Owners of Redmond Exercise Studio Eye Expansion

The owners of 's Redmond location say they have had so much success with their first exercise club at that they are ready to launch another facility in downtown Seattle this summer.

Husband and wife team Beverly and Luke Currier and their business partner Maika Manring said business at the Redmond location, which opened in July 2009, has doubled over the last year.

The club offers about six classes every day, and can accommodate 28 people in the larger studio and 18 in a newer studio. The classes last one hour and are composed of stretching and strength exercises performed at a ballet bar and on floor mats.

“Bev and I were gym rats and runners, and got injuries frequently,” Luke Currier said. “This has allowed us to be injury-free.”

The moves are a mix of ballet, yoga and Pilates-type moves that have been honed over the years by the franchise’s founder, Burr Leonard. Leonard had studied under Lotte Berk, a German dancer who developed the origins of the system to help her recover from a back injury in the 1930s. Leonard built on that method with advice from physical therapists and exercise physiologists, Luke Currier said.

Manring siad The Bar Method's system can be akin to a super-charged physical therapy program, helping some people recover more quickly from injuries. Each client is screened for health issues before beginning classes, and the instructors offer modifications to the exercises for those who need them.

The majority of The Bar Method's clients are women, but quite a few men have joined as well, and a number of people in their 60s come regularly. There are different fee schedules and discounts, including drop-in rates or monthly memberships that cost $195 a month.

Though the Curriers live in Bellevue and Manring lives in Kirkland, the partners say they chose Redmond for their first location because it was close to most Eastside communities but lacked some of the parking issues and rapid growth of other nearby cities. They also liked being near and other high-tech businesses.

Now, with the Redmond studio thriving, the trio is ready to launch a Seattle location, though they are still working out details on a lease, so they haven’t announced the new location yet. The owners hope to offer that information at an upcoming open house event on April 7.

When the Redmond location opened, it featured just one exercise room, and Manring and Beverly Currier taught all the classes. Now the club has a second workout room and a total of five instructors, with four more currently in training.

“We hire internally,” from the classes to ensure that the instructors are dedicated and well-versed in the proper form for each of the exercises, Beverly Currier said. Instructors undergo six months of training.

One instructor currently in training, Maria Frei, says the training includes in-dept study of anatomy and exercise physiology.

Frei, a marathon runner who started taking classes at The Bar Method about a year ago, after the birth of her fourth child, said she had never really been into group exercise before, but she had a very different experience at The Bar Method.

“I think what’s overlooked is that the community and energy here is great, and there’s built-in accountability,” Frei said. That atmosphere, plus the phenomenal sculpting and increases in strength she’s experienced have made Frei a devotee.

Manring and the Curriers said that sense of community is exactly what they were hoping to achieve when they launched the business.

“What’s really inspired all of us is the sense of community," Luke Currier said. "A lot of friendships are made in the classes.”