What is Barre class? - What are the benefits?

For starters, barre class is for everyone, you don't have to be a dancer or super fit to do it, it actually feels a lot like a pilates or sculpting workout. The class focused on cardio, strength training, and stretching, rather than perfect dance technique. To give you a better idea of what to expect in your first barre class, you have to know that barre is a workout technique inspired by elements of ballet, yoga, and Pilates, it focuses on low-impact, high-intensity movements designed to strengthen your body in ways that few other workouts can, it's all about endurance, form, and repetition. You hold or repeat one position or movement for a long time and exhaust reps, but with minimal weight. Because you are spending a good amount of time in each exercise to really feel the muscles, you also can feel exactly what part of your body you are activating and strengthening.

What to expect in a barre workout class

Each barre class is designed to be a full-body, muscle endurance workout. Typically, they're broken into different sections focusing on major muscle groups including the arms, legs, glutes, and core. The muscles in each group are fatigued via small targeted movements, high numbers of repetitions, and resistance.

In the class, you'll use the barre and your body weight so you will be able to do rep after rep of muscle-burning moves, or you can also incorporate tools like resistance bands, ankle weights, free weights, exercise balls, and more.

Benefits Of Barre Workouts

• Better posture. We work out toward a stronger, more defined core, you’ll also be gaining solid strength to improve your posture, balance, and overall agility.

• Increased flexibility. Some exercises can involve a bit of mobility, particularly in your hips. Kara Liotta, the co-founder of KKSWEAT. She also notes that beyond the specific ballet-inspired moves, you’ll also get a fair amount of stretching in most Barre workouts to stretch out the muscles you’ll be exhausting.

• Increased muscle strength. Many of the moves you'll do throughout the class, will get your abs and back fired up.

• Reduce the risk of injury. Barre classes are low-impact, which can reduce the risk of injury and help if you are already injured. Barre is low-impact because there is no jumping whatsoever in a traditional barre workout.