Barlates: Pyramid Lower Body

I bought this workout from Linda on Ebay. She has her own Ebay store where she sells workout DVDs–her Barlates workouts and lots of other trainers’ workouts. You can also buy it directly from her website. Since I don’t know if/how long her ebay listing will be up, here is the link to this workout on her website. There is also a clip and you also have the option of purchasing it as a download. BTW–for being shipped overseas, this DVD arrived quickly and was very reasonably priced.

Another excellent workout from Linda Wooldridge. I used this in combination with her Pyramid Upper Body and got an excellent total body workout that burned out every muscle group. This was a tough workout! Especially if you are using heavy weights like I did. Of course, “heavy” is relative to your fitness level, so my weights might not be heavy to some people and might seem too heavy to others. All I know is it challenged me! It is based on the pyramid principal of increasing the weight of your dumbbells with each set. Linda does a full pyramid for each muscle group–first increasing the weight, then decreasing it back down. So 5 exercises are done for each lower body muscle group. A few things thing to note, if you are using more than 3 sets of dumbbells, you need to have your exercise/weight chart nearby. This workout moves at a fast clip with only 10 seconds between each exercise, so you need to be able to quickly see what weights you need for each muscle group. Keep in mind that you are only getting 10 seconds of recovery between each exercise and you are doing each exercise for a full 50 seconds. That makes this a high rep, endurance level workout, so you may not be able to lift super heavy on all of the exercises. I know near the end of each muscle group pyramid, whatever muscle group we were hitting was really starting to burn out.

Unlike every other Barlates workout I’ve done, Linda did not reveal the weight of her dumbbells. Just that you should have 3-4 sets of dumbbells that range from light to heavy. I used 15 to 30 pound dumbbells.

Pyramid Lower Body is 26:30 minutes long; 1 minute intro, no warm up or stretch. You need 3-4 sets of dumbbells; Linda has 4 sets of dumbbells. Each exercise is done 50 seconds with 10 seconds of rest. As I mentioned above, Linda did not reveal the weight of her dumbbells so what is listed below are the weights I used. But here is how Linda’s weights were used in each grouping: exercise 1 she used lightest weight, exercise 2 she used her medium weight, exercise 3 she used her heaviest weight, exercise 4 she used her medium weight and exercise 5 she used her lightest weight.

Squats:

1. Wide squat to narrow squat (squat w/ legs hip width, step foot in to narrow squat, step foot back out to hip width squat) (15# DBs)
2. Regular squats to tempo 3/1 count (20# DBs)
3. Regular squats (25# DBs)
4. Pulsing squats (20# DBs)
5. Repeat #1

Deadlifts:

1. Straight leg deadlifts (20# DBs)
2. Tempo deadlifts 3/1 count (25# DBs)
3. Slow wide leg deadlifts (30# DBs)
4. Tempo deadlifts 1/3 count (25# DBs)
5. Wide leg deadlifts to 4/4 tempo (20# DBs)

Plie squats:

1. Plie squats  (15# DBs)
2. Pulsing plie squats (20# DBs)
3. Plie squats to 2/2 count (25# DBs)
4. Plie squats to 3/1 tempo (20# DBs)
5. Pulsing plie squats–4 pulses upright, 4 pulses hinged at hips (15# DBs)

Calves:

1. Heel raises (15# DBs)
2. Heel raises w/ toes pointed out (20# DBs)
3. Heel raises w/ toes pointed inward (25# DBs)
4. Single leg heel raises (20# DBs)
5. Heel raises–25 seconds toes pointed outward, 25 seconds toes pointed inward (15# DBs)

Lunges:

1. Static lunges (15# DBs)
2. Alternating front lunges (15# DBs)
3. Reverse lunges hinging forward and tapping DBs to ground (15# DBs)
4. Forward pulsing lunges (15# Dbs)
5. Static lunges (15# DBs)

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