Barre BusterAn en-pointe princess attacks trendy ballet workouts as little more than a song & dance

Photo: Lululemon Athletica

Dancer Brynn Jinnett says looking like a ballerina takes more sweat and less pain than popular barre workouts deliver.

"Run faster!" screams Brynn Jinnett, a sinewy brunette with pitch-perfect posture, as she leads a group of panting, sweaty New Yorkers through vigorous planks, squats, weights and sprints.

Jinnett, a 28-year-old former member of the New York City Ballet, wants women to stop with all the repetitive, dainty toe-pointing of the ballet-based barre workouts that have swept Manhattan in the past few years.

"Just because a ballerina teaches your workout class doesn't mean you're going to look like her at the end of class. She probably has a restrictive diet and great genetics and has spent years and years working out," she says.

"[They] tell you it's a dance-based workout that's going to make you look like a ballerina...and that's very attractive. But unfortunately, you're confusing cause and effect."

Jinnett's signature Refine Method classes are a strong antidote, trading pliés and pirouettes for good old-fashioned lunges, push-ups and kettlebells.

But Jinnett doesn't just talk the talk; she once danced the dance, having taught typical barre workouts herself at Physique 57 and Exhale, where the heaviest weight women lift in class is usually the bling on their ring fingers.

The message behind the barre boom, which has lured the likes of Kelly Ripa, Ivanka Trump and Barbara Walters and has escalated since the release of Black Swan in 2010, is simple: move like a dancer, look like a dancer.

"Yes, you can definitely get a dancer's body with the barre technique," insists Physique 57 cofounder Jennifer Vaughan Maanavi. "You get long, lean muscles and you're toned and your waist becomes thinner and your seat becomes smaller."

But Jinnett begs to differ.

"Unfortunately, it's a myth. It's misleading to tell people that when they feel a part of their body burn or get sore, that they're getting thinner or stronger. Trying to emulate a ballet dancer's training is not the way to get the best results."