Building a Balanced Playlist for UpBeat Barre, UpBeat Lift, and UpBeat Pilates

When you’re putting a class together, the playlist feels like the fun part, but it’s also one of the easiest places to accidentally throw things off balance. 

Several factors contribute to that balance, let’s break it down. (Cue Maren, Kara, and Kim literally break dancing to break it down).

MUSIC

Music drives movement. If the playlist tilts too far into one mood or one energy level, suddenly the whole class does, too. Luckily, you’ve got a variety of genres at your fingertips in the UpBeat Library to keep it fresh, week after week.

SONG LENGTH

Too many short songs or too many long songs will make class feel choppy or make it drag on. Move things around and make sure you don’t have too many short or long!

MUSCLE RECRUITMENT

Because each UpBeat format is built around balanced muscle recruitment, we want to pick tracks in all planes of motion (especially for barre!) and with each muscle group. Do you have anterior and posterior chain? Each upper body muscle group? Are you moving in functionally balanced ways? Big muscles as well as stabilizers?

Before you teach any UpBeat class, “zoom out” and take a look at your playlist as a whole and literally use your class checklists to make sure you’ve covered each of these. When your playlist nudges people into the right tempo and the right intention, the whole class feels smoother and more grounded.

For specifics in your format:

UpBeat Barre

Barre has that mix of athletic, small-range work and longer, burn-y holds, so your track choices needs to help people stay in it without feeling frantic. You want a playlist that rises and falls in energy just a little—not too extreme—so you’re honoring the balance between legs, glutes, core, and arms.

A few things to think about as you’re choosing tracks:

• Did you properly warm your class before hitting them with something too hard?

• Are you balancing transverse, sagittal, and frontal planes of motion within each playlist?

• Did you add in full body work to help get the heart rate up and not just focus on strict upper or strict lowers?

UpBeat Barre playlists feel best when you provide a balance of all these things so you as the instructor can focus on cueing them to FDA, correcting form and safety, providing options, and connecting with your class in a genuine way.

UpBeat Pilates

UpBeat Pilates needs space, so those take 5s leave room between the music for people to breathe, stabilize, and actually focus and feel what they’re doing.

In UpBeat Pilates, you’re balancing flexion, extension, rotation, and all the stabilizers in between. When your playlist reflects that, you’ll get that feel good vibe as you leave the class and go throughout your day.

Think about:

• Providing options for each track to keep your class moving where they feel best.  Pilates relies on clarity and connection to themselves and to your cueing. A steady, calm-ish instruction keeps people moving with intention and their best option instead of muscling their way through.

• Balancing muscle groups and positioning. The class map largely does this, but make sure you have one inner and one outer thigh track, that your uppers utilize different muscle groups, and that you provide balance throughout the playlist with unique moves and muscle balance.

• Providing time for a cool down that allows them to connect with their breath and properly lengthen and stretch muscles for the most efficient recovery and reset.

UpBeat Lift

Lift is where you can play with a little bigger weights—but it still needs balance. You’re moving through major muscle groups, and the tracks you pick should help people settle into their form, balance their muscle groups, and keep them moving functionally (not overdoing quads or shoulders or back, but keeping it all in check for a full body balance)

A few things that matter here:

• For lower-body strength tracks, vary your muscle groups. We often find ourselves picking a wide 2nd, a squat and lunge, a booty focus, and a hamstring focus, with a curtsy lunge thrown somewhere in there ;) .

• Upper-body work stays balanced when you pick your appropriate supersets–one of each muscle group for each duo superset you pick. Strengthdurance tracks need to be different muscle groups.

• You have freedom to switch things up with class maps, so you can utilize the same supersets for a few weeks while still moving the playlist around to feel fresh.

Lift playlists shine when they feel steady, strong, balanced, and supportive.