Ballet Beautiful NYC, Master Trainer Nicholas shares his tips to help maximize your at-home Ballet Beautiful workouts with light weights.
Our workouts are designed to give you long, lean, and sculpted muscles. Adding light weights to your Ballet Beautiful LIVE online classes brings extra challenge and burn. Below are a few tips on how to heat up your BB workouts, with weights.
Abs
I love to incorporate hand weights with our Backstage Ab Series. It's so challenging but feel amazing! Adding hand weights to our sitting up ab movements is a great way to build core AND arm strength. This 2 for 1 effect will make you feel stronger and leaner after just a couple of workouts!
To get started simply grab a set of 1 or 2 lb hand or ankle weights and hold one in each hand. Remember to keep your chin lifted and neck long when you take your body back in neutral or when you twist down to one side. Pull your belly button into your spine and keep the scoop through your core. When lifting your arms to any position over your head, keep your shoulders down. Adding weights adds challenge, so don't hesitant to drop the weights and simply focus on the core if at any point the burn feels too intense.
Leg Toning
Adding a light ankle weight (aim for 1-1.5 lbs) to our inner/outer thigh and butt toning mat exercises is a great way to increase your strength! If you choose to use an ankle weight, don’t allow it to affect your form. Its always better to use the correct form as opposed to adding weight to ensure you’re getting the right results versus doing the exercise incorrectly.
Make sure to your hips are stacked one on top of the other, weight forward and remember, don't sit into the supporting leg's hip.
Standing Series
During our standing series, you can add hand weights for a more efficient arm toning. In our
Online Live Group Class, our standing series can be anywhere from 8-15 minutes. We usually suggest 1-2lb weights as you will start to feel the burn sooner than you think! In order to achieve a quicker tone, challenge yourself to maximize the results of your workouts with the weights. If you’re using weights and your arms start to get tired, you can always take a mini break by putting your hands on your waist and incorporating them back into the series when you’re ready. While doing any standing or arm series always remember to think about your posture.
Keep your core engaged, your rib caged closed in, keep your chin lifted, your neck long and press your shoulders down. Think of presenting yourself to the world on a stage with elegant posture, grace and poise.
I can't wait to see you in our BB Online Live Group Classes. Join me in challenging yourself with weights!
Have a beautiful day!
-Nicholas 
