Fits do Fitness Class Reviews: ClassPass with Pure Barre Edina

I finally started my ClassPass!

Like many other bloggers in the Twin Cities, I received a complimentary trial month with ClassPass‘s launch in the Twin Cities. Unfortunately, I probably won’t get as much use out of it as I would have liked. With Singapore taking up half the month and a trip to New York City this weekend for my sister’s birthday, January will be over before you know it! I also am slightly limited by the upcoming Tokyo marathon, as I can’t be as adventurous as I’d like to in terms of the classes that I try (i.e. trying out CrossFit a few weeks before a marathon probably isn’t the smartest idea!) I’ll probably stick mostly to yoga and barre, which is exactly what I did last night when I went to Pure Barre Edina.

If you’ve been reading the Right Fits for awhile, you might remember that I went through a short obsession with Pure Barre in St. Louis Park a few years ago. I was taking classes 3 times a week and was probably in the best shape of my life! I had an unlimited monthly membership and was going quite regularly. I did burn out of it after a few months, and other barre studios started opening up in the area, so Pure Barre wasn’t such a big part of my fitness routine lately. I still was going to barre classes; in fact, I think barre classes are GREAT for runners! I just had fallen away from Pure Barre as my studio of choice.

However, last night I remembered why I like their classes! They give you a full body workout with no impact on the joints. You work your arms, butt, quad, and core in a quick 55 minute class.

A few things to know about Pure Barre:

• you must wear socks, preferably the grippy socks
• the studio is carpeted
• you must wear pants (yoga pants)
• you won’t really break a sweat, but you’re still toning your muscles

The Pure Barre Edina is the same franchise as the St. Louis Park location, but they are technically separate entities; i.e. classes you buy at the SLP location don’t transfer to the Edina location. But both locations are on ClassPass- problem solved!

The Pure Barre Edina is quite close to my work, so I headed there last night for a 5:30 class. The studio is right next to Caribou on France and 71st street. Its very clean and spacious. I was impressed!

Even though the studio isn’t connected to the St. Louis Park Pure Barre, all the Pure Barre classes across the nation offer very similar workouts. You start with a short warmup, then plank/core/push-ups. After that, you do a short but intense arm workout with very light weights (but you’ll feel it, I promise!) Then you work the quads and then stretch the quads. Then you work the “seat” and then stretch. And then you finish with some ab work against the wall and some additional ab work on the mat.

The class last night was good and I’m happy to have this location so close to my work. However, I am still struggling to recover from jet lag from my return from Singapore on Sunday, so it was a little harder for me to stay focused. With barre classes, especially Pure Barre, I think you have to really focus on the muscles that you’re working. You have to have your head in the class…and my head was thinking a lot about how I’d rather be taking a nap!

But that’s my fault! I am feeling much better today, so hopefully the worst of the jet lag is behind me and I’ll be ready to take more ClassPass classes the rest of this month.

Downside to ClassPass:
One downside to ClassPass is that the cancellation policy is 24 hours, rather than whatever the studio’s policy is; i.e. Pure Barre’s policy is 4 hours, but since I booked the class via ClassPass, the policy was 24 hours. This could pose a challenge for a lot of people since it’s hard to know what’s going to happen 24 hours in advance! If you don’t cancel in time, you get charged $20.

Other than that downside, everything else about ClassPass has been awesome. I can’t get over the long list of participating studios and finding a class on their schedule was easy. There is also a free iPhone application that I downloaded to reserve classes and look at the schedule. LOVE it.

If you’re interested in trying out class pass, you can use my referral link HERE to avoid the waitlist.

Let me know if you try it out!