Worth getting off the sofa for?

Barrecore for beginners

California, early noughties. Sheets of rain. Lightning. Laughter from high in a dark Gothic tower, where Niki Rein, the Dr Frankenstein of posh exercise classes, is stitching together the final pieces of her ungainly chimeric creation. Behold the birth of... barrecorre! Mwahaha! Let ballet, yoga, Pilates and resistance training be united for ever more! Let 12 barrecore studios open in the UK, particularly in the fancier parts of London! And let people like Pippa Middleton, Rita Ora and Poppy Delevingne be converted too! Mwahaha! Mwahahahaha!

Do I detect some wordplay? What’s going on?

Barrecore plays on the word ‘barre’, as in ballet barre (the long, waist-high rail that dancers use in their training), plus, I’m guessing, ‘hardcore’ – with an emphasis on ‘core’. It’s a barre class, basically – not the first to draw on other disciplines, but a popular one.

Let’s get this party started! What’s it like?

I’m in a big, soft-carpeted studio on the King’s Road in Chelsea. There’s a cheerful instructor in a headset. Upbeat music. Mirrored walls. About six of us in the class. Being neither skinny nor toned nor female, I am the odd one out.

*Dance music* The warmup’s almost done! How are you doing?

Oh my God… this is just the warm-up? These press-ups and squats are a WARM-UP?

Two minutes down, just 53 to go! What’s next?

For much of the class you’ll be adding small, pulsing movements to ballet poses. For instance, wedging a soft black ball under your raised, bent knee, and squeezing it while you balance precariously. Or gripping the barre while you do a kind of limbo movement.

You must be dripping with sweat

The last few reps of some of the sets are making my muscles vibrate with fatigue. It’s very tough on legs, bums and tums, if I have to use that phrase, but it doesn’t feel particularly cardiovascular. My heart isn’t about to pop. So no, I’m not sweating that much.

But you must be struggling a bit, right?

Yes! I do a fair amount of sport and weightlifting but I’m still finding lots of the poses hard to maintain. I try to slack off when the instructor isn’t looking, but the mirrored walls form a cruel panopticon from which there is no escape.

You’ll be back next week though, won’t you?

The next day I’m aching enjoyably. But like most men, and indeed like most family dogs, I find chasing or hitting a ball far preferable to squeezing it slowly between my calf and hamstring.

Barrecore, from £15 a class (barrecore.co.uk)