South Florida Lifestyle Guide - Holiday Gift Guide Volume III Wellness, Balance & Peace | Page 21

The barre workout is one of the newest additions to the workout , fitness craze. Barre is a beautiful bond between Pilates and ballet calisthenics. Barre classes focus on trimming thighs, flattening the belly, sculpting arms and, my personal goal for my barre students, building a perfect booty. With standing plié’s, kicks in all directions and rapid jump or low impact options, barre fitness assists in getting rid of fat and revealing an incredibly lean figure, similar to that of a ballet dancer. Barre work is instrumental in a dancer’s world as it supports the strengthening of muscles, helps maintain technique at any speed, and improves flexibility and posture.

Fitness is always changing and evolving, get out there and try something new. Who knows you may actually love it or at least love the results. Find a class that combines something you like and give it a try. Jennifer DiGuardi is a certified personal trainer and has been in the fitness field for 11 years. She has her bachelors in exercise science and applied nutrition. Her mission is to help women find a healthy balance that blends fitness and an overall happiness together.

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by jennifer diguardi

Barre is very different than some of the other current fitness trends. There are many classes that involve extreme muscle fatigue, high intensity, and heavy weight lifting. Barre is the complete opposite. Never using more than three pound weights for the arm series, still implements muscle fatigue but the focus is on smaller muscles that get defined, not bulky. There is constant motion in barre class; going from low intensity standing leg lift series that will lean out thighs to faster standing knee

drives, high kicks and ballet lunges that will shed fat. There are many variations of Barre class, such as "Cardio Barre", "Booty Barre", and "SpinBarre".

"Cardio Barre" a class done inside or outside. The class comprised of upbeat ballet moves such as plié to passe in simple combos that keep your heart rate elevated with little breaks. “SpinBarre” combines a workout on a spin bike and on the barre. The workout on the bike is to get the heart rate up followed by barre work using the handle bars as a barre to work the butt legs, arms and core. "Booty Barre" the class focuses on building the muscles in the glutes in different ways. The variations are standing, seated, and on your hands and knees. "Barre Bootcamp" is barre calisthenics with extra exercises done on the bosu ball, Swiss ball, trx straps and/or sliders all done in a circuit format.

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