Reviewing the hot new exercise program BarreAmped.

As many of you know from my profile, I am a Stott-certified pilates instructor, precision cyclist, yoga instructor, fitness trainer, and a total foodie. As promised in my very first blog , while most of my blogs will be food and recipe related, I am also going to blog about exercise. I'm going to try not to lecture: most of you already know that weight loss is a simple math issue. You have to burn more calories than you take in, to lose weight, simple as that. How you burn those calories is up to you. There is no perfect form of exercise--just the one you will stick to! Now with that said ,some exercises can be damaging, if done with improper form, execution, and done to excess. As a fitness professional, I did a lot of research when wanting to become certified in pilates. Stott turned out to be the most comprehensive pilates program I could find. It covered all the exercises from the view of a physical therapist. When I look at an exercise/workout plan, I ask myself several questions. Does this exercise recruit the right muscle or muscle group? Is the client able to do the exercise correctly, using proper breathing to strengthen the diaphram and oxygenate the blood, and help train in good posture? Can they do it safely? Can it be modified, to accommodate hip replacements, shoulder replacements, back problems, knee issues, hip and neck problems, auto-immune diseases, pregnancy and just general out-of-shapeness? Does it safeguard and help prevent issues in the body? Does it meet the clients expectations and fitness goals? These are questions you should ask yourself before you engage in a fitness program or questions you should ask the next person you hire to safely get you to your fitness goals. This is my training and also the training of the studio owner where I work. She loves ballet and likes to evaluate all the new classes that pertain to the ballet genre. Pure barre, Booty barre, Bootcamp barre ,Barre Method, I could go on and on. After exhaustive research she came upon the workout that included all the elements that make a sculpted, strong, flexible body while following all of our demanding criteria as fitness professionals. Thank you Kathy for finding all the components that was demanded from all your highly-trained instructors! BarreAmped is that program.

The BarreAmped fitness program is based on The Lotte Berk Method, along with pilates, yoga, and orthopedic stretching. Lotte Berk (1913-2003) grew up in Germany where she studied dancing and developed a method with osteopath that concentrated on core stability. The program is efficient, challenging (to say the least) and a total mindbody experience. It centers around deep, concentrated muscle work much like those used in isometrics. After sustaining these contractions along with rhythmic movements , you follow up with short dynamic stretches. Precision, flexibility, posture, and strength training are the intention of this program. Most of the work is made up of small ,controlled movements where the muscles stay contracted the whole time. This allows the heart rate to go up in bursts. This type of exercise (along with pilates and yoga) can combine with a healthy diet to give you the lean, flexible, strong body you deserve!

Recently I had the opportunity not only to take a few of the classes but to take the certification training. The training started with a fifty five minute class with the instructor/trainer. In the first 10 minutes, I was hooked. I already knew that the exercises were targeting areas of weakness I had in my body. But this program allowed me to find new ways to focus on these areas. What was most surprising?. BarreAmped is a total body workout. Nothing is left out! When you have been training and working out as long as I have, you tend to think that you have seen and done all the exercises out there, but to my surprise I learned several new ones! I admit the next day I was pretty sore and that is saying a lot since I work out most days and rarely feel very sore. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't take another class. I got up that morning and took another class as part of my certification training and haven't been sore since..

I found the class to be super fun, with high tempo music pulsating until the stretching and cool down. But the real test of this method will be to take my husband through the moves. He loves his pilates and yoga, but ballet, not so much. I took him through a class and he liked it! He enjoyed challenging his body in new ways. As a kid he played a lot of basketball and was always injuring his ankles and not giving them the time to heal. He could already could tell that this BarreAmped program was going to strengthen those ankles ,along with his calves and hips. These are problem areas for many current and former athletes. The upper body floor work also provided him with a challenge. He now sees BarreAmped as another program to help keep him on the tennis court where he now likes to roam..

I suggest you find a class today! It is the most fun you will ever have exercising and the rewards are incalculable. As a veteran trainer who has tried many "faddish" exercise programs, I think BarreAmped will fit in nicely with your New Year's 2013 resolution!