Epic Barre & Ballet Sculpt Moves

I recently gave my advice on the best barre moves to master - and the ones most often cheated in! Wellineux published a home workout guide and combined it with an XTend Barre giveaway. You can find the article on the Wellineux Blog.
Here are the moves and the reasons to do them. Don't belly flop.

Challenging and most importantly effective, these three moves are effective in developing body awareness, good core strength, muscular endurance, timing and postural alignment.
No belly flopping during the diamond push up! No dropping the hips while doing the bridge! Rather than cheat, you could try to make the moves smaller, or reduce the number of reps. Focus on perfect form if you are aiming for results.
The Diamond Push Up.Works: Triceps, shoulders, chest
Here’s how:
  1. From a kneeling position, make a triangle shape between your index fingers and thumbs. Place your hands, in this position, below the chest in a push up position. Engage the core muscles as you would in a plank hold.
  2. Try to maintain your head, neck and spine in alignment rather than dropping your head or straining your chin forward. Lower your chest towards your hands without letting the back arch and the belly slap the mat. This is belly flopping – don’t!
  3. Press hard into the palm of the hands as you raise back to your starting position, fully extending the arms. Repeat. As many as you can.
The Bridge with Heel CarveWorks: Hamstrings, glutes
Here’s how:
  1. Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the mat. Ensure your feet are hip distance apart. Extend your arms, palms down by your sides.
  2. Tighten and engage your glutes then lift your hips up, feeling your abdominals also bracing gently to stabilise and support your spine.
  3. Keeping your hips lifted, extend your left heel along the mat as far as you can, then imagine carving the floor open with your heel as you drag it back. The foot is flexed to really target the hamstrings. Repeat with the right leg.
  4. Repeat until you need to rest, then gently roll down from the top of the spine until you’re back at the starting position.
The Lying Leg LiftWorks: Quadriceps, Abdominals
Here’s how:
  1. Lie on your back with knees bent and feet hip distance apart. Extend your arms, palms down, by your side.
  2. Extend your left leg to straight, flexing the foot as hard as you can. This is to engage the VMO (vastus medialis oblique) muscle – the quadricep muscle responsible for stabilising your kneecap. Turn the leg out to the side so that you have a slight external rotation.
  3. Make sure you are engaging the abdominals to avoid your back arching as you raise and lower the leg. You should feel this right through the front and sides of the tummy!
  4. Maintaining your foot in flexion and leg perfectly straight, raise the leg straight up – hold for a second – then lower your leg until it hovers just over the mat. Do this 10 – 20 times.
  5. Repeat this on the right side.

Dance Medicine: Preventing Injury & Strengthening VMO

I saw the physiotherapist yesterday and he was very impressed with the strength I've built in my VMO (Vastus Medialis Oblique), the front thigh muscle that stabilises the knee. So many turn-out, straight leg lifts. It has made my abs burn like crazy to do them properly too. Bonus.
As they say though, the best cure is prevention. I don't want to put my joints at risk when I work in fitness and when I love training, teaching and the independence of free movement.
I also want to always be learning more about the body and how it works - the muscles, the bones, the brain. To that end, I have collected my tools and I want to share them with you.

Stretch and self-massage: So important when preventing an injury or just being able to move more freely, to stretch and also to massage and work into muscles that are feeling really tight. I have very tight glutes and hamstrings - especially after a couple of classes in a row. This can pull on my knee joint and also result in compensation with other muscles so that I'm feeling tense and sore.
While a foam roller is great for the ITB, I prefer a massage ball for glutes, back and feet.
My favourite way to use it is to come into a squat with my back against the wall. I place the bakball towards my mid-back and then I slowly come to standing and squat again, allowing the ball to roll up and down my spine. Eases out all those little niggles between the shoulder blades!
There are videos of how to use the bakballs for particular areas. I also take mine in the car and sit it either under my shoulder blades or into my lower back and press back into it. It presses into sore spots. If Drake or Diplo comes on, I end up doing a bit of a dance in my seat, which results in a mini massage. Recommended! 


Understand the muscles you use: Yesterday I asked my class to be curious about their bodies. I think we ought to be in wonderment every day at what we're capable of and the incredibly engineered machine that our body is! Having been through surgery and illness, I have so much appreciation for how the body wants to heal. It wants to perform. It loves movement. 
On my desk is Liane Simmel's Dance Medicine in Practice: Anatomy, Injury Prevention, Training. This is a guide to self-analysis, basic anatomy and injury prevention techniques. It also provides advice around training, nutrition and technique.
Liane Simmel is a former professional dancer who now runs her own clinic in Germany specialising in osteopathy and sports medicine. She also supervises strength and training programs for dance students and professional dancers. Dance Medicine $52.95 @ Taylor and Francis

I'll be attending to the chapters on hips and knees very closely! I'll also be continuing my VMO strengthening. Now, I have popped this video below to encourage you to work your VMO too. It not only helps with stabilising your knee but it also gives you great muscle definition in the front of the thigh (priorities?!) By the way, this is a very appealing trainer with a cool accent. You're welcome - my pleasure.