McLeod Health and Fitness Center is excited to offer barre workout classes, one of the top fitness trends. These workouts are designed to give individuals a long, lean dancer-like physique. Barre exercises rely mainly upon one’s bodyweight for resistance, and the moves challenge your core stability and balance.

The Workout
Most barre classes follow the same basic structure starting with a mat-based warm-up with planks and push-ups, a series of arm exercises, lower-body work at the barre for thighs and glutes, and ending with core-focused moves at the barre or a short session on the mat.

As for equipment, the moves are typically bodyweight only, but you can use light hand weights (usually two or three pounds) or resistance bands to level up your arm exercises. For lower-body work, a soft exercise ball is often used to help engage leg muscles. Shoes are not worn; the workout is performed barefoot or with socks with grips on the bottom.

Why try a barre workout?

1. Hard on muscles, kind on joints. The small, super-controlled movements that take place in barre classes reduce pressure on your joints, tendons, ligaments, and spine. By participating in barre regularly, you’ll notice a remarkable improvement in your core strength and posture.
2. No experience required. Don’t worry about not having any dance training – the instructor will guide you through the movements and offer helpful feedback without singling you out. Guys–don’t be shy–although it may be ballet-based, barre classes can provide a challenging workout for even the manliest of men.
3. Be worked from head to toe. After each satisfyingly exhausting class, your entire body will truly feel WORKED. You’ll feel stretched, strengthened and invigorated.
4. Work muscles to failure. Barre’s tiny motions, many reps, intentional squeezes and pulses are designed to fatigue muscles to failure. Embrace the shaking as it’s totally natural for your muscles to quiver uncontrollably – it means you are exhausting that muscle and forcing it to tone.
5. Modifications for every age and level. The beauty of barre classes is that everyone works with small movements and can limit or expand their range of motion to suit their specific needs. Exercises can always be modified whether you’re a beginner, pregnant, or have an injury, but can also be amplified if you’re advanced and looking for more of a challenge.
6. Increase flexibility. Through focused stretching, an improved range-of-motion is one of the greatest benefits. Sometimes people are flexible but not strong, or strong and not flexible; barre classes actually teach your body to be both.
7. Never boring, always fun. The time spent in class passes very quickly due to the fast pace, variety of exercises, upbeat music, ever-changing choreography and inspiring instructors. It’s never the same class twice.
8. Lose weight and inches. Many of the workouts target the largest muscle groups in the body, like the thighs and glutes. The larger the muscle, the more calories burned! As you continue to attend class, you will build more lean muscle mass and raise resting metabolic rate. Perhaps more important than actual weight loss, barre classes will help you drop a size by redistributing the inches on your body – making you appear (and feel) longer and leaner. If you pair barre workouts with a healthy diet, you will achieve even better results.
9. Rapid results. You will be sore after the first few classes, but you’ll also see major results in little time – so stick with it! If you perform a barre workout 2 to 4 times weekly, you will typically notice changes in as little as one month. Changes may include an improved posture, thinner thighs, chiseled arms, a sculpted back, flat abs and a lifted seat.

For more information on Barre Classes, call 843-777-3000.