It’s often mistaken that your barre, is your warm-up. This couldn’t be less true. This applies for everyone from students to recreational dancers and adults. Think about it like this – If you are lucky to be in an hour and a half class, the barre is usually 45 minutes to an hour long. That’s at least half the class that you might be using as a warm up. Ballet is not an inexpensive interest, so we should really be making our class as worthwhile as possible.
Barre is meant to improve and integrate your technique into your body. It starts with soft bending of the knees and torso, moves on to integrating movement of the feet, and introducing more turnout. As the barre continues, the technique evolves. Barre is a way of working on your technique in such a precise way – one movement or step at a time, one side at a time, without incorporating full balance or major weight transfers, and directional changes. Obviously, more of these can be included in the exercises at the barre, and this is very teacher dependent. The idea is that without these difficulties added in, you can concentrate on the alignment, positioning and precision of the movements and technique, and that after the barre, this work and muscle memory will transfer into your centre practice.
If you use the barre as your warm up, you risk wasting 45 minutes or more of your class, and technique building time, warming up your body. Doing a thorough warm up is easy, and is not time consuming. Ideally, setting 15 minutes is a good amount of time, but in a pinch you could do a speedy and efficient warm up in less. Your warm up needs to do three things: get your heart pumping and blood moving in your body, activate muscles that you want working in class, and warm up the range of motion of muscles needing the range.
1. Increasing Heart Rate and Getting a Little Sweaty
An easy rule of thumb is that you should get to the barre with a slightly sweaty forehead. Integrating a couple 30 second, or 1 minute, intervals of high intensity cardio is great. Personally, I love jumping rope, but I don’t always have the room. Instead, doing high knees, bum kicks, or jumping up and down for a few intervals works, and it’s one less thing to bring to class.
2. Activating Muscles
I tend to be sitting a lot in the day and so when I get to class my warm up will always include quick activation exercises for my glutes, and hip external rotators (the muscles that hold your turn out). Simple bridges, and clams do the trick. I also like to add in a 1-minute plank to activate my abs, and a pelvic floor exercise.
3. Dynamic Stretches
Static stretching (staying in a stretch for awhile) is not your best bet right before class. When a stretch is held, 20-30 seconds, the receptors in the muscle tissue realise that this stretch in the muscle is safe, and the tissue relaxes and elongates. Essentially, this is how you increase flexibility, by lengthening the muscle. This is also why you’re told you actually need to hold the stretch for enough time. Thing is, when the muscle has just been lengthened, it loses a little strength until it repairs itself. Which is not helpful right before class when you need your strength to hold your turn out, or your arabesque, etc. Instead, before class, dynamic stretching is the way to go. Think of movements like Frankenstein Kicks (a turned-in grand battement to the front); Which is a dynamic stretch of the hamstrings. This movement slightly stretches the hamstrings within the range that you already have. Range is best increased after the class or workout, when there’s enough time to repair the muscle. Integrated into my routine are these Frankenstein kicks, butt kicks for my quads, leg swings to loosen my hips, arm swings front and back and side to side to open my shoulders and back.
I definitely feel the difference when I do a good warm up versus when I don’t. My barre runs more smoothly, my turn out comes more easily and my balance is actually there. I turn with more control and I jump higher. Essentially, my class is just better when I do my warm up. Try it for a couple classes and see if you notice the difference too. You won’t be disappointed.