Maggie Schlegel
Last updated July 29, 2024

What Is Barre Class? What Can You Expect in Your First Barre Class.

The term Barre Class may paint a picture of perfect prima ballerinas lined up along a barre in front of a mirror performing ballet exercises – in reality, today’s barre classes are for everyone.

Whether you’re a dancer, a fitness enthusiast, a yogi, or simply curious… taking a Barre class can be a fun and effective way to tone your muscles.

At Sultivate, a Pilates and Group Fitness Studio, we tailor our Barre classes to every fitness level so you can get the workout you want without fear of feeling out of your element.

To make sure you feel prepared, today we’re sharing why you may want to take a Barre class and what you can expect when you do.

Let’s start with the foundation…

What is Barre exercise?

Barre is a low-impact exercise system that uses elements from multiple disciplines – Ballet, Pilates, Yoga, and Strength Training – to create a highly effective workout. Barre uses small, pulsing movements to target all of your accessory muscles.

When we say accessory muscles we mean your core muscles and your support muscles. While the phrase “feel the burn” has been around for a long time… it can definitely be applied to Barre exercise.

Barre is designed to tighten, tone, and trim your entire body. There are a few different types of movements in class that accomplish this:

Small controlled movements (pulses)¹: small motions just a couple of inches in height. They help to isolate the exact small muscle being targeted and generate muscle activation and fatigue.
Isometric holds²: an example of this would be a leg lift or a plank. They help you maintain muscle strength.
High repetition: This goes hand-in-hand with the pulses. High repetition helps to fatigue the muscle and get the maximum strength benefits from a bodyweight exercise.

Typically when you leave a Barre class, you can expect to feel all those little muscles complaining about the workout you put them through.

With these movements in mind, it’s time to talk equipment…

What is a Barre?

Barre classes are simple when it comes to equipment. Often only utilizing a few items including … the barre.

A barre looks exactly how it sounds. It’s a long bar mounted to a wall that’s used for stabilizing yourself as you perform your barre exercises. There are also free-standing barres that some studios use instead of a wall-mounted barre.

While not all barre studios use the barre for their workouts, it is the inspiration behind most of the discipline. It’s also highly beneficial for studios wanting to cater to all fitness and experience levels.

Using the barre can offer support and make an exercise easier. If you’re looking for more advanced moves, you can let go of the barre. This definitely ups the difficulty!

Now that you know what the classes are all about, you may wonder if Barre classes are right for you. Let’s find out.

Who should take a Barre class?

Barre classes are for anyone wanting to tone up their muscles. You don’t have to be an expert Ballerina or a Group Fitness junkie to benefit from a barre class.

Most Barre classes are taught in progression. This means the exercise is given at its base level. Then an easier version is outlined as well as a more advanced version.

This gives you the opportunity to push yourself if you want to, or if you find yourself lagging halfway through the class, you can back off to the easier modification.

While the Barre movements may look easy, they are highly targeted movements. It can be easy to think you’re doing the correct movement, but if you aren’t engaging the right muscles as you do them, you’ll get nothing from it.

Our expert Barre instructors can spot the muscle miscues and misfires, then tell you how to adjust your posture and form to target the right muscles.

Barre is great because you can do it virtually anywhere. With the limited equipment requirements, you could easily modify the exercises to use a chair as a replacement for the barre and do it in the comfort of your home.

We do recommend you’re comfortable with the movements and have taken several Barre classes in person before you branch out into on-demand classes.

Let’s talk about the “right muscles”.

What muscles does a Barre workout target?

We talked a bit about your core muscles and supporting muscles above. But what does this actually mean?

Your core muscles include your stabilizers:

Obliques
Diaphram
Abdominals
Pelvic Floor
Hip rotator muscles
Transverse Abdominals
Back stabilizing muscles

These muscles are between your upper legs and rib cage. They connect your upper and lower body, provide stabilization, and support your larger muscle groups.

Having a strong core helps to prevent injuries and pain from a lack of support for your load-bearing body structures – common pain sites including back and neck pain.

The supporting muscles that Barre targets are the small muscles surrounding your larger muscles.

Some of these include:

Triceps
Buttocks
Pectorals
Hamstrings
Hip Abductors
Outer Quadruceps
Lower Quadruceps

These names may sound familiar because they share names with larger muscle groups. But these are often the muscles that fail to get strengthened in traditional workouts.

They play a supporting role to their larger counterparts. It’s often weakness in these smaller muscles that leads to injuries in the larger ones.

We’ve talked about what muscles Barre builds, now let’s take that one step further.

The Top Benefits of a Barre Workout

Barre classes have lots of benefits.

Build strength

Barre classes build so many muscles that rarely get targeted, and these muscles directly affect your life. They enhance your stability, posture, and balance. Not to mention your muscular endurance with the fast-paced repetitive movements involved.

One of the best parts? You’re able to achieve this with a very low-impact fitness routine.

Increase flexibility and Range of Motion

Another key element of Barre is targeted strength training with stretching.³ The stretches help to increase your flexibility and keep you moving as well.

Range of Motion is how much you’re able to move your body parts surrounding a joint, pain-free. This helps keep you limber and active throughout all aspects of your life.

Enhance cardio and endurance

Barre can be slow or fast-paced, depending on the class. Because of the repetition of movement, you will build both your cardio and physical endurance. Getting your heart pumping is a common aspect of Barre classes.

Reduce stress

With a strong focus on what you’re doing in class, and the production of endorphins that accompany exercise, you’ll forget the worries and fears you walked in the door with. Exercising is always a good way to get a bit of distance between you and your problems. Barre is no exception.

Ready to take your first Barre class? Here’s what you need to know…

How to Prepare for Your First Barre Class

If you thrive in an active community, or are curious about becoming more active then Barre class could be a great fitness option for you. Let’s go over a few of the details so you know what to expect.

What are Barre classes like?

Barre classes typically occur in a studio with music as a background for your movements. There is a rhythmic quality to Barre and the instructor will talk you through the movements, modifications, and goals of each exercise.

Everyone in the class will be focused on their own body movements, whether they feel the movement correctly. So you don’t have to worry if the movements don’t come naturally or if you have to work to keep the rhythm. Those that look like experts were beginners once, too.

Barre classes aren’t just for dancers – they’re for everyone. Keep that in mind when you walk through the doors.

Here’s an example of what a Barre class can look like, however, every studio is different.

How much does a Barre class cost?

One of the questions you may have before searching out a Barre class is how much do they cost. At Sultivate our Barre classes are $18/class.

We also have lots of Group Fitness Membership options that drop the price per class. So if you take a Barre class and can’t get enough of it, a membership could be a great choice.

What to wear to Barre class.

No pointe shoes or leotards are required… Barre classes are all about wearing clothes you’re comfortable moving in.

Form-fitting clothes can help your instructor see if you’re doing the exercises correctly. But it’s also important to wear things you’re comfortable in. You don’t want to be worried about what you look like. Instead, you want to focus on how your muscles are firing and your overall movement.

Another good wardrobe choice is socks with grips. This is more sanitary than going barefoot – but allows you to still move without fear of slipping.

We have a wide selection of grippy socks for you to purchase if you don’t have any already.