By: Madison Wright, MS
Blog Coordinator + exhale teacher

We’ve all heard the phrase, “two’s company, three’s a crowd.” Well, that might be true on date night, but there’s evidence to the contrary when it comes to maximizing your exercise performance. Turns out, there’s a plethora of benefits to working out with friends and exhale is giving you incentive this month to find out what those reasons are! Psychology expert Professor Barbara A. Brehm, Ed.D., Department of Exercise and Sport Studies, at Smith College in Northampton, MA, says that when you make a workout date with a friend you are much more likely to stick to the plan instead of listening to that inner voice that often pops up and tells you stay in bed (we’ve all been there on a Saturday morning after one too many finely crafted cocktails).

By: Madison Wright, MS
Blog Coordinator + Core Fusion Teacher

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month – a time when women and men around the world unite wearing the color pink in support of breast cancer survivors, and for those that we’ve lost, as a symbol of hope for a cure.

As you gear up to participate or donate to your favorite charity or event that supports breast cancer this month, keep in mind that there are many things that you can do personally to help yourself in the prevention of breast cancer.

By: 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.

By 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.

By: 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.

For those of us who have attempted the feat of a diet, we know how difficult it can be to stick to limitations while remaining satisfied and motivated. A diet can be considered a short-term approach towards achieving a health goal. The restrictions that go hand in hand with diets may work for some people to achieve a goal quickly, but it may not work for others. Some may find themselves frustrated if they do not see the results as quickly as they’d hoped, and some may feel imbalanced from the sudden change in regimen.   An alternative approach towards achieving a goal and bettering yourself is making tweaks to your overall lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle takes into consideration how you approach exercise, how you manage your time, how you deal with stress, how you speak to yourself