Cathe Live Review: Lower Body Barre & Weights
Lower Body Barre & Weights is a tough, high rep endurance workout using the barre, light weights and a stability ball to burn out those lower body muscles. I really felt this workout and my legs were physically shaking during some of the moves. The main routine is split into three sections – barre, standing lower body exercises with light weights and ball work on the floor. Each section worked the lower body slightly differently and targeted different muscle groups. Although the workout is strength focused, there are two rounds of cardio moves (during the barre section) but these are more to give your legs a break and get the heart rate up rather than making it a true cardio and strength workout. However, I did find the whole workout pretty metabolic and my heart rate was definitely elevated through quite a lot of the routine.
Lower Body Barre & Weights starts off with a long and aggressive lower body focused warm-up. I knew this was going to be a tough workout when my legs were already starting to shake during this section! There were so many plie squat pulses with the heels lifted off the floor that my muscles were trembling already. This section ends with crossback lunges with knee raises and this really got my heart rate up and we hadn’t even started the main workout…
For the barre work, Cathe used her Fit Tower and the class used a barre. I just used a high back chair and had no issues with any of the moves. This section starts with a cardio drill (power scissors) before you move into the classic barre exercises. The first grouping of exercises I didn’t find too bad, as Cathe changed exercise or sides just before the muscles really started to scream. However, the second grouping was a different story – by the final set of push dips all of my lower body was definitely screaming (in a good way of course!) and I was just counting down the reps!
The standing lower body exercises are all pretty fast paced with lots of reps and various rep speeds / patterns. Cathe only uses light weights for this section but I still really felt the work here. I was so glad that the second set of exercises was not repeated, as my legs were really burning during the walking lunges / pulsing sumo squats. I think this was probably an accumulation of muscle fatigue rather than just this exercise alone though. I was definitely happy to move to the floor after that!
The floor work starts using the stability ball and ends with the infamous ‘Pizza Presses’! I really enjoyed this section, it worked the muscles differently than the standing work but I definitely got a good burn here too.
Overall, this is an excellent, tough workout that will really work all of your lower body muscles effectively without the use of heavy weights. I found this a very effective routine and one I will definitely be returning to.
(In case you are not familiar with Cathe Live - it is a streaming service from veteran fitness professional Cathe Friedrich, where she provides access to her live classes filmed at her gym in Jersey. Currently, there are over 230 workouts available in the archive, which you can access at any time and a new class is recorded nearly every week. More details are provided at the end of this article).
The Workout
Lower Body Barre & Weights is a high rep endurance workout with a metabolic feel to it. The routine consists of 3 sections – barre, standing lower body exercises and floor work with the stability ball. Each section has groups of exercises that are repeated once (except the last group of standing exercises and the last floor work exercise, which are not repeated). Cathe uses 10# dumbbells for all of the standing lower body exercises. The moves include various rep speeds / patterns and are generally fairly high rep.
What You Need to Know
(Rating scale – 1= lowest & 5 = highest).
The Moves
Lower Body Barre & Weights is 58 minutes long and originally aired on 7th March 2019. The workout starts with a long 11:30 minute warm-up, using the barre, then a quick stretch before moving into the first cardio move.
Barre Work
1. Power scissor lunges (holding barre or chair) – 32 reps x2
2. Straight leg raises
3. Inner thigh raises (angling foot inwards)
4. Outer thigh raises
5. (Quick stretch). Repeat 2 - 4. on other side
6. Plie squat jumps with arm pulls (one hand on barre or chair) – 32 reps x2
7. High hip lifts (leg bent at hip height & pulse)
8. 1 Leg push dips (with one leg raised off floor behind you, pulse down on standing leg like a 1 leg squat)
9. (Quick stretch). Repeat 6. & 7. on other side
10. Calf raises (feet together)
11. High & tight (feet together)
12. High & tight (heels together)
Quick stretch before moving to the next section.
Standing Lower Body with Weights (all moves below use 10# dumbbells)
1. Alternating side lunges
2. Alternating back lunges
3. Single leg deadlifts
4. Repeat 1-3.
5. Crossback lunges
6. Sumo squats & lateral walks (singles & doubles)
7. Walking lunges & pulsing plie squats (3 walking lunges pulsing 4x then plie squat pulses x4)
Quick stretch before moving to the floor work.
Floor Work
1. Hamstring roll-ins & hip raises (lying on your back with hips raised & feet on stability ball – roll the ball in & out, this changes to rolling it in & doing a hip raise then back out)
2. Ball toss (lying on your back with legs straight up in a V-position, toss the ball & catch it between your feet)
3. Ball knee squeeze (sitting up, place ball between your thighs & squeeze)
4. Repeat 1-3.
5. Glute raises or 'pizza presses' (on hands & knees, bend leg & lift with pointed & flexed foot – 32 reps pointed, 32 reps, flexed & 32 reps alternating pointing & flexing foot
The workout ends with a 3 minute cool down and stretch.
Take Action
Try it today! Cathe Live is a streaming service available from Cathe.com – you can subscribe to monthly ($9.99 pm), six monthly or yearly plans and has over 230 live workouts in the archive for you to access at any time.
If you enjoyed this workout, check out my review of Cathe Live: Fit Tower Inferno - HERE or Cathe Live: Leg Day – HERE.
If you enjoyed this review, please share it using the links below.