Perhaps it was already over the night before my first Barry's Bootcamp class ever began. That was the premonition I had just browsing their website.
"Burns up to 1,000 calories in one class (!!!)," I read, wide-eyed (exclamatory emphasis theirs). "The instructors push you to do what you didn't even know you were capable of doing," I repeat out loud, wondering what exactly it is I didn't know I was capable of doing.
The workout? "Treadmill" (which I hate), the website states. "Weights," which I have a passing acquaintance with. "Magic," which I don't believe in anymore.
I was excited to try Barry's, the latest in a recent wave of celebrity-fitness studios – including SoulCycle and Pop Physique – that have expanded to Canada in the past year. No one is saying you'll come out of these pricey workouts looking like Kim Kardashian or Jake Gyllenhaal, but if they can conquer Barry's, why couldn't I?
Barry’s packages range from $27-$32 a class.
Barry's packages range from $27-$32 a class and, in a personal-wellness market as saturated as Toronto's, I'm most interested in discovering what gym-goers get for their premium buck beyond moody lighting and branded leggings.
Luckily, I wouldn't be alone in assessing the top-tier workout, bringing my wife, Maggie, along for the ride. While my spotty fitness résumé includes biking to work and the occasional spin class, Maggie recently embarked on an intense wellness journey that includes a five-days-a-week schedule of barre, spin and yoga that leaves me in awe. (Full disclosure: I recently tried barre with her; I've now made peace with the death of my flexibility.)
We make our way up the escalator in Barry's downtown Toronto location, and stop for a quick and silly presweat photo op in the lobby's well-lit selfie booth. Once we enter the signature red-lit studio, however, our smiles fade and reality sets in. Long rows of treadmills and benches stretch throughout, enough for 50 people alternating between cardio and weights to work out at once.
The 50-minute workout starts, for us, on the treadmill with intervals, that most basic of foundational exercise sets. We're positioned in front of floor-to-ceiling mirrors. I adjust my headband and tousle my hair as I run, puffing up my chest for the Globe photographer. So far, so okay.
Barry’s earns its bootcamp rep with its unrelenting pace.
It all starts to unravel soon after hitting the benches for strength work, however. I try to ignore my more chiselled classmates grabbing 30-pound dumbbells as I reach for 15- pounders. Weight, it turns out, wouldn't be my truest enemy at Barry's. Even I know how to lift properly, drawing on my shallow reserve of strength-training knowledge from that one time I went to the gym with my friend's varsity-volleyball-playing ex-boyfriend.
Ultimately, form, repetition and core strength are what separate me from, well, everyone. The last 40 minutes blur together. I'm left with a collection of moments, all of them humbling: the turtle to everyone's hare as I struggle to finish reps; staring slack-jawed at our instructor, Chris, as he demonstrates a basic burpie while wielding a very advanced 30-pound weight; mentally wilting as I spot classmates crushing theoretically simple moves such as criss-crosses and teasers – but with those ludicrous weights in hand.
"If you can't do it for me, do it for Shaggy!" Chris shouts as It Wasn't Me pumps through the speakers. I'm sorry, Shaggy, I cannot.
Barry's earns its bootcamp rep with its unrelenting pace. Beginners need not apply – they probably shouldn't. With so little time to focus on form, running from bench to treadmill and back again, a novice to strength work and running is liable to hurt something in a hurry. My cycling expertise feels of no help here, but I imagine others putting hard-earned CrossFit knowledge to use.
Barry’s 50-minute workouts alternate high-intensity cardio with strength training to provide a challenging full-body workout.
Unsurprisingly, my wife's well-rounded regimen is a great setup for the bootcamp experience. I turn her way on the treadmill, gasping for air after Chris adds an incline to the interval, and see her breezing along to the beat of Robyn's Dancing On My Own.
"It was overwhelming in a good way," she later tells me. "It felt as much like a group experience as an individual one. You can't help but look over and see how others are doing." Which means that when I turned and saw her outpacing me, she was turning to the speedster next to her and aiming that much higher. (She also knows her body and wisely stuck with five-pound weights on the bench.)
It's all over and it seems as though hours have passed, and that's when I find the best thing about Barry's: The cold face towels staff present on trays as you exit the studio, democratically doled out whether you did 20 squats or barely five.
All in all, it was a full-body workout that challenged every square inch of me so quickly that I barely had time to think. Would I go back? In a heartbeat. But I'll hit the gym a few times first.
The writer was a guest of Barry's Bootcamp. They did not approve or review this article.