Pure Barre Fort Worth Review

ETA: I updated on my Pure Barre journey post-baby here!
I probably should admit that in the time between my two pregnancies, I did very little to get in shape. Shame on me. Since I was working, I felt that the excuse of wanting to spend every waking hour not at the office with my baby outweighed any time I would spend trying to work out. I know people that have the attitude, "If it's worth it to you, you'll make time for it," but for me, it was more worth it to spend that precious time with my little guy.

Working moms with new babies are nodding their heads with me on that one. In retrospect, I probably should've just bought a jogger and hit the pavement with the babe, but I didn't.

But it's a new day. And here I sit, staying at home spending all the time in the world with my kids. I sincerely love that, but it really obliterated the "I don't have time to get in shape" excuse I had (not) working for me. I have time to focus on what is going in all of our mouths each day and time to drop this baby weight.


I saw where a Pure Barre franchise was opening over here on our end of Fort Worth. They were running a new client special for 5 weeks of unlimited classes, so I signed myself up as part of my Mother's Day gift.

So what is Pure Barre? From their website:

"Pure Barre is a total body workout that lifts your seat, tones your thighs and burns fat in record-breaking time. Utilizing the ballet barre to perform small isometric movements set to fantastic music, Pure Barre is the fastest, most effective, yet safest way to change your body. Students see results in just 10 classes."

I don't know if all those claims are true, but I saw results in 10 classes. I was hooked.

First of all, the music is pumping, loud, and fun. The class starts with a warm-up, moves straight into arm, thigh, then seat work, and ends with about 15 minutes of abdominal work. The movements are all really small. It's really more of a muscle flex, then release.

The instructors (who are very intentional about knowing everyone's name--love that) come around and make corrections to form (in a non-embarassing way), and I love it because then you can really feel the burn. During final moments to "really burn it out," the instructor cranks the music volume, and the intensity in the room really goes up. It's fun! I've probably attended an average of 3 times a week since June 8th, with my longest stretch being 6 classes in a row before taking a couple days break.

After 30 days, I see muscle definition and am pretty excited that I went from not being able to do a forearm plank for longer than 5 seconds to now up to 60 seconds on a great day. The goal is 90. My posture has improved (no more post-pregnancy swayback), and I can feel a difference in my clothes and see a difference on the scale. Also, that weird place in my back where I knew my epidural had been? Can't feel it anymore. I'm attributing that to the strengthening of my back muscles. Overall, I feel stronger.

The Fort Worth location is owned by the very sweet Kelsey, who is also an instructor. Everyone is nice and friendly. It's a really encouraging community. Really, I can't say enough good things. Others in the class are so busy focusing their attention to the movement that no one notices when you mess up! I recently renewed for 3 months unlimited because it's the first workout in a long time that I've enjoyed. It's partly the cute studio clothes, partly the good company, but mostly the great results I'm seeing. I hope I can keep it up!