Perfecting Muscle Tone with Ballet Barre

You don’t have to be a workout fiend to have heard about ballet barre exercises. You don’t even need to be a gym member to be familiar with them. In the past 10 years or so, barre has become a fitness craze that hasn’t taken its foot off the gas pedal since it started gaining speed. 

Barre: A Brief Background

While many believe that barre is a relatively new type of working out, it isn’t. That is, it isn’t new unless you believe that workouts that have roots dating back to the 1700s are the latest fitness trends. Although most modern-day barre classes focus on leg and rear end workouts, barre strength and flexibility exercises can be traced all the way back to the time when Louis XVI was the king of France.

Barre workouts got their name from the horizontal handrail ballerinas use during training, which is known as the “barre.” Today’s barre workouts are still based on classical ballet exercises, but they’re geared to appeal to a much wider audience. Regardless of your age or fitness level, there’s a barre class that’s ideal for you.

If you’re trying to think of a reason to avoid barre classes, you can stop because there hasn’t been a viable one for centuries. You don’t need to have a sense of rhythm to engage in these exercises. You don’t even need a leotard or leg warmers. You just need the will to workout because classes at all levels of intensity are widely available. 

Benefits of Barre

If you research the benefits of barre, you’ll find an impressive list of possibilities that are sure to inspire you to sign up for a class. Improved balance, better posture, a dancer-like body, greater flexibility – those are all proclaimed benefits that are attributed to ballet barre exercises. 

While no one would dispute the desirability of those benefits, some will argue that they’re not the greatest benefit you’ll enjoy when you commit to regular barre workouts. Those people will likely tell you that improved muscle tone is the workout’s most significant benefit.

How Barre Works

Depending on who you ask, you may be told that you might start to see results from barre after as few as five workouts. Barre is so effective because it relies on isometric contractions rather than the concentric or eccentric contractions used in strength training exercises like curls. Whereas concentric contractions change the length of your muscles, isometric contractions don’t. That’s why isometric exercises are often credited with lengthening muscles.

In general, barre workouts involve isometric contractions at one-inch intervals. These high-rep, low-weight contractions target specific muscles to improve their endurance. Because they put no strain on a person’s tendons or ligaments, ballet barre exercises pose little risk for injury.

To learn more about how barre works, contact YogaCoreFit now!

Get Started with Barre at Our Vacaville, CA Location

Perfecting your muscle tone all starts with finding a class you’ll be eager to attend over and over again. And that’s what you’ll find at our Vacaville, CA fitness center – barre classes you’ll be excited about. Look over our menu of classes and contact us to register for a barre class when you’re ready to start perfecting your muscle tone.

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