Below are two separate Pure Barre reviews. All opinions are unpaid and reflect our own personal experiences. Sara has been in Pure Barre for almost 2 years. Jeannie has never been before. We both self-identify as lazy girls in the 35-45 age range.
From Sara:
Full Disclosure: I am not a fitness person. I want to
do the absolute minimum to be able to still fit in my clothes and look decent. But age has totally caught up with my less-than-stellar eating habits (pizza and alcohol – yaasss!). I’ve tried a number of different classes: pilates during college, aerobic striptease for a hot minute, Zumba for almost a year. You can start to see a common thread here. I’m never going to be that super-cycle girl or a cross-fit fanatic. But I do have a dance background, and love anything that is low impact and gets me moving.
Enter Pure Barre. I’d gotten really lazy and at my highest weight since being pregnant. I kept seeing Facebook friends liking Pure Barre and knew I should give it a try. I got the month-to-month option so that I could always cancel if I didn’t like it or stopped going. I also want to add, this is the first exercise class that I haven’t taken with a friend and support system to hold me accountable.
To get started, all you really need are sticky socks. They provide the rest of the gear: a ball, long tube, double tube and weights. The first class was hard. I didn’t even make it through all the way. I hadn’t sweat so much in ages. It was hard but I felt great. Class always starts with a pilate-style warm up and then 90 seconds of planking. After that, it’s on to weights to define and sculpt the arms. That’s where the easy part ends.
Next up is three sets of leg work. You’ll work inner and outer thighs at the barre, pushed to the point of shaking (which they say is changing) when working the tops of thighs. A lot of the exercises are also spent on the tippy toes. I’ve found that an added benefit of this is it’s easier to wear and walk in heels all day too. Bonus!
The last standing exercises focus on the behind. I have to say, this is one of my favorite parts of my body (thank you pilates!). So I like these exercises a lot. Two sets of exercises focus on side seat and what they call the Pure Barre ledge – that part right where the legs meet the seat.
After that you can finally get on the floor. Everything from here on out is either sitting or lying down. There are a ton of great ab exercises followed by a short back strengthener to even it all out. You finish class with my favorite bridge exercise. All during class, great music keeps you going and instructors keep the moves different and interesting.
It’s been over a year and I hit the 100 Club (100 classes) last year. I’ve also done a few challenges (like 20 classes in 30 days). I have to say I love it and it’s the only workout I’ve been able to stick with for this long. I love that there are always variations on the moves (I have a bad back and hip). But I still get a great workout from it. If you’ve thought about it, I would recommend you go ahead and give Pure Barre a try. They usually have a great fundamentals class once a month that breaks down all the moves for someone new. So give it shot. Let me know what you think or what your favorite exercise is.
From Jeannie:
And Now My Full Disclosure: I am not anywhere near a physical activity type person. I want to do absolutely nothing to be able to still fit in my clothes and look decent. But as I’m an older mom with a very active 7 year old, I need to suck it up and do something to gain more energy and not have my joints creaking every time I get off the floor after playing a board game. (Yes, I’m one of those people who blame the rain when my bones hurt… ugh.) I’ve tried a number of different classes in the past, as well, thinking it would motivate me to take with a friend: I did Zumba for a bit. And I can’t believe Sara forgot about taking classic Belly Dancing classes where you should have seen us shake what momma gave us. There were lots of jingles as we pranced and danced around the room. This was just a class we took for fun and low impact exercise, and it was definitely a laugh. Then there was Hip Hop. This was entertaining (especially if you watched me), fast paced and you had to learn a full dance routine by the end of each class. Let’s just say, I wasn’t born a hip hop dancer. That’s where I pretty much ended any form of physical activity class years ago.
Now enters my first day trying out Pure Barre with Sara. I’ll start by saying I didn’t hate it and I survived, barely. This is my honest experience of a work out session for the first time in years so surviving was huge for me. I enter the building not knowing exactly what I need to do but luckily Sara had already gathered everything I needed for me and put us in the back of the class. Thanks goodness. I signed the waiver and get a small tour and instructions of what the class will be doing.
The music starts, and the class begins. Already I’m lost and quickly trying to follow all the other girls around me. I’m hurting, and as I look at the clock on the wall, it’s literally been 5 minutes. That’s right, I can feel the burn in five minutes ladies and it was just warm up. And believe me, that clock on the wall I kept staring at was like a time bomb ticking away slowly as I try to survive 50 minutes of “why the hell am I torturing myself” workout. The instructor was super nice and she would walk around the room and help with positioning and pose to make sure I’m doing it correctly and not injuring myself. There were modifications of the poses which I took full liberty in doing of course.
So I survive about 30 minutes of continuous torture before I start feeling light headed and over heated. I slow down some and that seemed to have helped. But within 35 minutes (once again I’ve been watching the ticking clock), low and behold, I get really bad acid reflux. Yeah, can you believe it. Freaking acid reflux during an exercise class. Now with this, I can’t lower my head or anything, so I sit down during the class for few minutes to calm it down. It wasn’t helping so I left the class and rinsed my face off in the bathroom. That did the trick. I was determined to finish the class. By the time I got back into the class, there was maybe 10 minutes left and they moved on to mat which of course is a lot of laying down on your back. I asked the instructor if I could do most of the workout sitting, and luckily she showed me how.
I had finished off the rest of the class in a sitting position but still got a good workout. So when the lights went out and we did our cool down, stretches and child pose, I knew I survived. Honestly, Even though it was painful and I almost vomited, I would try it again. It was definitely a great overall core workout. I actually didn’t hurt much after the class until I woke up the next day and had to roll myself out of bed. I can feel every area that got worked out in my entire body, which tells me it was a good class. If you’ve been thinking about it or afraid to try it, I say go for it. Believe me, if I survived and want to try again (after taking some acid reflex meds of course) then you should definitely try Pure Barre out and experience it for yourself.
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