fitness studio review – GRIT By Brit

Fitness Studio Review: The Barre Code Dallas, TX

November 19, 2014 No Comments

Image: From left to right, my friends Ashley, Julie (instructor), me and Andria after our Brawl workout. I was happy to rock my Fire Cracker capris from Lorna Jane!

Hey friends – happy workout Wednesday! I hope your week is going well. I’m working away at my new studio, Dallas Grit Fitness. We are in full swing decorating and getting ready to welcome our fierce, fabulous instructors for orientation in 2 weeks. I’m excited and honored to have the most energetic dancers, trainers and yoga instructors join my team!

In honor of workout Wednesday, I wanted to share some insights from my recent visit to The Barre Code Dallas, Design District. Turns out The Barre Code Dallas Master Trainer, Julie, was actually the Group X Manager of 24 Hour Fitness who auditioned me for my very first fitness instructor position! When I walked into the class and saw that she was teaching, I totally freaked out. Such a small world!

While The Barre Code offers several barre formats my friends and I decided to try out the “Brawl” class because it seemed the most intense. “Brawl, which has been recognized by SELF magazine as one of the best workouts in the country, is an intense class that combines cardio kickboxing sequences with strengthening work for the thighs and glutes.” As a Turbo Kick fanatic, of course this is right yup my alley!

Here’s a quick run down of my experience…

The Class – Brawl is a 50 minutes, high intensity cardio kickboxing class. We did the whole class in socks – no sneakers! Fortunately the floors are a soft rubber that you can bounce on. About half way through the class, we got down on the ground and did 10 minutes of core, thighs and booty toning exercises. Then we ended class with one final cardio push and a cool down.
The Instructor – So I may be biased because I know Julie and personally like her style, but she was awesome! I always appreciate fitness instructors who actually do the workout with the class and practice what they teach. Julie rocked it out!
Music – We kicked, punched and jumped around to a mash-up of Top 40 music. It was remixed into a continuous flow that synced well with the moves. The sound system was great – I could feel the beat!
Who was there – Barre Code is a women’s only gym. Most of the ladies in our class were in their 20’s and 30’s and all dressed in super cute activewear.
Loved – The high energy of the class. We never stopped moving!
Hated – I didn’t bring a towel and had to creatively wipe my sweat on my clothes.
Final Verdict – After class I was drenched in sweat, my thighs were on fire and I had a smile on my face – the 3 signs of an effective workout! I highly recommend.

My friend Ashley, invited us along for the day. She’s a regular at The Barre Code

Ladies checking in at the front desk for Brawl class!

The studio was perfectly accented with thematic fitness equipment – gotta love pink kettle bells 🙂

Afterwards we were sweaty and tired so we treated ourselves to a yummy dinner at Ascension

Fitness Studio Review: The Handle Bar Indoor Cycling – South Boston

December 22, 2013 1 Comment

Chillin' w/my mom in Beantown a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving — Chillin’ w/my mom in Beantown a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving

A few weeks again I traveled to Boston, MA for a weekend of shopping and quality time with my mom (pictured right). While, I was there I took class at the The Handle Bar Indoor Cycling Studio in South Boston. I heard about the studio from one of my colleagues who has incorporated regular Handle Bar cycling classes into her pre-wedding, shape up regimen. She is in LOVE with the format. After personally experiencing the class, I must stay, I like it too…

Before I get started, let me temper this review by confessing that Soul Cycle and Fly Wheel have completely raised the bar in terms of my expectations for indoor cycling classes. So while I try to review classes with an unbiased mind, I inevitably make comparisons to these two indoor cycling front-runners.

The Handle Bar Basics

Price: $20 for a 45 minute class; not bad considering many boutique studios are in $30-$35 range.
Ambiance: Very modern and hip. Positive affirmations are posted throughout. It has somewhat of an outdoor, beachy feel with lots of yellow, white and orange. The studio is very small, but very clean. The cycling room itself is dark lit only by small red lights. (Red doesn’t really go with the overall brand/color scheme, so I was a little thrown off by it – see pic below). Also, the bikes are really close together and positioned in a “U” shape around the instructor. Overall, the studio has a cool vibe.
Format: The entire workout is on the bike. You start out with a ~5 minute warm up ride, then do several speed intervals and climbs all choreographed to the beat of the music . The last 10 minutes has a short arm circuit during which you use light dumbbells (identical to Soul Cycle). Finally, you bring it home with a 5 minute cool down and stretch.

handle bar cycling insiide — Inside the cycling room at the The Handle Bar South Boston

Likes

Great customer service. The girls at the front desk were super friendly. Also, they gave out free towels and the cycling shoe rental was cheap, like $2.
Technically Sound. Some cycling studios get so caught up in the music and being cool that they forget to preach about safety and good form. I appreciated that the instructor and staff spent time ensuring the our bikes were properly set up and consistently gave feedback during the class on our riding technique.
Lots of Base. The music was super loud and there’s was lots of Eminem on the playlist – me likey.

Dislikes

Nothing distinctive. Overall, I found The Handle Bar to be a smaller, Soul Cycle. It provides exactly the same workout, exactly the same branding (even the colors), just a different name.
Class lacked energy (i.e. no cheering, excitement from the riders). However, it was 6am so that may have had something to do with it.
Now before I make these statement, let me first say that since I became a fitness instructor 2 years ago, I am WAY LESS harsh on fitness instructors – it’s not an easy job. However, my Handle Bar instructor could have done more in the way of choreography. Pretty sure we did tap backs for 75% of the class. (Tap Backs are movement done while riding when you shift booty back over the saddle and then raise back up to a climbing position – “tapping” back and forth)

Overall Rating (scale of 1-10)

7.0 – I give the Handle Bar a pretty solid score because it was good bang for my buck. The staff was friendly, the ride was sweaty, the music was loud and it was only $20. Boston crew, you officially have my “go ahead” to book a class: http://www.handlebarcycling.com/