Mora Babineau and Elizabeth Dewey: Planks. Hold for 10 seconds, 20 seconds and so on, working up to a minute (or more). Also, check your gym or studio for online virtual classes (like they offer at Studio47).
If you fall into The Keep Me Motivated personality, you want a great fitness routine, but it needs to be interesting, unique or possess an accountability factor to keep you from slipping off the wagon and back onto the couch. You aren’t looking to kill your body with the highest level of intensity, but, rather, guide your body with purposeful (and joyful) intent – while working up a good sweat.
The good news is that there are tons of workouts that fit into this category.
Mora Babineau and Elizabeth Dewey, former dancers and current owners of Studio47 in Barrington, talk to me about the advantages of two such workouts that fit the ticket for engaging commitment: Barre and Pilates. Barre classes are ballet-inspired and combine elements of Pilates, dance, yoga and functional training, with moves choreographed to motivating music, while Pilates is a set of mindful movement exercises performed (sometimes) on a special apparatus with intent and purpose for overall body enhancement.
“Barre, much like Pilates, has a long list of benefits, the main ones being long, lean muscles, increased bone density, a strong core, mental awareness, and overall strength and flexibility,” they begin to tell me. “Both require you to recruit smaller muscles and work in controlled movement patterns that don’t utilize momentum, thus, you are building strength through control.”
The ladies go on to talk about the positive body-changing results that become more apparent each week of practice and urge all ages to give it a try. “Barre always has a fun, new choreographed class (with great playlists) to keep you challenged and, at our studio, we always say that Pilates is for every body, because it is so adaptable to any body type or injury, and its focus of strength, flexibility and balance are so important to your fitness regime.” Both ladies finish up by telling me that the more you practice Barre and Pilates, the better you’ll become at it, but that ease also brings new challenges as you work at deeper levels and increase your overall body awareness.
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