What is Barre?
What is Barre? A fusion of Pilates with a flavour of ballet. It’s a low impact, full body workout.
What is Barre? A fusion of Pilates with a flavour of ballet. It’s a low impact, full body workout.
Barre is one of the hottest fitness trends right now—but has existed for as long as ballet. It’s great for everyone – from beginners to pros. Each class aims to build alignment, strengthen your core, and tone and elongate muscles to give you beautiful, sculpted, lean muscles.
Think of it as offering all the body benefits of a ballet dancer – without attempting a pirouette! Instead, the movements focus on alignment, conditioning and stretching.
A Barre workout is influenced by Pilates moves – but tends to implement more repetitions at a higher tempo.
After just a few sessions, you can feel yourself standing taller with a sense of elongation throughout your body.
“There’s a big focus on strengthening the muscles through the chest and shoulders, which in turn prevents us from slouching.”
Fusion Pilates Client
Not only will you benefit from a peachy rear, but there’s more to it. Working on your glutes helps to strengthen all the muscles that stabilise your pelvis. This then helps to alleviate pressure on your back, hips and knees.
Because Barre focuses heavily on balance and strength, your core is an integral part of the training. You’ll use the abdominals to hold the body in a correct alignment. The classes will give you a good core workout – perfect for keeping toned tummies in check.
The combination of stretching and the focus on posture should allow your flexibility to be pushed to the limit. By no means do you need to be the most graceful, swan-like prima ballerina at the Barre (the movements are easy to adapt for all levels). Give yourself a few weeks though and you might be surprised at how your flexibility increases.
We all know that exercise helps to reduce stress – but whereas Pilates quiets the mind, and HIIT gets it all out, Barre likely sits somewhere in between. Barre is a mental challenge – each movement requires a level of mindfulness to stay engaged, as your brain remains intensely focused on each small movement.
Exercise, releases endorphins that keep your mind sharp. You might find yourself being quick on your feet when it comes to thinking and problem solving after your barre session.
With Barre, you’re often using only small hand weights (or none at all), resistance bands, and stability balls. Barre exercises are full-body workouts – strengthening your arms, legs and core all in one session. Regular Barre workouts can increase your bone density, which can help prevent conditions like osteoporosis.
And while weight loss isn’t the main focus of a Barre class, you may feel slimmer thanks to your improved posture and alignment. Your muscles will feel toned, your limbs will look longer, and you’ll be standing taller.
Another benefit to Barre workouts is that you can do them anywhere.
If you don’t have access to a Barre, then a stable chair is a very practical substitute – as well as a Pilates mat and some hand weights. But keep in mind you can also use items you already have at home – like tin cans as weights, or water bottles.
info@fusionpilates.uk
