Booty Barre Beginners & Beyond

Tracey leads this 50 minute workout in a nice open studio with 4 backgrounders. Tracey shows lower intermediate versions and one backgrounder performs beginner and one advanced modifications. The workout is broken down into a 35 min standing toning section (including w/u & c/d), and a bonus 15 min floor booty, abs, & flexibility section, and includes a separate moves tutorial. You will need light hand weights & a chair for this workout.

Standing Toning: Using a chair for balance you move through a series of flowing, ballet-esque exercises that are plenty active. Exercises include: pliet, dips, side squats, toe raise pliets, side reaches, pelvic tilts, leg sweeps, donkey kicks, wipers, balance stick, pliet hops, hip pops, leg & knee raises, leg circles, leg shoots, unique tricep combo, upper back fly, overhead pulls, preacher curls, & arm circles. Tracey does a great job of tempo changes & adding in fun active arm movements.

Bonus Floor Booty, Abs, & Flexibility: This is a nice floor routine that includes: pelvic thrusts, kneeling hip circles adding arm movement, bridge variations, frog leg extension crunches, torso twists, side planks, sit up variations, plank knee drops, snake, and ends with a stretch.

I rate this an intermediate workout done following Tracey but follow a mod for a more or less challenging workout. I LOVE that Tracey keeps it active & gets the heart rate up. You can really tell she is having fun in this and I love her energy. This workout is similar to her other booty barre workouts but provides more intensity options. These are unique workouts and combine some great movement, strengthening, lengthening, balance & flexibility work. I received this dvd to review.

Tracey Mallett finally brought out a Booty Barre workout that I can do and enjoy! (At my current fitness level)

Booty Barre Beginners and Beyond is a full body workout (with greater emphasis on the legs and, as would be expected, the glutes) geared towards beginners to intermediate exercisers.

The DVD comprises

- a tutorial where Tracey explains good form and use of the chair (or barre if you have one), and gives helpful technique pointers to help exercisers get the most out of the workout.

- the main workout, a 35 minute express Booty Barre workout

- a 15 minute bonus abs-glutes and flexibility workout which can be done on it's own or following the main workout (Tracey and her companions say they are moving on to the floor after the short stretch). This short workout doesn't include a warm-up and they just launch straight into pelvic thrusts.

I like that this workout is divided into two sections, and that the express Booty Barre is pretty complete, even if I would recommend stretching a little more after the workout.

I like that Tracey changes sides more often and has shortened the number of repetitions and pulses so you never feel fatigue, just a mild burn (and I feel it the next day, so it is effective)

I really like that the cardio is done upright! no mountain climbers or bunny hops here!

While the workout has been toned down, Tracey has added challenging variations for intermediate exercisers, for example raising up into releve instead of keeping the heels on the floor, or balancing on one leg instead of holding a static lunge.

I consider myself an intermediate exerciser and enjoy barre workouts like Physique 57, but I don't always want that level of intensity. Booty Barre Beginners and Beyond is a great workout for days when I want to feel like I've worked, but don't want to shake and burn as I do when doing more challenging barre workouts.

NOTE: I received a free review copy of this DVD from the instructor.

Booty Barre: Beginners & Beyond is the latest DVD in instructor Tracey Mallett's Booty Barre series (previous releases have been Booty Barre: Total New Body and Booty Barre: Arms & Abs). As the title suggests, this workout is geared to a wider range of exercisers, and to that end, Tracey and her crew show several different levels of modifications. Tracey is joined by one background exerciser, Alissa, for the "Beginner Plus" version, while her friend Nicola shows the "Basic Basic" version. Finally, Amy is in the rear displaying the "Intermediate" level.

The Main Menu of the DVD reads as follows:

*Intro

*Technique Tutorial

*Express Barre Main Workout

*Bonus Section: Abs, Booty and Flexibility

For the 12-minute Tutorial, Tracey uses Alissa to demonstrate. She covers topics including proper placement at the barre, various positions used during the workout (e.g., relevé, second position, grand battement, etc.), and form tips such as keeping the abs in and the scapulae down.

The Express Barre Main Workout is 35 minutes long. Tracey describes Booty Barre (on the DVD case) as "a fluid blend of Pilates, Dance, and Yoga," and the dance influence is evident in the 5.5-minute warm-up, which puts a bit of a jazzy spin on classic moves such as simple steps and squats from side-to-side. I found that this section felt very good on my back, but I didn't feel quite warm enough for the hamstring stretches which appeared at the end.

For the barre work, the moves themselves are fairly similar to Tracey's two prior Booty Barre DVDs, but the overall intensity is decreased, mainly by doing less repetitions and a more restricted range of motion. Tracey begins with plié work, incorporating pelvic tilts (as always, there is a strong glutes focus!). She also includes kicks (not as high as in the previous two workouts), attitude lifts, and bent over rear leg lifts. At 18 minutes into the Express workout, there is a short "cardio" segment: I enjoyed this more than the cardio in the prior Booty Barre workouts, as it consisted of basic moves: side-to-side hop pliés and single-single-double hips. The final barre sections are performed first with one arm on the barre, targeting the side glutes, and then leaning forward with both arms on the barre.

The main workout also includes a short (4.5 minutes) arms segment. As always, Tracey gets a bit creative, starting with a rear delt lift, but then adding a spin on traditional one-armed tricep work. She finishes with standing arm circles, bicep curls, and a few other moves which felt very Pilates-inspired. A very brief stretch (1.5 minutes, focused mainly on the hip flexors and hamstrings) concludes the Express Barre workout.

Finally, the DVD offers a Bonus segment (14.5 minutes). Here Tracey begins on the knees with pelvic thrusts and hip circles, adding in lasso arms. She then moves to a lying position for more pelvic thrusts and dancing hips. Abs work includes one-legged dips to bicycles, leg reaches with ankles crossed, roll-ups and twists (feet in diamond position, heels up), side plank, planks with knee dips, and snake. Finally, the flexibility work includes pretzel stretch, Figure 4 stretch, and cross-legged seated forward bend.

With this DVD, Tracey has done a very good job of making a more accessible Booty Barre workout. Given the shorter length and decreased intensity, it will likely appeal to a wide range of exercisers–i.e., more beginning exercisers should be able to manage most of the workout with modifications, while more experienced exercises (like myself) can still get an excellent workout by following the more challenging options. The one caveat that I would mention is that some of the moves displayed by Tracey and the others still do require a fair amount of flexibility (e.g., the hamstring stretch at the end of the warm-up and the seated one-leg stretch at the end of the flexibility section). Overall, however, this is a very adaptable, versatile DVD.