Andrienne Boss, franchise owner of Pure Barre,112 Spitbrook Rd., Nashua, is a former personal trainer and is currently training for an Iron Man Competition. (Telegraph photo by GEORGE PELLETIER)

NASHUA – For Adrienne Boss, owner of two Pure Barre fitness studios, one in Nashua at 112 Spitbrook Rd., and the other in Bedford at 79 S. River Rd., reassuring clients that her studios followed the strictest guidance for clean air and surfaces came down to CASPR.

The acronym stands for Continuous Air and Surface Pathogen Reduction and while a pricey addition, that upgrade made all the different in the world to the fitness members. The technology uses hydrogen

Boss, who previously has worked as a personal trainer and is a runner, said that Pure Barre not only sets itself apart from using a CASPR but also because of its strategy and tact in creating core workouts for women.

“When I took my first Pure Barre class, I didn’t think it would be that difficult,” she said. “To me, I thought it looked like a ballet class. But after taking the class, I couldn’t believe how the muscles that it worked and how differently it worked my body.”

Currently training for an Iron Man competition, Boss said Pure Barre has been the best workout for her body because it focuses on the core.

“It really creates stability,” she said. “I had back surgery 12 years ago and there has been nothing that has made my body feel as good. If I consistently do Pure Barre, then I feel really good. When I take breaks in any way, my body doesn’t feel as good.”

Living in Canada at the time, Boss traveled to Colorado and to Florida when she and her then-husband Ken were considering the idea of becoming a franchisee. In April, the Nashua location is celebrating its 6th anniversary and will hold an upon house on the weekend of April 16 – 19 with free classes, raffles prizes and sales on retail items and memberships.

Community is a big part of what makes Pure Barre successful. Its members, Boss said, create a balance that is not the necessarily the same at other workout studios.

“When I walked into my fire Pure Barre, they were incredibly friendly and welcoming,” she recalled. As for the pandemic, Boss called the whole thing, “a ride.”

“I had to handle everything remotely last March because my husband was going through chemotherapy,” she said. “He’s good now, but back then I had to rely on my team to take control of whatever was needed.”

Pure Barre was closed from March 17, 2020 through June 3, 2020. While they were closed, they pivoted to completely virtual classes and even before they closed, they were minimizing class size and installed the CASPR cleaning system.

“I try to talk about CASPR a lot,” she said. “I want people to feel comfortable. The CASPR is not an air purifier – it’s so much more. The way I process it is that it’s disinfecting every surface all the time. It grabs the particles and kills everything. It’s so much more than air purification. That’s a relief on the minds of our members.”

Boss said that pre-pandemic, Pure Barre could have 28 people in a class; now they’re at ten, which is what they are allowed. She’s not sure when things will be “normal” again but heard that perhaps by Memorial Day weekend.

“That would be really great, even if we could add five more people to each class,” she said. “We keep adding classes. Having low capacity means that we have waitlists. We currently have 54 classes a week available in Nashua alone.”

In the two locations, Pure Barre employs a team of 31 staffers, between teachers and desk staff. Boss in also in the process of opening another business, unrelated to fitness.

“It’s a blow-out shop,” she said. “I’m opening Boss Blow-Dry Bar in Hudson. We don’t do cuts or colors, it’s all blow outs and you get a membership.”

Boss said she finds that her clients get the same reaction when they take a class at Pure Barre because it’s a very different type of workout routine.

“I hear that every day,” she said. “We just had a class for beginners, called Foundations and we had a mix of some new people coming into class and some current members. And that’s what I hear all the time. People say this is the first workout that they have stuck to.”

Again, Boss said, it’s not just the workout but the community of people who attend classes.

“You make relationships,” she said. “You can see that with our staff as well. And what’s unique about the workout is designed to build long lean muscle instead of bulk. All the moves you do are small movements.”

If you’ve ever done a plank before, when you hold a plank, your muscles start to shake. Boss said at Pure Barre, they strive to get that effect on every muscle group in your body. The workout concept is to rely on small weights because a person is holding them up for longer periods of time during the class. Stretching follows each of the class steps.

“We do warm-up and weight work, thigh exercises and then you stretch,” she said. “You do your seat exercises, meaning butt, you stretch. You do deep inner core work and then outer core work, and then you stretch. The idea is you work your muscles until they’re fatigued, and then you stretch it out right away.”

Boss said the workouts are extremely set to music, via “playlists,” which are updated and supplied by the corporate office.

“Every single thing you do, you’re doing to the beat of the song,” she shared. “More so than other class that you’ve been in. Our instructors our counting the music, sets of eight, and that’s how we keep track of where we are at with the class.”

Presently, Pure Barre Nashua and Bedford has 500 members, a little more in Bedford, slightly less in Nashua. Boss said that before the pandemic, that number was doubled. And member ages range from 16 – 84.

“There were many reasons why people couldn’t stay on during COVID,” she said. “Whether it was financial, homeschooling, or concern about health and safety. Luckily, we almost never hear that last one because we take insane precautions. Everything gets cleaned three times between every class.”

If someone isn’t comfortable coming into a general class, Boss will invite that person in for a tour and then sign then up for a class with lower attendance. In March, there was a huge uptick in members attending classes. That’s another reason why new classes were added.

Boss is looking forward to the day when some members rejoin while others take classes more frequently. It’s all about the connection between staff and client that makes for success.

“We try to have a conversation with people when they come in and ask them, ‘What’s your why?'” she said. “We want to know why they want to come in and knowing that info helps us help them with their goals and helps create lasting relationships. And it allows our staff to have that great connection with the clients.”

For more information, visit purebarre.com, email nashua@purebarre.com or call (603) 943-5092.

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