In light of the new Seal Beach studio opening, Xtend Barre invited three of the women from the 49er to try out a class.
The studio is brand new and smells like the cleanest of swimming pools; we were welcomed by a cluster of extremely fit, excited people.
These are the type of people who have memberships to multiple yoga studios, eat dense, darkly colored granola bars that taste horrible [and somehow have double the calories of a Clif bar] and have multiple pairs of special socks for this Barre workout that was created less than ten years ago.
One instructor expressed that this was her third class of the day. The main instructor drove all the way out from San Diego to help us find our inner ballerina.
We weren’t sure whether their attitude was a reflection of the workout, or whether the workout was a reflection of their attitude, but they got us pretty excited about the ballet-Pilates-cardio fusion that we had trouble conceptualizing.
We were given a pair of those socks, which are also known as yoga socks; they have a rubber texture on the bottom (next to the Xtend Barre logo, of course), and they ultimately proved to serve no purpose in the class besides racking up mad style points.
Based on the name of the exercise, we had assumed that it would involve a lot of stretching. However, we failed to pay attention to the spelling of “Xtend,” and soon realized that just like P90-X, any exercise with a capital X in the title is hard core for beginners.
About five minutes into the class, we as inconsistent gym users began to turn red and hope that no one in the room noticed. As the instructor rapidly fired off commands and instructions, she would glide around the room, touching our embarrassingly damp backs as guidance.
Fifteen minutes later, we moved from dynamic ballet-inspired movements in the center of the floor to the bar, where the true hell began.
Much of the exercise is spent on the tows or in a squat position, with the arms poised like dancers. Over time, the consistent studio visitor will undoubtedly slim their hips, develop lengthy dancer’s legs and great core strength.
About thirty minutes into the class, we were lunging and butt-lifting to the point of failure, and we still believed the instructor— who only did about one sixteenth of the class, but looked like she had two percent body fat— when she said that there was only one more 8-count to go.
“If your legs are shaking, congratulations!” she said, breaking into a quick running man dance for comedic relief. These words were the perfect culmination of the class and a lovely foreshadow to the post-workout pain we would be feeling for the next couple days.
Ultimately, the class was exactly how it was described: a fusion of cardio, ballet and Pilates.
It started with a quick warm-up blending ballet terms that are merely French words to the average person, followed by a bar workout utilizing lengthening and minimal movements in sets of eight that hurt more than would hundreds of squats. The small reps were punctuated by somewhat complex ballet movements that completely confused me, and made some of us look like grandmothers trying to dance.
Barre is yet another blending of roots exercise that curiously inspires a cult of fit people to live their next few years as a billboard for the brand; they’ll eventually move on to the next cool thing like Zumba-calisthenics or jazz-cycling or something like that.
However, we digress; it proved to be a killer workout that left untouched not one square inch of happy fat on our asses, and quite frankly, if we go back we would very quickly be whipped into shape.
Xtend Barre is located on 308 Main Street in Seal Beach. The studio opened Oct. 11. See http://xtendbarreworkout.com/new/xtend-barre-seal-beach-2/ for more information.