Hugh Carey / hcarey@summitdaily.com
Thinking Summit County’s high-impact activities could use a low-impact workout as a complement, Katelyn Huston is about to open Barre Forte Summit County in downtown Frisco.
As the name suggests, the boutique fitness studio specializes in barre classes. It’s opening this weekend inside the Frisco Center at 409 E. Main St., and the owner is offering some free classes to help people get acquainted with the new business.
Barre is a style of workout that borrows heavily from ballet, while Barre Forte is a group fitness brand that’s based out of Denver.
According to the company, Barre Forte was founded in 2012 when the first studio opened in the Mile High City. After expanding with the opening of two more Colorado locations, Barre Forte developed a licensing program to spread its workouts across the country. Now, Barre Forte has studios in Denver, Westminster, the Vail Valley and Highlands Ranch, just to name a few.
Seeing an opportunity to bring barre to Summit County, Huston began building her studio in December 2018. Working alongside local contractors, she created an aesthetically appealing interior that’s quite functional too, with a retail boutique showcasing active wear, lifestyle products and other accessories, in addition to the custom studio space.
Huston gravitated to barre, she explained, because of its small, isolated movements and low-impact workouts, which Huston said make for the perfect complement to Summit County’s many high-impact activities, like skiing, snowboarding and mountain biking.
“I fell in love with barre while living in Minneapolis, and when I moved to Summit County, I realized how much I missed the physical challenges and strong community that barre brought to my life,” the new owner said.
Plus, Huston saw major changes in herself when she started doing the workouts.
“I noticed myself getting stronger and leaner,” she said, adding that even regularly running, while good for you, can cause wear and tear on the joints, especially someone’s hips and knees.
“But barre is the exact opposite,” Huston said. “It works you really hard. It isolates every single muscle, but we stretch during the workout.”
In addition to retail discounts and some snacks, the studio will offer four free, hour-long classes this weekend for its grand opening that are appropriate for all levels of ability. The classes will start at 9 and 10:15 Saturday morning and 9:15 and 10:30 Sunday morning.
The studio welcomes daily walk-ins, and it sells a variety of membership packages ranging from as little as one week up to a full year. A full month’s membership costs $99, which buys the owner unlimited access to classes throughout the month.
The studio is opening on a limited schedule with 19 classes weekly, Huston said. With only three instructors including her, she hopes to soon hire more and raise the number of classes to 28 per week by the end of the summer.
Individually, Barre Forte Summit County charges $20 per class, but the first class someone takes at the studio will be free of charge, Huston said. Also, multiclass discounts are available, as well.
For more information about the studio, including a full schedule of its classes, go to BarreForte.com, click on “Locations” and click again on “Summit County (Coming Soon!)”