Blending foundations of ballet, Pilates and traditional fitness, H2O Barre with Kelly Bullard recreates a barre studio in the pool using a noodle and the pool wall. This 40-minute aqua barre workout was designed to help improve balance, muscular endurance, core strength, flexibility and more.
Studio barre classes have been very popular over the past decade because they deliver low -impact fitness results, while providing the support of a ballet barre. Equipment, such as hand weights, rubberized resistance and small balls is often used in conjunction with the barre and mat work to achieve desired fitness results. Adapting a barre workout to the water provides similar benefits, without the need of equipment. The water provides 360-degree resistance and even less impact than the studio thanks to uplifting buoyant forces. Instead of a ballet barre, support is provided by a pool noodle or the pool wall. Movements can also be performed more easily in the pool without any support because the water’s viscosity provides its own supportive assistance. Without the fear of falling, aqua barre participants exercise with greater confidence and range of motion in the water.
Aqua Barre Workout-at-a-Glance
This 40-minute mind & body water workout includes a warm-up, cool down and three barre-inspired exercise segments. The warm-up previews many of the barre exercises, but without the support of a noodle or the pool wall. The first two exercise segments feature barre-inspired exercises using the assistance of a pool noodle. The third exercise segment uses the support of the pool wall to perform the exercises. In all three segments, slower and controlled exercises are combined with bursts of barre inspired cardio to keep participants warm in chillier pools. In the video below, Kelly discusses the workout and then read more about her inspiration for creating H2O Barre.
Barre Inspired
By Kelly Bullard
Part of my weekly teaching routine has been instructing an aqua class in the pool and then heading to the studio to teach a barre class. This pairing of classes inspired the idea of bringing a barre routine to the water. Most of my aquatic fitness participants choose to keep their workouts in the water due to health or joint reasons, cooler temperatures, accessibility, and comfort. When I first mentioned the concept of doing a barre class in the water, some of my aqua class members immediately thought, “yay margaritas!” I patiently explained to them that a barre routine includes some foundations of ballet, Pilates, and traditional fitness, blending them with what they already know and practice in the water.
Initially, we explored using various equipment, but found the pool noodle, the pool wall, and even some exercises using nothing more than the water’s support and resistance worked the best. Preparing and practicing, I found that some of the traditional barre exercises did not translate well to the water. In the studio, we often place our bodies in positions to optimize gravitational forces on the working muscles and joint actions. Since the body only bears 25% of gravity in shallow water, many of these exercises did not translate well. However, there were several traditional barre exercises that we could do using the water’s resistance. Additionally, I also found that short range of motion ‘pulses’ did not have the same training effect in the water compared to the larger range of motion movements.
Pool depth is important in all shallow water fitness formats, but especially barre due to the balance and stability required. If the water is too shallow, the increased gravity changes the outcome and creates balance issues. If the water is too deep, buoyant forces create a completely different kinds of balance and stability issues.
Despite the challenges of adapting barre to the pool, the efforts were well worth it. My participants enjoy the change of pace and feel that their balance and coordination has improved, along with their core strength and muscular endurance. Since they loved the overall experience, we currently rotate barre exercises into daily aqua workouts, or sometimes we do an entire aqua barre workout.
Related Pool Workouts
If you enjoyed H20 Barre, consider trying these Poolfit videos.
FunKtional Barre
Pilates Power
Aqua Flex & Flow
Dynamic Water Yoga
Poolfit extends gratitude to Kelly for sharing her Barre passion with subscribers. Stay tuned, another video with Kelly will post next month. Get ready to channel your fierce side with Strike & Kick, an aquatic kickboxing inspired workout.