Karen Handel

Growing up on a football field is not an experience that most young girls ever get to experience; however, it was during this time in Karen’s life that she got to encounter the adrenaline rush and excitement of watching her father create an offensive approach, new to a sport that had been around for centuries. Karen’s father has been a collegiate head football coach for over twenty five years, and he is best known for the creation of the “Air Raid” offense. The kind of excitement that she watched, as a child, on the football field was not often found in her adult daily world, that is, until she joined her first Pure Barre class.

Although originally from Texas, Karen moved a lot because of her father’s coaching career. While Karen was in college in Valdosta, Georgia, her father became the head football coach at the University of Kentucky. Karen stayed behind in Valdosta, to finish college. Once she graduated, she joined her family in Lexington to attend the University of Kentucky Law School. Since that time she has been practicing law and raising her two young boys in Lexington.

Through a referral, Karen began taking her first Pure Barre classes in Lexington and instantly fell in love with the workout and the feel of the place. She loved the classes, finding them challenging without being intimidating; great for overall fitness; effective in toning the weaker areas, and even more importantly, extremely helpful in releasing the stresses of everyday life. Fitness has always played a major role in Karen’s life, although no other workout or fitness addiction had ever brought the excitement and uniqueness like Pure Barre.

And now, to be able to bring Pure Barre to Louisville and become part of something that is new to an industry which has been around for hundreds of years is truly something special. To find this kind of adrenaline experience more than once in a lifetime, is something that Karen is thankful for and very excited about. After all, seeing the transformations amongst the women at Pure Barre is just as amazing as watching an eighty-yard touchdown pass, right over the middle, for a crowd pleasing touchdown!