If you've trained with us in person or online, subscribed to Barre Now or follow us on social media, you may be wondering how it all came to be. How do we deliver all the barre content online and the in-person trainings across the globe? Well, we're taking you behind the scenes of Barre Intensity. Read on to learn a few fun facts and more about us.
You've completed a Barre Intensity training over the weekend in person or online, but are you certified? Over the last year we've been asked quite often, will I be certified after this training? We're here to explain the difference between trained and certified and why we believe in the two.
Stay on top of your barre teaching game by understanding the five categories of cueing. These are categories we review during a Barre Intensity instructor training and require our barre certified instructors to incorporate. As trained barre instructors, we’re responsible for leading safe, effective and fun classes and the words we say will help us get there.
If you're a group fitness instructor, dancer or barre enthusiast, you might have thought a time or two “I wonder if I can become a barre instructor”? If the thought has crossed your mind more than once, the answer is probably yes, you can do it. If you're looking for a bit more assurance than just taking our word for it, read our 10 signs you have what it takes.
The hip joint and the many muscles of the hip are one of the most complex in the entire human body. Those muscles of the hip provide movement, strength, and stability to the hip joint, the bones of the hip, and thigh. Let's take a look at the muscular anatomy of the hip which includes flexors, extensors, adductors, abductors, and rotators. We're listing their functions, examples of barre exercises that work to strengthen the hip in a barre class and their benefits.
Since we as barre instructors are also considered movement specialists, we want to let you in on some of those movements, how they work, why they burn and how to connect a little deeper with your barre training.
Today we explain concentric, eccentric and isometric muscle contractions, what they mean and where you can find them in your barre class exercises.
An abdominal crunch seems easy enough. You lift and you lower, engage your core and keep space between your chin and your chest. What more can there be right??? There's more, a lot more in fact and we're sharing our five cues from head to toe (really just to the low back) to deepen the crunch. The next time you're teaching your barre class, give a few if not all of these a try. If you're not yet teaching barre but would like to, check out our online barre instructor training and certification program.
We love fitness education, in particular topics that pertain to barre, and sharing our knowledge with instructors all across the world. It's truly the continued education pieces that make our barre training and certification program so valuable. One of our most recent educational pieces focuses on the core. We mean the ENTIRE CORE- your inner core, back, glutes, scapular musculature, and the brain-body connection. Now if you've been in the fitness industry for years you're probably thinking "I already know how to connect my clients to their core" but do you really? Here we break down the five segments of our Core Connections Online Workshop and share a few sneak peak clips of the content.
Understanding anatomy, how the body moves and why, is a crucial part of teaching any form of movement. When it comes to physical form, we draw clear and powerful instruction from our understanding of the body and its function. The Barre Intensity Online Anatomy Workshop was created with the fitness instructor in mind. Read on for a glimpse in what we cover during this 10 hour online workshop.
Wide V Knee Bend, or 2nd position Grand Pile, is a barre class staple regardless of the format. For many students and instructors alike, the expectation of perfect ballerina form can come at an unpleasant cost. While we may want our legs wide, knees bent deep, and feet turned out, our knees and our hips might need something different.
Barre workouts are known for using light hand weights, typically 2 lbs., to fatigue the upper body. Getting to the point of "burn" for the shoulders and triceps is fairly simple, but the biceps, that's a whole different story. Effectively working the biceps in the parameters of a barre workout requires knowledge and strategy. Take it to a whole new level by putting together these pieces.
"Bridge" is a common position of the body executed in a barre fitness class to work the glute and hamstring muscles. Throughout our instructor training weekends we've received a handful of questions from trainees regarding optimal body alignment. We dug a bit deeper in to the top three questions and share our thoughts with you here.
How many of us barre instructors have cued our clients to use their low abs? If you are raising your hand high saying “yes, me, all the time” it’s time to take that cue a bit deeper…
A quick glance at our abdomen shows us that our muscles run deepest to most superficial, not low to high. So if there is really no such thing as our low abs, what are we trying to say? Read this quick barre training guide as we tackle the two main culprits of the "low abs" cue: Leg Lowers and Reverse Crunches.
