Should You Try the Bar Method?

Move over Zumba, there's a dance-based workout craze in town. Here's how the Bar Method can help you burn fat and tone your major muscle groups.

    If dancing your way to fitness sounds like more fun than logging hours on a treadmill or sweating through a Pilates class, consider a bar-based class, such as the Bar Method. A bar workout is a dance class that combines ballet moves with core conditioning, yoga, Pilates, and weight training, and lasts about an hour. Bar Method is simply the name of the original franchise that created and popularized the workout. In the past few years, the Bar Method and other forms of ballet-based fitness have experienced a surge of popularity, thanks to the workout’s ability to help exercisers shed pounds, sculpt their bodies without bulk, and gain more energy in a motivating group exercise class.

    “The Bar Method is a low-impact, highly effective way of working your muscles that makes them lean and long,” says Liza MacFadden, a fitness instructor at Studio Fusion in Huntingdon Beach, Calif. At Studio Fusion, MacFadden says, the workouts typically include 10 minutes of upper body, 15 minutes of thigh exercises, 15 minutes of feet work, and 15 minutes of core exercises.

   The results of bar workout dance classes, she says, are amazing. Frequent participants report they’ve lost weight, have better posture, and have increased stamina and energy. Devotee Kristine Barnes, 43, has been taking the dance classes at Studio Fusion four times a week for the past two years. She says she was initially attracted to the Bar Method because she’s only 5’3” and was afraid that if she weight trained and bulked up, it would be too much for her small frame. “With this, I’m toning without the bulking,” Barnes says.

The History of the Bar Method

    The original Bar Method can be traced back to Lotte Berk, a renowned ballerina who fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s for London. After suffering a back injury, Berk developed an intense strengthening and stretching program that combined the ballet bar routines she practiced as a dancer with therapeutic exercises to aid her recovery.

    She opened a studio in London's West End in 1959 and developed a following of people who also used her routines to overcome injuries. In the 1970s, her student Lydia Bach bought the rights to the Bar Method name and opened the Lotte Berk Method studio in Manhattan, where Bach quickly developed a devoted following of actors, dancers, and athletes.

    From there, the classes continued to spread, as some of Bach’s followers opened their own studios in different cities. Today, there are offshoots of the original program in almost every city and state in the country, as well as other ballet-fitness methods that are not directly related to the original Bar Method. Although each studio and instructor is unique, most dance-based classes are fundamentally similar. Here’s what you can expect.

Bar Method 101

During each class, this is what you should anticipate:

• Interval training. Throughout the classes, you alternate high-intensity movements with deep stretches, MacFadden says.
• Calorie burning. The intervals and constant motion make the workout fairly intense. A 125-pound woman in good shape burns about 400 calories during a 60-minute class. Heavier men and women will typically burn more.
• Muscle shaping. The isometric exercises help you tone and shape your abs, arms, butt, and thighs. MacFadden says the method helps make your muscles long and lean.

At Studio Fusion, bar classes use weights, but the heaviest weight used is just five pounds. The small weights and high repetitions provide the benefits of strengthening without bulking.

Bar Method Pros and Cons

    One of the biggest benefits of the bar method is that the group exercise classes are fun. Barnes says that ever since she discovered it two years ago, she hasn’t been able to stay away. Another is that the results are quickly noticeable. It took only 10 classes for Barnes’s husband to comment on how good she looked.

  You don’t need any special skills to take bar classes. “The exercises are very low impact,” MacFadden says. “That’s the beauty of them. Anyone can do them.” They also can be adapted for people with injuries. Another benefit is that you’re increasing your dense muscle fibers and you’re sculpting muscles across your body.

   Cons are that classes can be costly and aren’t offered everywhere (though the Bar Method sells DVDs for people who can’t find classes close to where they live). Also, classes are an hour long, so you can’t break up your routine into shorter intervals if you don’t have a block of time to devote to it.

Tips for Starting a Bar Method Workout

    Because the bar-based classes are unique, it’s best to try a class to see if you like it before committing to a package. Most studios will offer a trial class free. As with any exercise discipline, the skill of the instructor can make a big difference in how much you enjoy it, as well as how beneficial the class will be. Talk to your doctor before starting an exercise program, especially if you haven’t been exercising for a while.

    Wear comfortable clothes and have a water bottle handy so that you don’t become dehydrated as you’re sweating away pounds. For the best results, plan on taking a class two to five times a week, always warming up and cooling down before and after class.