WASHINGTON — It seems fitness buffs can’t get enough of barre; studios are popping up all over D.C. But if you have yet to step up to the barre, you need to know a few things if you want to make a graceful entrance at your first class.
What is barre
Barre (pronounced like “bar”) is a ballet-inspired group exercise class that gets its name from the horizontal wooden rod that dancers use as a prop during warm-ups to help build strength, balance and flexibility.
The fitness industry has since co-opted the barre and packaged it into a franchise-ready format.
“You’re using the muscles you need to stand better, walk better, move better,” says Jane Brodsky, owner of Biker Barre on Capitol Hill.
Most barre classes start with some sort of warm-up that may or may not involve a mat. The class may move into arm and ab exercises involving light free weights, stretch bands or rubber balls. Then the class shifts over to the barre for leg work. A class typically ends with a core routine or a short concluding session on the mat.
What to expect at a barre class
Fitness class reviewer Chelsea Clark, a 26-year-old resident of NoMa, maintains her blog Chelsea Eats Treats and was a contributor for The Fit Crasher, a New York-based blog that provides fitness class reviews from all over the world.
She’s attended several barre classes around the region and says she’s a fan of FlyBarre, housed at Flywheel, in the Dupont Circle area — the only place she’s come across with a male instructor. The class makeup for barre skews female, Clark says.
“It’s not the kind of class where you’re going to be jumping all around and you’re going to be really sweaty at the end,” Clark says. “Instead, it’s the kind of class where you’re going to be working different muscles that you didn’t even know you had.”
Most barre classes last an hour, and in the D.C. region they can cost $20 to $30 for a drop-in class. Clark says you can usually snag a deal on Groupon.
Barre is generally a come-as-you-are affair — most studios will provide you with the equipment you need, such as mats, weights, small rubber balls and stretch bands.
Clark recommends wearing leggings and a form-fitting tank top — something that “won’t get in the way.”
Socks can get dicey: Some studios prefer that people dance barefoot, while others require special grippy socks. Others leave it to attendees’ preferences, Clark says.
“I would alwaysrecommend calling in advance … about the socks,” Clark says.
Do you need to know ballet to do barre?
It would seem that actually having a background in dance would be an advantage in an exercise class inspired by ballet. But do you have to have Misty Copeland chops — or any sort of dance background, for that matter — to keep up in a barre class?
“Absolutely not,” says Brodsky. “You do not need dance training at all. You do not need to be a yoga master. You don’t need to be a ballerina. It’s really good for anybody.”
The fitness aspect of barre traces back to Lotte Berk, a European dancer who decades ago fused ballet with exercise and packaged that in a barre-based group exercise format accessible to non-dancers.
Brodsky says the draw to barre is its focus on dance conditioning. “It takes some of the of the movements that dancers do to prepare themselves for the actual dancing.”
Barre’s spin on ballet’s standard grand plié, for example, looks and feels more like an air squat — graceful arm movements optional. The overall kinetic experience feels more like yoga or Pilates.
Clark says most people expect ballet and barre to be similar. “It’s not very similar to ballet at all,” she says.
But she said the lack of ballet didn’t bother her. “It [barre] felt more like a workout,” she says.
