Good Sweat
Flywheel Sports’ athletic turn at the barre
FlyBarre creator Kate Bohner teaches the toning arm series
Barre workouts are the height of fitness fashion in New York City.
Effective, engaging, and fun, they come in almost as many styles as yoga pants. So when Flywheel Sports, the spinning studio, created its own signature barre offering, they wanted to make absolutely sure it wasn’t an also-ran.
The result called FlyBarre is “a barre class for athletes,” says its creator, Kate Bohner, a one-time co-captain of the University of Pennsylvania Women’s Lacrosse team and a member of the World Cup team.
“The sculpting boot camp for spinners,” as Bohner calls it, is a 55-minute interval-based class that combines circuit training, yoga, Pilates, stretching, and strength building. A warm-up is followed by a fast-paced succession of intervals—lots and lots of ab exercises, upper body work, 15 minutes (!!) of glute work, and stretching to a cool soundtrack (of ’80s and ’90s music Duran Duran to Mary J. Blige when I was there). Yes, it’s low-impact, but that doesn’t mean you won’t sweat.
This move, called the iceskater, will make your tush feel like it needs a cold pack
Bohner, in addition to her impressive athletic creds, is also a certified yoga instructor, a barre expert via Powerbarre in Delray Beach, and a published author. (She co-authored Donald Trump’s memoir—meaning she knows how to breathe through uncomfortable positions.) She’s also a master instructor and has already trained other teachers in her method.
Flywheel’s 21st Street studio accommodates only 12 people, ensuring lots of personal attention—a definite perk. Already the schedule has up to five daily FlyBarre classes and a following for spin-barre double-headers—in particular the Saturday morning Kate & Kate (Kate Hickl’s spin class followed by Kate Bohner’s barre class)—are proving popular for a two-hour blast of cardio and sculpting work.
And FlyBarre, which costs $30 (same as the spin classes), seems set to grow with Flywheel. Although it won’t be offered at Flywheel’s newly opened Upper East Side location, Bohner says FlyBarre will be offered four times a day at the new East Hampton studio starting in May; it’s also on the menu in Boca Raton, which makes Flywheel a spinning-and-barre double threat. —Alexia Brue
For more information about FlyBarre, visit www.flywheelsports.com
Correction: March 9, 2011
A previous version of this post stated that Kate Bohner was trained by exhale. That was a reporting error, for which we apologize. In fact, Bohner trained at Powerbarre, in Delray Beach, Florida, under the direction of Kim Pallacio, who was an exhale Core Fusion instructor.
Checked out a class yesterday, and loved it. Mahri was awesome & so was the class! There was definite sweat. My review: http://bit.ly/eJyvYH The double-header sounds great, and completely exhausting: spin & barre!
Verrrrrrrry interesting. I think this is a great way for Flywheel to distinguish themselves from Soul Cycle. I’d be very interested in trying this class.
This is not only an amazing workout it also requires you to be “present” and leave the day’s stress outside. I’m hooked.
Dear Well and Good,
In reading your latest post about a teacher named Kate Bohner, who teaches a Barre Class for Flywheel Sports, I noticed in her bio, there is a statement claiming her to be, “an exhale-trained barre expert”.
Please let it be known that at exhale, we have a proprietary class called Core Fusion and these teachers are trained by and exclusively work for us at exhale.
We only train teachers to teach for us at exhale and Kate was never one of our trainees.
thanks,
fred devito
Exec VP Mind Body Training
exhale
Dear Mr. DeVito and the readers of Well + Good:
As to the comment posted above, nowhere in my biographical information on the http://www.flywheelsports.com website or anywhere else does it say I am Exhale-trained. I was trained at the powerbarre studio in Delray Beach, Florida by Kim Pallacio — who at the time, was an Exhale Core Fusion instructor.
So it was an inadvertent error — that somehow got lost in translation.
Thank you,
Kate Bohner
Director, Flywheel Sports
I would actually take this class if the location had a shower. How can they expect you to take a spin or barre class and not have showers?
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