Elemental forces is an ambiguous term. It could mean either the basic principles of this world, or to spirits that stopped people getting to God. In a way it is both. When we think of spirits and demons and so on we tend to think of "weird stuff", but while there are occasions when "weird stuff" does happen, the vast majority of demonic and spirit activity takes a much more mundane form, and false philosophical and religious teachings are one way in which the devil seeks to hold the world captive. When we died with Christ (in baptism) we died to sin and we died to "elemental spiritual forces". Neither of these things have authority over our lives any longer.
Now this does not mean we never sin, and it does not mean that the principles of the world have no effect on us. It does mean that we are now free to fight them. We do not need to submit to them any longer.
Here Paul is addressing teachings with lots of rules. "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle".
These sorts of teachings have an appearance of wisdom. They seem to be helping us to overcome sin, but they are based on purely human wisdom. So they are useless in "restraining sensual indulgence". We cannot overcome sin by human effort nor by human rules. Only the Spirit can enable us to overcome sin, as Paul argued in Romans 7 and 8.
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