Getting a serious stretch through the Bar Method

Not every fitness program inspires the kind of devotion the Bar Method does. Many who have discovered this relatively new workout have become quick devotees, intensely loyal in a way that compels some to gush, “You’ve got to try this. It’s really helped me. You’ll feel so good afterward.”

Maybe not so good during, though. In a level-one class, pain from doing half-squats while standing on the balls of the feet is intense. Muscles burn; legs shake noticeably, the tremors apparent from across the room.

This is a workout people are waxing rhapsodic about, swearing it produces toned thighs and lifted derrieres. Burr Leonard, Bar Method’s creator, based the regimen on the Lotte Berk Method, which dates to 1970 in New York. Both use repetitive exercises and stretches that tone and strengthen muscles using small, precise movements done with correct body alignment. Leonard started out as a Berk student, and she and her now ex-husband eventually opened four Berk studios in Connecticut before they severed ties and set up a Bar Method studio in San Francisco. A West Los Angeles studio, co-owned by her sister, Mimi Fleischman, opened in February 2003.

Though she loved the Berk technique, some of the positions and stretches didn’t feel comfortable to Leonard, and she began to modify them, creating the Bar Method in the process.

The Bar Method is often described as incorporating elements of yoga and Pilates, but it is less static than yoga and uses a ballet barre and floor mat, with no machines. Leonard chose the Americanized “bar” spelling because it sounded stronger and simpler. Classes begin with upper-body exercises using lightweight dumbbells, then progress to intense lower-body work at the barre and on the mat. Abdominal work and stretches round out the class. Though heart rates can be raised, this is not truly a cardio workout. Leonard suggests adding cardio workouts if needed.

Leonard, an attractive, trim 56-year-old with teeny-tiny thighs, has a theory about her students’ devotion, even though they know workouts are tough. “You go to class and you want that hip stretch,” she says, speaking from her San Francisco studio. “You can go to another workout and there are stretches where not much is happening. For women, this changes their bodies really quickly.” Part of the appeal are the small, friendly studios, where students--anywhere from five to about a dozen per class -- get individual attention from instructors.

Leonard is often asked about the fundamental differences between her technique and mat Pilates. She believes Pilates does more leg work in large, sweeping, circular motions, whereas Bar Method uses smaller movements that isolate and engage the muscles for several minutes at a time. The advantages, she says, are dense muscles and a leaner body.

Leonard opened the San Francisco studio because she wanted to be closer to her family. Her sister was married to the late former ‘60s radical Jerry Rubin, and together they did nightclub and event promotions. The couple had two children. Mimi is now married to Mark Fleischman, a founding shareholder of New Line Cinema who owned nightclubs Studio 54 and Tatou and now owns the Century Club in Century City. Burr and Mimi’s father, George Leonard, is a former editor of Look magazine, an author and director of the Esalen Institute in Big Sur. Burr Leonard goes by her middle name, a nod to ancestor Aaron Burr.

While Leonard built her clientele in San Francisco, Mimi Fleischman, 55, got the bug to open an L.A. studio. She had little in the way of a fitness background; in fact, she had never exercised consistently and was, by her own account, about 25 pounds overweight. Yet she didn’t find the prospect daunting: “In my father’s work he talks about the fact that we are always re-creating ourselves,” she says over a nonfat latte at a Starbucks near the studio.

Fleischman took teacher training in San Francisco as her husband hunted for a studio space. While studying, she began to see her body change. “I had developed a very round stomach,” she explains, “and my butt had gotten flat. My arms have never been good, and there was a lot of hanging stuff.” She blames some of the changes on menopause but credits Bar Method for flattening her abs, rounding out her derriere and firming up her arms. Today she is fit and petite, looking nothing like her “before” picture, kept face down in her office. She happily shows it to a visitor, revealing a woman who could be her chubby cousin.

In addition to running the studio, Fleischman teaches several classes a week and is sort of a mother hen around the place. Her explanation for the loyal following is that “You’re in control of your own workout. When you’re doing thigh work, if you bend another quarter of an inch, you’re working it deeper, and you’re controlling it.”

Lynn Newman has been going to classes since a friend recommended the studio about a year ago. The 56-year-old L.A. store manager says she “never really loved exercise” and wasn’t thrilled about her first time at Bar Method: “I didn’t love it,” she admits. “Some of those exercises -- they could kill you. But after I was done I felt so good. I felt like it really toned me. And it makes a difference in how I feel.”

Los Angeles attorney Miriam Vogel was a veteran exerciser when she came to the Bar Method seven months ago wanting to lose about 10 pounds before her wedding. Nothing else she was trying -- boot-camp classes, Spinning, even Pilates -- seemed to be working.

“This was different from Pilates because you feel really worked and stretched,” says the 30-year-old Vogel, who was able to fit into her formerly too-small wedding gown. “I also do a lot of trail running, and the more I did Bar Method the faster I could get up the mountain, and I felt a lot less fatigued.”

Lynn Millar, a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, isn’t surprised at reactions from Bar Method aficionados; she’s seen such allegiances to similar programs such as Curves, which offer an alternative to navigating big gyms in search of a workout.

“If you look at the history of exercise,” she says, “there are going to be people looking for that niche.” Although she agrees that strengthening and toning exercises are crucial, especially for women, a cardio component is necessary to achieve full health benefits.

The L.A. studio gets about 500 visits a week; Fleischman would like to see more men sign up and get past thinking it’s a girly exercise.

“People ask me, ‘Is this hard?’ ” Fleischman says. “And I say it is hard. It’s really hard. Do it only if you really want something out of it. This is not just passing time.”

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The Bar Method, 1950 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 481-0005. Individual classes

are $20.