You may have seen an at-home barre workout video making the rounds on the internet and not necessarily for good reasons. Released by Goodful, which is a health and wellness sub-brand of BuzzFeed, the video attempts to demonstrate barre exercises you can do anywhere. The two minute video is painful to say the least. Despite the video receiving over 1M views in just two days, many people were quick to point out how sloppy and unsafe the technique being taught in the video was.
If you haven’t seen the video in all of its cringe-worthy glory, watch it 
The biggest critique of the video was the demonstration of incorrect technique, which can lead to injury if not performed correctly.
“As a ballerina of 20+ years, please don’t do this,” commenter Sophia George wrote. “This is insulting and a terrible demonstration of these exercises. Learn to do it correctly or don’t do it at all.”
Michaela Bloom Abbott of Barre Certification jumped in to offer up experts in ballet and fitness so viewers could see a proper demonstration with proper technique. “ ‘Go as low as you can go’ in plies is explicitly wrong and unsafe by any anatomical standpoint,” Bloom Abbot wrote. The team at Barre Certification even hosted an emergency Facebook live to break down everything that was incorrectly demonstrated in the video and what to do instead.
Why is it Important to Perform Exercises Correctly?
Safety is the biggest concern when demonstrating exercises. Especially when you are doing an unsupervised workout at home, you want to make sure you are finding reliable sources to learn from who know the proper cues and technique.
Barre Certification recommends finding a video that not only shows a visual demonstration of the exercises but has complimentary audio to guide you through the cues.
One thing the video did get right is the use of proper ballet terminology. Too bad we can’t say the same about the execution.
