The Bar Method

The Bar Method has come to Boston.  You can read all about it Here but reading about it is a lot different than experiencing it.  The studio is in Back Bay on Clarendon and it's brand new and gorgeous.

I assumed this would be a lot like my current Physique57 dvd workouts and I was right, they are right on the same track.  All movements are small, purposeful, and you do a million reps of teeny tiny painful movements that crush your soul.  Your muscles shake from minute 5 through the very end at 1 hour.  It's embarrassing until your realize that 95% of the class is in the same boat of uncontrollable muscle spasms.

The studio requires that you wear pants/long shorts and socks for sure.  You do the workout on carpeting so that you don't slide around.  It starts out with a warm up of basic marching leg lifts, goes into arms with very light weights (2-4 lbs) in which you instantly start sweating, and then continues on to the bar with uncomfortable stretches and more tiny leg lifts and tiny squats.  Do you know how much a tiny squat hurts?  A shit load more than a big squat.  Eventually you sit on the floor with your back against the wall and lift your leg straight up to the wall (back and up) and like a hundred reps later, you might be done.  I can't even straighten my leg straight up at that flexible angle, which is a problem... it was like a major effing handicap in this case and mother of God, it just was the hardest section for me.  Next up was the abs and that was not half as bad, you laid on the floor on a little pad and did mini crunches, like so small you were really only moving like inches, and then lifted your pelvis just inches, and sometimes you did them at the same time.  It ended with a nice cool down with stretches.

After the class, my body felt exhausted and I just wanted to lay down for the longest nap of my life.  As the day went on, my body felt a bit more pain.  It seems a lot like I just paid $24 for 1 hour of a major pain session in which the instructor continuously corrected my form and talked to me through her microphone, which was nice of course but also another blow to my ego.  The price is a bit steep, but it was something that I was really curious about so I took the plunge.

This class is tough but in a good way and I'll probably end up going back.

Update - the morning after, I am Really sore: thighs, butt, back of arms, and abs.