when I began taking lessons and classes. And I was right to hate it.

All these years later I know Joe Pilates was playing to all of my weaknesses:

Disconnected hips and legs, imbalance side-to-side, an upper body that overworks and a reluctant bottom.

Not a recipe for success on the Short Box…

Enter the Ladder Barrel.

Oh Short Box, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my exercises.

It’s been 6 days since my last Pilates workout.

Enlighten my mind that I may remember the exercises I ought to do and grant me your grace to do my exercises fully, humbly, and with a full heart.

Help me to firmly resolve to do them again and again.

Round One, please share your wisdom with me.

The Ladder Barrel offers the support I crave and that the Short Box on the Reformer never delivers:

• A solid wooden rung to literally stand on.
• (Now Joe Pilates wouldn’t be Joe Pilates if you got an easy, nice place to stand with your whole foot. It is firm and potentially owie tho, so imma take it).
• The contoured round shape can help me learn to roll up and down on it in a supported backbend with length. Thank you very much, Ma’am!
• The floor – or if you’re a shorty like me, you’ll add a box or a barrel to reach the floor in the Tree. A gal’s gotta have her High Bridge somehow.

You’ve gotta show up with a lotta stuff on that Short Box, right?

Delivery Day!

Christmas came in November last year.

Two men carried a more-enormous-than-I-expected box into my house.

They passed my main room which is the Pilates studio noticing my unusual living area.

I signed for the delivery and the men were about to leave.

But first they had a question.

“So what’s in the box?”

I pointed to the Barrel I already had, “Another one of these.”

Even they didn’t question why I would need 2 of them!

Obvs.

November

Now to unleash my plan for my Pilates Project: The Short Box on the Reformer.

(If you love Pilates Projects and you’d like to see more details on this one in a separate post, lemme know in a comment below. I love Pilates Projects too!)

Essentially the project is to include a “field trip” to the Ladder Barrel in the midst of my Reformer workout.

For a while.

So:

• Footwork
• Hundred
• Overhead
• Coordination
• Rowing Series
• Barrel Field Trip for Swan, Short Box, Side Sit Ups, Backbend
• Back to the Reformer for Pull Straps/T, etc…etc…

I plan to repeat this sequence every time I do my Reformer workout – typically about 1-2x per week – for a few months before visiting the Short Box Series on the Reformer.

Not forever, but long enough to notice what the Ladder Barrel does to me.

Now here’s where it gets tricky.

My desire to work with 4 evenly spaced rungs disables my ability to hook my feet under the top rung of the ladder.

So I concentrated on the feeling of standing on my feet. Whatever my feet wanted to do to help me find this feeling would be fine for now.

I know not to rely on my feet hanging onto the top rung. Alas, that’s clearly what I’ve been doing. Now, however, this option is no longer available and I gotta find a better way.

I totally thought I would fall right off as I cautiously unrolled myself over the barrel for the first time. Truth has a way of sternly telling you “That’s NOT how to do the exercise.”

December

Each time I visited the Ladder Barrel I found new connections. I strengthened my control and over time my range of motion in all of the exercises improved.

I tried not to spiral…

Gosh I love to put my hands on the floor (box) and go all the way back in the first exercise, in the Tree like the High Bridge, I can’t go anywhere without feeling like I will fall off…

My Ladder Barrel exercises presented yet another opportunity to be patient.

So I did my best, I moved it along, sans High Bridge for a couple of weeks, and eventually, I was rewarded.

Let’s just say I found a big piece of my stomach, my powerhouse, my center on the Ladder Barrel. My feet relaxed and I did indeed High Bridge just in time for Christmas.

January

In the new year I decided that I’d put in sufficient time at the Ladder Barrel and it was time to see if my new Short Box skills would show up for me at the Reformer.

I dearly love Swan done on the Long Box, so that was exciting too.

Yeah, not really a fan of it on the Ladder Barrel, but that is a Project for another day.

I try not to fixate on the first exercise – my hardest. The one that’s like the Roll Up.

Not. A. Surprise.

Yeah, not so great, and kinda searching for the connection in the dark, not gonna lie.

Found a nice way to find my lower body under the strap on the Tall one and used it to dial in before the Side-to-Side and Twist.

It bears reminding again that we are a work in progress.

It’s okay to get better and more connected as the series continues.

It’s all a part of the process.

And by the Twist, Baby I am all in.

I actually enjoy the Around-the-World – oh yeah this can feel nice…

Oh shit. The Tree.

Sensing this will not be a High Bridge moment.

But all-in-all it was glorious.

A Barrel of Fun

Will I return to the Ladder Barrel for more months of help with the Short Box Series?

Absolutely.

No one arrives on the Short Box perfectly formed and connected – it’s all a process.

Again, no one knows what happened on the Short Box when you show up for dinner in your fancy outfit feeling fabulous and alive!

Mercifully for me, what happens on the Short Box, stays on the Short Box and she’s not talkin’.

The Short Box + Side Sit Ups on the Ladder Barrel

• Round
• Tall
• Side-to-Side
• Twist and Reach
• Around the World
• Tree
• High Bridge with Leg Circles
• Side Sit Ups

Have a Great Workout!