The Bar Method Accelerated Workout

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The Bar Method is based on the technique of Lotte Berk, a German dancer who fled the Nazi’s in the late 1930′s and came to London with her British husband.

After injuring her back, Lotte got the idea of combining her ballet bar routines with her rehabilitative therapy to form an exercise system. In 1959 she opened The Lotte Berk Studio in her West End basement. There, she changed the bodies of her students, amongst them Brooke Shields, Joan Collins and Brit Ekland, as she pleasantly occupied them with bawdy humor and tips on love.

One of her students, an American named Lydia Bach, was so impressed with the technique that she purchased the rights to Lotte’s name and in 1971 opened The Lotte Berk Method studio in Manhattan.

Ten years later, two sisters, Burr Leonard and Mimi Fleischman took their primary Lotte Berk Method class and likewise fell in love with the technique. In 1991, Burr along with her new husband Carl Diehl purchased a license to operate Lotte Berk Method studios in Southern Connecticut.

Burr expended a year studying and instructing The Lotte Berk Method at the Manhattan studio, then opened her firstborn Lotte Berk studio in Greenwich, Connecticut. Nearly immediately, Burr noticed that a heap of of her clients’ knees, backs and shoulders were not responding well to the exercises and sought the help of a physical therapist. Under his guidance she reworked the exercises so that they would target students’ muscles without impacting their joints.

During the 90s, Burr and Carl opened three more Lotte Berk Method studios in New Canaan, Darien and Westport, Connecticut. At the end of their ten-year license term, their four studios were thriving, but their version of The Lotte Berk Method had become so not similar to their licensor’s that they made the decision not to renew. In 2001, they founded The Bar Method, sold their Connecticut studios and opened their flagship Bar Method studio in San Francisco, California. Two years later, Burr’s sister Mimi Leonard Fleischman opened the primary Los Angeles Bar Method studio in cooperative relationship with her husband Mark.

Since then, Burr and Carl have franchised more than 20 Bar Method studios in California, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois and Washington. They divide their time among guiding their franchisees and formulating Bar Method media products, amidst them two exercise dvds, “Change Your Body!” and “Accelerated Workout”, that came on the market in 2009.

During the same amount of time that Burr and Carl were opening their primary Bar Method studios, other former Lotte Berk Method teachers begun to give rise to their own versions of the technique. In 2003, Lotte Berk managers Fred DeVito and Elisabeth Haffpapp assembled up eight of their fellow teachers and left to join Exhale Spa, located ten blocks away from their former studio, where they now instruct a version of Lotte Berk called Core Fusion.

The departure of so galore key teachers caused The Lotte Berk Method itself to fold in 2005. The next year another off-shoot sprang up when Tanya Becker, a former Lotte Berk Method teacher, became the conductor of Physique 57, a Lotte Berk-styled studio on West 57th Street. Other current Lotte Berk Method spin-offs include Pure Barre, Fluidity, The Dailey Method, BarrePhysique, Barre3, Karve, PopPhysique, Go Figure, Body Fit, The Debbie Frank Studio, and Bodd.


The Bar Method Accelerated Workout

The pace of the Bar Method class picks up to maximize caloric burn both for the duration of and following this total body 50-minute workout. The class starts with a warm-up that includes free-weight exercises and push-ups and proceeds to challenge you with series of bar exercises guaranteed to give your upper legs and buns a long, lean, lifted, trimmed-down look. The second part of the class includes core sculpting, the Bar Method’s sexy “back-dancing” exercise, and a peaceful series of final stretches. Burr’s fellow performers, Catherine Wendel, Jen Hendrick and Jane Culliford are teacher/owners of Bar Method studios in Chicago, New Jersey and New York.


Most helpful customer reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful.
5Works for me better than anything I’ve tried
By S. Mouser
I bought the brand new (2009) set of DVDs at[...]. One is “Change Your Body” and the other is “Accelerated Workout.” I am 60 years old and have tried many at-home workout videos and a few gym classes over time. I know that most of the people who are Bar Method enthusiasts are much younger and really into sculpted, trimmed, energetic bodies, but given that Burr, the instructor (yes, the beautiful woman pictured on the cover), is 61 years old, I was very encouraged to try it myself. I haven’t moved up to the accelerated workout yet, but the pace and intensity of “Change Your Body” really works for me. I truly can feel changes in my body, particularly in my legs, buttocks and abs (which have been weak). I feel much stronger every day, and have more energy. I’ve been dragging around with chronic fatigue for years, and this is helping beyond my expectations. Also, I’ve been slowly dropping excess weight because of the fat burning benefits. However, I ready on Burr’s blog that the beneficial effects of fat burning are generally for people who are only about 30 pounds overweight. There are some people my age and older that I would not suggest try this without going to a studio first to learn about appropriate modifications, but for those in relatively good shape who what to improve their bodies, I find the Bar Method workout DVD to be really excellent. And of course, the younger people are going crazy for it. By the way, the DVD SET costs only $30 and can be purchased separately at $20 each. More than worth the money, even in these “tighen the belt” times.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
5Wow!
By K. Schutt
I have done Callanetics and Fluidity and I do like them both. However, in my opinion, the Bar Method blows them both away. I do use the bar with the workout, but you don’t need one. You only need a chair, a hand towel, and light hand weights. I just love this DVD and highly recommend it.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful.
5Love it!
By M. T. Bowers
If you like The Bar Method Designer Sculpting & Fat Free, you’ll love this. It’s a slightly more advanced (& longer) version of the first 2 dvds. For example, DS & FF use either push-ups/tricep dips OR dumbbell work for the upper body. Accelerated Workout uses both. The principles behind the workout are the same, but I thought the ab work in particular was a big improvement. Instead of holding your head and neck up until you just about die, you vary the crunch position by placing elbows on the floor, etc. It’s just as effective while being a bit more accessible. I use all 4 Bar Method dvds in rotation, and couldn’t be happier with the results.

See all 25 customer reviews…

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout Picture

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout Pic

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout Photo

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout Image

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout Picture

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout

The Bar Method Accelerated Workout Image

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