This exercise demands strength and control of the entire anterior chain of muscles from hands and wrists all the way to toes. Toes to bar is exercise commonly seen in gymnastics conditioning circuits and also popular in Crossfit workouts but in this training system we chase the benefits of this exercise for improving segmental flexion of the lumbar spine and achieving deep posterior tilting of the pelvis.

Strict Toes to Bar require straightened knees and a complete, whole body flexion pattern from dead hang to develop strength through the entire anterior chain of muscles including latissimus dorsi, rectus abdominins, internal obliques and the hip flexor group of illiopsoas and rectus femoris.

Segmental lumbar flexion is important in optimising hip flexion motion but it is arguably most important for overhead athletes such as the Javelin. In the split seconds following Javelin release we see the entire torso flex as energy is evenly dissipated across the posterior chain. An inability to flex the spine dissipates energy across smaller spans of muscles. While the muscle actions are vastly different between throwing and Toes to Bar, think of it more as retraining or recapturing full posterior tilt the pelvis which requires high levels of muscle strength and good mobility between lumbar vertebrae.