Friday’s Food & Fitness: Farmers Market + BarreAmped
Hey friends! So I’m actually on my official babymoon this week. The Hubs and I are trying to take it easy before the little bundle of joy arrives with his aversion to sleeping and love for crying. Just kidding! We are so excited to welcome Baby B in just 10 short weeks! But we did want a little bit of time for R&R. So instead of giving you the info on what we ate this week and cool workouts, I’ve changed it up a bit. Hope you don’t mind!
The farmer’s market has been absolutely glorious recently. I love visiting during my lunch break on Wednesdays and checking out what is good. I often times will just buy whatever looks interesting and cool them up at home. A lot of times you don’t see this kind of variety of produce at your local supermarket. I don’t know about you, but experimenting kind of makes eating veggies more fun.
And the fruit… I mean the strawberries just don’t even compare!
You may remember way back when I rounded up the best prenatal DVDs. Well Suzanne Bowen’s prenatal barre DVD was at the top of my list! You can imagine how thrilled I was when she reached out to me about trying out two of her other DVDs.
Suzanne is founder and creator of BarreAmped, a studio in Nashville. Her method is based on the traditional Lotte Berk barre method. The two DVDs I tried were her BarreAmped Classic and BarreAmped Bootcamp.
BarreAmped Classic is the perfect DVD for beginners just starting out with barre classes. Suzanne gives great cues and fully explains form and posture for each move. Even though this is a great starting point for beginners because it provides the fundamentals, it’s still a great burner for those without experience. All of a sudden I would realize how much I was feeling the burn!
The DVD is broken down into six segments: warm up, upper body, thighs, seat, core and stretch. You can combine all the sections for a full workout lasting over an hour or you can pick and choose sections.
The BarreAmped Bootcamp DVD was exactly like it sounds: bootcamp at the barre. Suzanne paired traditional barre moves with cardio intervals. My heart really went up in this DVD and I definitely felt the burn!
The DVD contains six sections: a warmup, upper body, thigh work, seat work, core and stretch. The upper body section was really challenging. I used a combination of 3lb weights and some 5lbs for biceps and overhead presses and man, were my arms tired. I liked that each section focused on strength, cardio and balancing.
This is definitely a more advanced barre DVD and I would recommend it for someone who has had at least some barre experience. Even though this is a more advanced DVD, Suzanne does offer plenty of cues and modifications to help you build strength and confidence.
Readers, are you a fan of farmer’s markets? Have you ever tried a barre bootcamp class? What are you up to this weekend?