Raising the Bar: The Bar Method Works at Toning Wilton Residents

By the time this story goes live, this writer will be extremely sore.

I spent my morning performing plies and arabesques in a room on Center Street among some of Wilton’s fittest residents. The class, at The Bar Method, was as engaging as it was challenging, but teacher and co-owner Erin Wright told me to expect a bit of pain the next day.

The Bar Method is an exercise system that fuses elements of ballet, Pilates, yoga, and interval training into intense, hour-long classes. Students perform moves with weights, exercises at the bar, and then move to the floor to strengthen their cores. Teachers demonstrate the moves before zeroing in on adherents to fine-tune their form.

“We really want to focus on the client,” said Wright, who has practiced The Bar Method for over a decade and had her Wilton studio for four years.

She was initially attracted to it because it incorporated several forms of exercise she loved. An athlete by nature, she danced in college and began taking Bar Method classes later. The then-new system was looking for teachers, so she became certified by founder Burr Leonard, who based the system on the exercise philosophies of famed German dancer Lotte Berk.

“This is definitely a workout and it does your cardio too. I used to be a runner but when you are doing this, because you are doing bursts of intense exercise, they are like mini sprints,” explained Wright. “I remember Burr comparing it to the way that super-fit animals in the wild sprint and then pull back and rest– that’s how this is too. I’ve found I don’t need to do cardio with it although we do have clients that do like to do it,” she added.

To see the best results, clients should practice three times a week, though some come once a week while others are almost daily fixtures at the studio. However they choose to practice, the long, lean and toned physiques on display in classes speak volumes about the method’s effectiveness.

Classes are necessarily small since the studio holds a maximum of 16 students. Wright guesses that a few hundred of them pass through the room in an average week.  

“Students are sore at the beginning and find the classes challenging but when they lock into the method, they can see results after just a few weeks. Many even notice immediate changes in their carriage and posture since they become more aware of their bodies,” said Wright.

The studio is locatd at 22 Center St.  Class schedules and more information can be found here or by calling 203-563-0051.