Ballet Beautiful Review: How I Pliéd My Way to Victoria’s Secret Model Booty
What do Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid, Miranda Kerr and I all have in common? We can all credit our lifted and tight bums to Mary Ellen Bower, creator of the dynamic fitness program — Ballet Beautiful.
A professional ballerina, Mary knows her stuff. She is famous for training Natalie Portman for her role in Black Swan, as well as being on call for the Victoria’s Secret Angels before they strut down the runway for the brand’s annual fashion show.
I have a ballet background, so I knew the idea behind a ballet centric fitness routine was pretty much genius. There’s nothing that will tone your booty and lengthen your legs like grand battements and pliés.
Because I’m traveling for the rest of summer, I am unable to make it to Mary’s iconically Instagrammable studio in person, so instead, I decided to sign up for the “Custom Workout,” a web-friendly workout, tantalized by the idea that I could get fit from my very own hotel room.
I was given my very own portfolio called “Iva’s Backstage,” which consisted of a mini wonderland full of videos with inspiring titles for me to choose from; such as “Super Model Inner Thigh,” “Dance of the Snowflakes Cardio,” and “Swan Arms.” I also got to choose between workouts like “Fat Blaster,” “Full Body,” “Arms and Abs,” and “Legs and Butt.”
I chose the “Legs and Butt” plan, where I could do about 4-5 videos a week at my convenience, and I was pretty surprised at how quickly I began to look forward to it. The online fitness plan allowed me to use the time I had available by customizing my workout while considering how many hours a week I could allot to it. Genius!
Even after my most stressful of days, I could count on the fact that I was coming home to Mary Ellen Bower’s goddess like leotard-ed form, where the web version of herself would calmly guide me through leg lifts, ab dips, and thigh pulses. It was kind of like having a boyfriend/fairy godmother/personal trainer all in one.
While the workouts themselves are pretty hard, they are also super short, averaging about 10-15 minutes. Meaning that I, the Master of Procrastination, really have no excuses as far as fitting at least a few of the 5 provided into my day.
The movements are ballet-like, but definitely different than anything I’d ever done in class before. They mainly consist of super small micro movements that are repeated over and over… in sets.
In comparison to a high cardio workout like spinning or running, Ballet Beautiful might seem too cute to be hard. However, I had to take my second day of the program off… I just couldn’t do it. Every little muscle that I hadn’t used since my last ballet class a few years back, even ones I didn’t know existed, were burning.
Two weeks in, I’m already seeing a difference. I’m definitely filling out my swimsuit bottoms, and the type of muscle toning that Ballet Beautiful provides is long, lean, and sexy. Also, my inner thighs seem much more taught, which is a serious miracle because those jigglies are seriously stubborn AF.
Although I love my ballet sessions in the hotel room, you’ll definitely catch me in the studio this fall… even if my main motivation is to take a supermodel-inspired photo for Instagram .
