What our workouts and methods are based on
Over the years, I have combined what I love about barre (the low-impact addictive exercises that look easy but burn like crazy, the fast paced nature, and the beat driven movements), with the science of what makes workouts more effective, which I find lacking in many barre programs, AND what makes them more and safe/ sustainable, which I find lacking in many fitness programs in general. Keeping the classes fun and creative, but also making sure every single exercise is biomechanically advantageous with minimal risk is important to me. That way we can work smarter and not necessarily harder! Read on to hear the how & why behind our methods:
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Goals
Our goal with Open Barre classes is to build strength and mobility to feel our best in every day life, to improve our body composition, and to support our mental health and wellbeing- all while keeping our bodies safe from overuse.
In order to achieve those goals, we need to:
Build our type 1 muscle fibers, AKA slow twitch fibers (which are used for endurance)
Build our type 2 muscle fibers, AKA fast twitch fibers (which are used for power AND are also the biggest muscle fibers in size, meaning they have the largest influence on body composition)
Improve our mind-body connection, AKA neurological wiring so that our nervous system can better and more safely utilize our strength in functional movement for everyday living, give us greater mobility, AND give us the ability to make each and every workout more effective
Keep our hormonal balance healthy
Make sure the motivation we use is all body positive
To best tackle all of those objectives, I split our class plan into 2 different camps: Strength classes (done on Mon, Tue, and Wed) will focus on checking off a few of those goals, and Barre/ Pilates/ Yoga inspired classes will focus on the other goals!
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Strength classes to build type 2 muscle fibers
When our goal is to build strength and to improve our body composition, we want to grow our type 2 muscle fibers. To do so, we need a higher load (which sometimes means heavier weights) to the muscle with low to medium repetition in order to reach muscular fatigue. Exercises that tap into these muscle fibers require more recovery time in order to repair and to strengthen, which is why we will only do these low rep/ high force exercises for a specific muscle group 1-2 times per week (more on this later).
More load to a muscle also means potentially more force to the surrounding joints, so we need to be careful to avoid injury. That is why you will never see complex exercises done with heavy weights in these strength classes. The exercises will be kept as simple as possible so that your nervous system does not have to multitask in order to stabilize other joints. We’ll work on the nervous system’s ability to multitask in the other classes!
We apply the principle of progressive overload to these classes. Each time you work a muscle to the point of fatigue you are creating micro tears in that muscle. When your workout is over and your body senses safety, the repair and building process begins. This is where the strength is truly gained- in that period of recovery and rest! Over time you should be increasing the force applied to that muscle to continue this growth (this can be done with heavier weights, a longer lever (aka holding the weight further away from your body), or exercises that better load the muscle thanks to biomechanics). Once you reach a level of strength &/or body composition you are pleased with, you can stop this progressive overload and instead just continue to use the same amount of force to the muscle in order to maintain!
Keeping the exercises simple also leads to better muscular output, which is a huge added bonus when your goal is building type 2 fibers! Studies have shown that the less complicated the moment (or even doing a unilateral exercise such as a single arm bicep curl instead of working both biceps at once), the more weight that muscle can lift! This is because the nervous system does not have to split its attention between both arms and can recruit more muscle fibers in that one muscle. Higher activation will result in better performance leading to more strength gained. This is the perfect example of working smarter and not harder. Furthermore, compound movements which target more than 1 muscle group in the exercise (or even in exercises in which require greater muscular stabilization of other joints), are limited by the weakest link. That means one muscle will reach fatigue 1st and you’ll have to stop before the other intended muscles reach fatigue in order to avoid injury, making the exercise effective at building strength in only that one muscle. In some cases, the muscle that reaches fatigue first is not even the intended targeted muscle, but rather a stabilizing muscle, such as with squats where some people reach fatigue in the abdominals before their glutes or quads get a chance to be fatigued.
Your muscles should feel like jello after these classes but the joints all feel good!
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Barre, Pilates, & Yoga classes to build type 1 muscle fibers
When our goal is to increase endurance we want to grow our type 1 muscle fibers. To target and grow those type 1 fibers, we need exercises to apply high repetition with low force until we reach fatigue. Many times this looks like the “barre shakes!” You typically will experience lots of burn sensations in the muscles with these types of exercise.
Less force to the muscle means less force to the surrounding joints and less chance of injury, so now is also the perfect time to practice coordination and nervous system multitasking! This is the piece of the puzzle that will make your strength functional outside of your workouts AND your future workouts more effective because it is sharpening the wiring between your mind and your body. Outside of your workouts, many movements you have to do are complex in nature, i.e. picking a box off of the ground and putting it on a shelf or carrying a squirmy toddler up the stairs, so we want to make sure you have the tools to safely carry out those activities and apply that strength you have gained!
Because these types of fibers regenerate themselves quickly (hence they are used primarily for endurance activities), you do not need as much recovery time before working them again, which is why you can take these types of classes many times per week or work the same muscles this way on consecutive days.
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The schedule & sequence of classes
Making sure you get enough recovery time between certain workouts is so important, both so that you can avoid injury, and also so that muscles have sufficient time to recover in order to get stronger. Otherwise your muscles will just continue to get broken down and you would be dealing with excess inflammation and weakness. The classes are planned in a way that when you fatigue out a certain muscle with exercises that utilize those type 2 muscle fibers which need extra recovery time, you are allowing your body at least 2-3 days to repair and build that muscle before it is challenged to the point of fatigue again. Remember: the strength is gained in the periods of recovery!
Certain workouts are ok to do back-to-back, as long as they are primarily using type 1 muscle fibers, which is most barre classes in general. That is why we can typically do barre classes 2 or more days in a row!
Working out is stress on your body. While we need that stress in order to improve our fitness, we have to make sure it’s not too much stress to where our hormones get out of whack. Everyone has a different tolerance level, but generally, you should be getting at least 1-2 rest days per week so that your hormones can stay balanced to optimize the results you see! That is why we only do 5 days of new class programming per week.
We believe that fitness should be well-rounded. We need power, endurance, and mobility in order to have healthy and highly capable bodies. That is why our routine includes a mix of strength classes which target mainly the type 2 muscle fibers (giving us power and improving body composition), barre classes which target mainly the type 1 muscle fibers (which give us endurance and coordination), and incorporating lots of mobility and/ or stretching in all class formats throughout the week. You will also notice some sneaky cardio to keep our hearts healthy, too!
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Modifications for everybody!
Modifications are not just given, but they are encouraged! Everyones body is different. We are all built differently and dealing with different past injuries. No exercise is perfect. They all have biomechanical advantages and disadvantages. For example, squats can be a great exercise to strengthen your quads and glutes, but they also apply force to your knees and back which can be an issue to anyone who has overused those joints in the past or even to someone who has an extra long torso or legs! There are always options to make exercises safer for different people or even separate exercises someone can do to target the same muscle in a more efficient and safe way for their unique body. I give as many options as possible so that you can listen to your body’s needs to keep the workouts as safe and sustainable as possible.
You will never hear me say things like “push through the pain” or “no pain no gain”… exercise should never be painful. Uncomfortable at times, yes. I love the quote “Workout because you love your body. Not because you hate it”… Our goal here is overall health and wellbeing. It’s not based on a desire to look a certain way (although that can definitely come as a bonus). Sustainability and challenging on the muscles and NOT on the joints is our focus!