By Briana Garcia | LTVN Reporter/Anchor
GAIN at Baylor is an organization in which women can grow together in their active lifestyles while working on healthy food and mental practices. The women are all working together to inspire other women to come and join their group.
“We’re a women’s fitness and wellness community, and we’re dedicated to creating a community for women to feel empowered,” Erin Lynes, president of GAIN, said.
Lynes said they’re trying to create an opportunity for women to find what makes them happy in their fitness journey. Lynes said she provides this convenience by allowing women who join the organization to go to different studios to discover what kind of workout they enjoy doing.
“We do so many different types of studio workouts, such as Pure Barre, D1, Crunch, 9 round kickboxing,” Lynes said. “We go to every studio in Waco, so you’re bound to find something you enjoy.”
GAIN is divided into two tiers. Tier 1 is $30 per semester and includes access to weekly studio workouts, and requirements are attending two studios and two campus workouts per month. Brooke Young, treasurer for GAIN, said that Tier 1 will work best for you if you’re really into fitness. Tier 2 is $20 per semester, and requirements are attending two campus workouts per month; however, you won’t have as much access to weekly studio workouts.
“Everybody gets social bonus service, and then membership you get a free T-shirt,” Young said.
Young said that each month, GAIN has a topic it focuses on and speaks about. Some topics it has covered are stress management, nutrition and mental health. GAIN has speakers come and talk about the subject to help women learn things other than working out.
“Last month, we had a speaker come in and talk about nutrition,” Young said. “She meal prepped with them and gave them a recipe book.”
Many women in the GAIN organization said they were athletes in high school and played sports, so coming to college and not having that team aspect was hard — until they found GAIN.
“When I joined GAIN about a year and a half ago, I felt like I was part of an organization that has similar goals,” Sugarland senior Maria Kleimann said. “To know girls that also have that same mindset and that can also push me to be where I want to be is really encouraging.”
Kleimann said that many women coming into college want to begin their fitness journey but are sometimes intimated.
“For instance, I’ve known a lot of girls that are kind of intimidated going to the SLC because it’s full of guys,” Kleimann said.
Because GAIN is exclusively for women, Kleimann said they are more comfortable when working out, and it doesn’t matter where they are in their fitness journey. They have women who are beginning their fitness lifestyle and others who are training to become personal trainers.
For information about GAIN, you can find the organization on Instagram, and you can sign up anytime during the semester.
“It’s all about girls supporting girls, and I feel like that’s impactful,” Kleimann said. “GAIN is so inclusive, and you are able to build community so quickly.”
