Doing Xtend Barre at Home

A few months ago, I blogged about taking classes at a Bar Method studio. I did a bunch of them just as a trial, and while I liked the classes, didn’t continue on to have a membership with the gym. Following my blog post about it, a reader suggested that I should do barre DVD workouts at home. I thought this was a great idea, and last week, I finally got around to picking out a barre style workout DVD off of Amazon:

I do workouts at home fairly often, usually once or twice a week. I sometimes find them to be really convenient, especially when I’m in a time crunch and want to maximize the time I do have to exercise. I have a couple of favorites that I’ve done quite a few times, mainly Jillian Michaels’ DVDs and Tae Bo workouts (which my hubby totally makes fun of me for, and I can’t say I blame him!):

The Xtend Barre Lean & Chiseled DVD had good reviews and was super cheap, so I decided to give it a try. This past Monday, I popped in the DVD to do the workout for the first time.

The DVD lasts almost an hour, and is broken down into 3 segments: upper-body, core and the barre segment. For some reason the DVD gave me a 90’s feel (it’s from 2010), but overall I liked it!Compared to the studio classes I took, the DVD seems to be more cardio focused. At the classes I didn’t necessarily feel my heart rate elevate too much, but I did feel my muscles burning quite a bit (Hello shaky legs!). In contrast, the DVD had me sweating and my heart rate steadily around 70%, and I did enjoy this cardio element. Though it wasn’t as hard on my muscles, some of the movements were similar or the exact same as in the classes.

Since I was achy in a few strange little places after my first studio class, I was expecting to be sore yesterday after my first DVD workout. I was a little surprised when I woke up feeling totally fine. However, when I began a strength training circuit workout later in the day, my arms were feeling easily fatigued. This means the Xtend Barre workout definitely worked some muscles!

While the DVD wasn’t super challenging, I didn’t find the studio classes to be either. Sure, they worked my muscles and made me feel like I was toning areas differently than usual. But the barre method isn’t hard in a cardiovascular sense. It won’t make you feel like you’re able to pass out or vomit – it’s more of a girlie workout, if you will. After all, the barre workout was originally created by a ballerina. But overall, I like doing barre-style workouts as part of my overall exercise regimen, and I think it’s a good addition to add to my workout DVD arsenal.

On a side note, one downside to working out at home is a certain puppy who thinks it’s cool to play and lay down in the immediate area where I’m trying to exercise. I did yoga at home today, and Harley was literally trying to lay on top of me in my living room.