Cheat Your Way to a Dancers’ Body! Barre Blitz Brings Pilates to the Ballet Barre

Pilates Centre in North Dublin introduces ‘Barre Blitz’, a new fitness
class that aims to give you the lean physique of a dancer. The Pilates
technique will be brought to its feet (literally!) using the Ballet barre
as a prop, in a class that will give you a total body workout in less than
an hour.

Pilates Barre workouts have become a fitness institution in America, with
celebrities including Madonna and Kim Katrall training in the barre
technique. Founder of Pilates Centre, Anna Wilson, trained full time in
professional dance in Ireland before obtaining her honours degree in
theatre dance at London Studio Centre. She holds a diploma in Pilates
training and set up her own Pilates studio with a loyal and growing client
base in North Dublin. She decided to bring her own twist to the Ballet
Barre workout by fusing elements of her extensive dance and Pilates
training, creating a workout that lifts the seat muscles and sculpts the
arms and abdominals.

In a ‘Barre Blitz’ class you can expect Pilates movements as well as
familiar Ballet barre work, but not in the traditional way. Resistance
bands are used to tone the arms when doing leg and core work and soft
balls make the legs work harder. This combination means that you are
working as many muscle groups as possible all at once to help achieve an
all over body workout in minimal time. Unlike Pilates, which has a more
gentle approach, this class finds the most intense part of  the movements
and holds the intensity for extended repitions so you can feel the ‘burn’.
After tiring out the muscles they get a great stretch to prevent bulk and
build lean long muscles. A faster paced warm up is done to raise the heart
rate so weight loss is also achievable in this class! The class is a safe
way to exercise as there is an emphasis on correct alignment. Standing at
the barre means you use your own body weight as resistance and all of your
muscles work together. The techniques you learn in class can be easily
applied to your daily life.

We  say ‘cheat’ your way here because there are actually no dance
sequences in this class. You therefore don’t need to be a dancer to get a
dancers’ body! So why not step up to the barre and bring out your inner
swan? To see a list of classes go to the ‘Class Schedule’ page on
www.pilatescentre.ie or contact Anna at info@pilatescentre.ie. An 8 week
course costs €112, with discounts if you choose to do more than 1 class a
week.