Recently, I was chatting with my lovely friend Uli (on the right), who despite always looking like she is in fabulous shape, has never been particularly into working out (luckily, she is delightful and kind, so you don't get bitter that this woman is effortlessly pretty and fit). To my surprise, she shared that in recent months she'd taken up barre at Xtend Barre in Old Town. https://www.xtendbarre.com/Of course, I wanted to take a class with her asap!We showed up on a rainy Wednesday night. The rain put a damper on our pre-barre stroll around Old Town, but the class definitely made up for the raindrops! The delightful instructor, Melissa…looked terrifying - extremely fit, energized and strong. Great attributes in an instructor, but also intimidating attributes.
Full disclosure - I'm in my second trimester of pregnancy, and I am still learning the things I can and cannot do in barre classes (any exercise classes for that matter). That is also why I'm now in the habit of using bags to cover my stomach, even though I am no longer in the stage of hiding my pregnancy. Note awkward picture. Super natural place for a woman to hold a bag, right? And it makes total sense for her to be holding it for a picture, right?I've found most studios offering any type of exercise classes can offer me alternatives to exercises that I cannot do, which are exercises involving twisting at the torso and laying on my back. There has only been one exception to this so far, and that was a very sweet girl teaching a class I will not name at a studio that I will not name. When I asked for alternatives she said she had no clue what to do, but recommended I just plank for the entire abs section to be safe. I went with that suggestion. Never again.
To my delight, I disclosed my pregnancy to Melissa and she handed me an entire alternative exercise book! With pictures. A step-by-step picture book. Thank you, Xtend Barre. She told me that I was free to do any of the exercises in the book as substitutions for exercises prohibited by my pregnancy. She even let me keep the book next to me while we worked out! Admittedly, I ended up spending most of the abs section looking at the book with excitement trying to determine what to do and not actually doing anything. But next time, just wait, I will be a machine...or get super excited looking at the picture book again. Regardless, it is exciting to know they have the book.
Xtend Barre was a pretty traditional barre class. You use the barre and ball, as well as body weight. To me, what set the class apart, and one of my favorite parts of the class, is the use of small, circular resistance bands in creative ways. See the bands around the participants in the picture for a visual (best picture I could find on Google images of the bands).For example, we started the class by taking the resistance band and holding it like a bow and arrow. We would pull back with one arm as if about to shoot. We repeated that motion, and then we switched the stationary hand and the pulling hand. I have no images, but the first thing that came to mind was Katniss Everdeen (because I am a mature adult and she is the closest I've ever come to archery).
We eventually moved the bands to our lower half. One of the hardest things we did was put the resistance band around our thighs and do side squats and curtsies. Uli, who is now quite the barre badass placed two
resistance bands around her thighs for the plié squats and curtsies. I only used one, and it was so hard. Also, who is the person who was like, "I like curtsies, but I think we should make them more aggressive?" And then proceeded to wrap multiple massive rubber bands around their legs. Some sadistic genius, thats who. I never really knew the huge advantage to resistance bands until Xtend Barre. And by advantage, I mean pain they can induce for days.I really liked the use of the resistance bands because they incorporated exercises you could do independent of the barre. Don't get me wrong I love the barre aspect of barre, but it was really nice to have workouts that if I felt so inclined I could do at home. Admittedly, I don't own resistance bands, so there is still a major hurdle to doing these exercises at home, but I do love that if it ever strikes me to purchase bands, I can now torture myself with archery and curtsies.
Thank you, Uli. I cannot wait to go back to Xtend Barre! It is currently my favorite studio in the DMV.
