Ballet Barre Fitness: 3 Workout Clips to Copy

There are lots of different written tutorials on ballet barre fitness, but it can be hard to visualize these workouts (“Put my leg where? How do you bend like that?”),...

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There are lots of different written tutorials on ballet barre fitness, but it can be hard to visualize these workouts (“Put my leg where? How do you bend like that?”), especially if you’re new to barre exercise; that’s where video clips like the ones below are a helpful guide. Watch them a couple of tim es to get the hang of it, then head to the barre and put them together for your own customized workout.

Work your glutes

Ballet barre is “one of the new ‘it’ group exercise classes,” says personal trainer Kathleen Trotter. “I love going to them because you get to work your entire body, especially your core, and you can challenge your balance and coordination.” For a quick taste of how barre can work those glutes, check out The Globe and Mail’s video clip featuring Trotter demonstrating several bum burning motions. Facing the barre, you’ll hinge over while engaging your core and supporting yourself with your left bum cheek. Next, you’ll send your right leg backwards to lift and lower 15 times, then perform 15 small pulses, and finally execute 10 small circles in each direction. Repeat on your left side and feel those glutes working.

Tone the whole body

“What a workout! I taught this class the other day in my Barre Sculpt class and it was soooooo good that I had to share it with you!” personal trainer and holistic health coach Shauna Kathleen writes about this total body barre workout. Combining barre, Pilates, and traditional fitness techniques, Kathleen says you will “burn, burn, burn in all the right places.” The upper body sequence includes everything from shoulder presses to front raises. The lower body sequences utilize motions like squats, circles, pliés, and relevés. Then there’s the ab sequence which has 20 different core busting exercises. Give it a go, even if you can’t do the full 40 minutes right away.

Sculpt and “sleek” the lower body

Get a lower body workout in 15 minutes with professional dancers Victoria Marr and Flik Swan, cofounders of Sleek Technique, a ballet-based fitness program. The short video films the dancers both from the front and back perspective, so you can carefully observe their positioning and mimic the routine effectively. After they set your muscles on fire, they lead you through a stretching sequence as well, where the barre comes in very handy as you soothe those hamstrings and calves.