This barre program I created totally saved my dancer body! Retiring from a professional career as a ballroom dancer, I was terrified I would lose my dance muscles and figure. I thought OMG this is it, I’m going to gain weight, lose all muscles and have to give up my favorite cheat meal of chips and guacamole. UGH!

Thankfully, I started teaching barre and developed moves I fell in love with. My legs even gained some muscle and nice lines on the outer quads, YES!

My clients LOVE this program. It’s a simple 30 minute workout with lots of repetitions and a lot of thigh and glute work. I like to work in releve’ the entire time! For you newbies to ballet, this means keeping your heels lifted high the entire time. Be prepared for the sweat to sneak up on you and for your glutes and thighs to burn!

OH– and if you don’t have access to a barre, don’t sweat it, use your door jam it works great I PROMISE! 🙂

WARMUP: FOOT POSITIONS

PARALLEL TOES IN RELEVE’:

Standing about six inches from the barre, place your toes, ankles and legs together. “Zip” those thighs up nice and tight. Lightly tuck your tailbone and pull your belly button in towards your spine. Lift your heels several inches off the ground and keep them there. Drop your rib heads down and glide your shoulder blades toward your hips.

Pulling on the barre, bend your knees as you sit back with your glutes dropping to the height of your knees (higher if that lower position is too challenging to begin with). Don’t be afraid to pull on the barre. And remember to keep your knees behind your toes.

Choose fun music with a tempo of about 128 bpm “beats per minute.” This way you won’t feel rushed to stay with the beat. If you’re using spotify or pandora radio, one of the best is Kaskade. Their songs have a great bpm for barre.

I usually do 2 minutes bending and extending my legs in this parallel position, 2 counts down and 2 counts up.

Next, I add pulses of 3. Drop down and pulse with the beat 3,2,1 and come up. Repeat for 1 minute.

Pulses! I love pulses, they really get your calves working YIKES! So let’s now take it into our lowest position and pulse an inch lower from that position for your final 30 seconds. If your legs start shaking, please lower the heels and continue.

 

FIRST POSITION RELEVE’ OR SMALL TURNOUT:

Keep your body position the same as for parallel toes only slightly turn out your toes into a V position. Keep your heels high and together. Knees are turned out treking over the second toes.

Start with your singles for 2 minutes. Make sure your knees do not go too wide. You want to engage your inner thighs and kegel muscles. Keep an eye on the knee width and do not go wider than hip width.

Add your pulses of 3,2,1 and up repeating for 1 minute.

Finish with your pulses, tiny tiny motions for 30 seconds!

SECOND POSITION RELEVE’ OR WIDE LEGS

My favorite! I love how I can feel my inner thighs stretching and burning in this exercise!

Let’s begin with 2 minutes of singles, down 2 and up 2 making sure to allow your tailbone to drop straight down toward the floor. Take care not to over tuck. We want a neutral spine with a strong core and strong legs on this one.

Next, start with your pulses of 3,2,1 and up.. repeating for 2 minutes. (Now that we are warmed up I like to do more reps in this position)!

Now these pulses will definitely burn. Check out my position in the first photo below and maintain it, perhaps pulsing an inch lower for 1 minute!

SINGLE LEG IN FIRST POSITION OR SMALL TURNOUT RELEVE’:

Let’s begin by returning to our first position or small V, heels together and toes apart. Extend your left leg to the side and lift your right heel.

As you bend the standing leg (right leg) also  bend the left leg and bring the toes to your right ankle. As you extend the standing right leg, you also extend the left leg. “BEND AND EXTEND” are the cues for both legs.

Again, let’s do singles up 2 and down 2 counts for 1 minute.

Next adding our pulses of 3,2,1 for 1 minute.

Pulse for 30 seconds.

REPEAT CHANGING LEGS.

Can you believe we have already been working out for 17 minutes?! Time flies when you are having fun in releve’ position LOL.

Next, let’s really dig into those glutes!

GLUTE EXERCISE: VASCO’S FAVORITE FIRE HYDRANT MOVE

Begin by stepping several feet away from the barre. Fold your forearms over the barre and stack them. Place your forehead over your hands and lift up into releve’ position. Lift your right leg and create a 90 degree angle with the knee.

Keeping the knee angle the same, open the leg up directly to the side and back down again, knee to knee. Up 2, down 2 counts for a total of 1 minute.

Let’s now add our pulses of 3,2,1 and lower down. Repeating for 1 minute.

By now youre glutes are on fire, ready for 30 seconds of pulsing, WHOO HOO!

Oh yeah… now let’s REPEAT EVERYTHING WITH THE OTHER LEG!

CARDIO TIME!

Let’s now step away from the barre and begin some of my favorite ballet inspired “barre sprints”.

BALLET BARRE SPRINTS

Take a wide, second position stance raising your arms to the level of your shoulders or just a few inches below them. Take your middle finger and thumb toward one another in a graceful ballet position. Keep your weight in your heels and the inside of the ball of your foot.

Engaging your glutes, abs and thighs, bend into your knees and pop up to straight legs. As you make this jump from flat feet to releve’, circle your arms down around and up toward the ceiling as seen in photo two. If the arms confuse you at first, not to worry, simply keep them out to the sides of you.

Repeat the jump sequence for 1 minute.

Recover for 1 minute by maintaining your wide second position. Simply lift and lower your heels working your calves for 1 minute.

REPEAT YOUR JUMPS AND CALVE RAISES FOR THREE SETS.

LATIN BARRE BALLET MOVES:

Let’s have some fun the last few minutes! I am a latin dancer, afterall.

Clasp your hands above your head keeping your shoulders down. Standing wider than hip width apart, start shaking those hips side to side every beat. Add your arms. Work those obliques, crunching the sides of your abdomen with every hip shake. You can change up your timing to a quick, quick slow pace or an even speedier tempo, really shaking your booty side to side.

HURRAY YOU DID IT!

Give yourself a big pat on the back and head to the barre for some serious stretching of your choice. I’ll get started on a stretch blog TBA so stay tuned! Meanwhile, enjoy your barre moves and just wait– you’re going to get those amazing abductor muscles just like I did, very, very soon!

xx Shanna