THE SWEET SPOT: HOW (AND WHY) YOU SHOULD BALANCE YOUR TRAINING WITH BARRE AND YOGA
It’s true: adding variety to your workout routine improves your overall fitness. Switching up your training prevents injuries, and provides your body with “muscle confusion,” which keeps you from hitting a plateau by forcing your muscles to constantly adapt.
Read MoreHere’s our guide to staying healthy during the busiest — ahem, we mean most wonderful —time of the year. THE WORKOUTS
- A walk outdoors It’s pretty simple, but there’s nothing we love more than a fall or winter walk with friends and family. It’s a great way to fit in time to be active – even on holidays that seem to be all about the stuffing.
- Exhale On Demand Working out at home or on-the-go is a little bit easier when your favorite class is literally in your pocket. Hello, Exhale On Demand.
- Skiing We love skiing – and it burns serious calories, especially if you’re going cross-country. And believe it or not, your Barre practice helps you ski like a pro thanks to strengthening exercises and isometric holds that keep your legs and core strong and healthy.
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Memorial Day Weekend marks the unofficial start of summer! As many of us have started to up the sweat sessions and lighten up the grub, it can be tough to keep it consistent with the start of scrumptious summer shindigs.
Read MoreIn exhale Barre classes, our Core Conditioning Series follows a pattern: Flat Back, Round Back, and finally the Curl – which introduces a progressive challenge of increased spinal flexibility with each position. All three exercises address two fundamental needs: strengthening the core while building flexibility in the back. Joseph Pilates always preached that the “supple spine equals a youthful body,” and it’s true. The more spinal strength and flexibility you have, the more strength and flexibility you’ll see in every other area.
The curl takes discipline because it’s a complex position. You have to prioritize pressing the lower back down on the mat while
Read MoreWhen Katie first came to exhale with a 30-day unlimited class package, she was recovering from a life-altering car accident and brain surgery. Here’s her incredible story of building strength and mindfulness at exhale – one class at a time.
First, please indulge me in some brief (kind of) background info. I was hit by a car while crossing the street in July 2016 which left me with a grade 3 concussion and a left hip injury from the impact. The injury restricted my physical activity. About six weeks later, in September, I underwent brain surgery to remove a colloid cyst. My neurosurgeon estimated it had about a 50% chance of killing me (and was originally identified as likely being cancer in January 2016). At 27 years old, this was a lot to handle – physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Read MoreBy: Fred DeVito, exhale co-founder and the ultimate fitness aficionado
As a young barre teacher, back in the 80’s and 90’s, most students came to my class 4-5 times a week like clockwork. They loved the technique — because it challenged them constantly and it gave them fast and noticeable results. Back then, it was fashionable to be consistent with one method that worked.
Read MoreBy Fred DeVito
Core Fusion co-founder and ultimate barre aficionado, Fred DeVito, breaks down the history of barre, how it works to change your body, and what to look for in a high-quality barre class.
First things first: what is a barre?
The Barre, a word taken from the world of ballet, is a fixed pole, firmly attached to a wall so that a person can pull, push, hold or lean on to gain support when performing exercises that are primarily using one’s body weight as resistance. These movements stem from the original ballet barre warmup that dancers use to prepare and train themselves for their actual dance combinations in a performance.
When and where did barre workouts originate?
Lotte Berk, the founder of the barre class space and the direct lineage of the technique decades ago, combined her knowledge of dance based exercises with orthopedic core work that she learned from physical therapists when going through the process of healing a dance-related injury. Her combination of these two disciplines inspired her to create a class called Rehabilitative Exercise in London back in the 1960’s.
A decade later, the technique was introduced in the 1970’s in NYC at a studio named in her honor, The Lotte Berk Method, and an exercise system was born. That’s where exhale got its roots — I taught there as well as my wife and partner, Elisabeth Halfpapp. Both of us taught 34 classes a week for almost 20 years (if you can believe that!) and that’s how we established ourselves as authorities in the barre space, training many teachers who now run or own some of the major barre studios and franchises in the world. Every major player in the barre space can track their roots back to us at the Lotte Berk Method since we were the leaders there for 20 years.
Read MoreBy: Emily McNeely, exhale enthusiast, copywriter, dancer and (newly committed) Barre + Yoga devotee
It’s why I fell in love with exhale in the first place: balance. Whether it’s the balance of spa and fitness, of energy and mindfulness, of strength and flexibility — or the challenging balance in chair position on the mat, heels up, arms stretched wide, finding your center. That’s why I fell in love with exhale’s new class, Barre + Yoga.
The latest brainchild of exhale’s co-founder, former ballet dancer, and barre legend Elisabeth Halfpapp, Barre + Yoga blends two classes into one powerful, balanced hour. For the first half of class, you’re in Core Fusion Barre mode — toning up with hand weights, planks, thigh and glute work.
Then, seamlessly, you switch gears and move into an athletic yoga flow. After a series of Warrior sequences, you move to seated yoga poses and a core section, complete with the classic Core Fusion curl. Then you end the hour with a mindful moment in Savasana.
Read MoreBy: Fred DeVito, Core Fusion co-founder + the world’s first male barre teacher
Most men are programmed from sports training in high school and college to think that lifting weights and doing cardio is how you stay in shape. But after high school and college, most of us realize that only doing exercises you’re used to can limit your fitness potential – and as the first male barre teacher in the industry, I learned this the hard way.
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