After feeling a call to leave her career in accounting and pursue what she loves, UGA gymnastics alumna Caroline Ward opened a gym and wellness program in the basement of her home. Since then, TransFit Athens has outgrown her home and become a staple in Five Points as a strong community of women dedicated to transforming each other’s lives through faith, family and fitness.
Here, she shares how she integrates faith into workouts, her favorite things about life in Athens, and her goals for the future.
Q: What makes TransFit different from other fitness studios and gyms?
A: That’s a great question, and I love to answer that because I feel like we are so different because one, it’s faith-based for women only, and so you can come as you are. I love that I have women of all ages, like 13 to 90. We’ve had many people ask — why? You know, can my husband work out? Or can you train my husband, and we just want to be able to meet women where they are, be able to have physical touch without [it] being weird, and sometimes in studios that can get awkward. It’s women only, plus faith-based. Some clients, I know, call this their Jesus gym. But they came with a friend thinking they were just coming for a great workout, and then they keep coming back. And I’m like, they’re not coming back for me. They’re coming back because they feel something different here. It’s planting seeds that hopefully He will continue to sow.
Q: How do you tailor those classes to different demographics?
A: All of our sessions are circuit-based, and they’re on a timer. I had an 80-year-old in a 10:30 a.m. class and a college student, and it was a bone strength class. But my 80-year-old client was lifting the fives, whereas the college student was doing like, 25s, you know. So that’s a way that you can tailor it when it’s circuit-based, and so you can modify out in the studio. I’ll have like two exercises laid out, and I’m like, okay, option one is this. Option two is this. Do what you feel, you know? And just even me personally, some days I might want to do box jumps. Other days I don’t want to do box jumps. So it kind of just works and depends on how your body’s feeling that day.
Q: You offer strength, pilates, HIIT, you ran the Boston Marathon, but what is your go-to workout?
A: One way that I’ve kept motivated and loving to exercise, like, for forever, is that I mix it up, and I don’t only do running, and I don’t only do strength, and I don’t only do Pilates. I love to do it all, and I’m just intentional. And I mean, trying to stay healthy is my goal for life. It’s not like I want to be a bodybuilder. I want to be able to throw my grandkids in the air when I’m 80, and I want to be able to hike the Grand Canyon with my grandkids, and I want to do these things at 85 like, I want to live it out. That’s why it’s called living transformed. It’s not about just being transformed. It’s about, how do we live it out and like, you know, live this out and serve our families well… Ideally, I’m a strength girl. I love to lift some weights because I love to feel mentally strong, not just physically strong, but the feeling that, oh, I can lift hard weights, and then I can throw some dumbbells on the ground. I love it, but there’s nothing better than the release of a good run. Different stages of your life, you need different things.
Q: What’s the first step you recommend for a woman who’s trying to get into fitness and make it a consistent part of their lives?
A: So I always say, if it’s someone that hasn’t really exercised before, or is just wanting to start their exercise journey, we always say, set up a one-on-one session with one of our staff to sit down. We want to hear your goals, and then we’ll help you create your plan. I mean, that’s key. I think you have to know your goals. You have to know where you’re starting, and you’ve got to track your progress.
Q: TransFit has become such an incredible community for women across Athens. How have you fostered and grown that community?
A: Oh gosh, wow. That has been the Lord. I was an accounting major at Georgia, and did that right when I graduated, got married, had children really quickly, and then had really bad depression. And from that, it was like I felt the Lord in a walk, speak to me and say, you need to do what you love to do. It started with just me training one client in my home gym. I got my license, and I told my neighbor. I was like, can I train you for six months for free, and if you see results, will you tell people? She was like, sure, and she did and then it kind of exploded from there. I really feel like it’s been the Lord. I mean, I pray for abundance for this place. And I pray that women that come in here just feel something different than they would at any other gym.
Q: You recently launched the TransFit app. What was that process like?
A: Wooh, Girl. That was a lot. So that had been a year and a half in the making. I had been using MindBody for 10 years, which a lot of people do, and I had wanted to start an app where I could have our own workouts on it, and it was actually me, and it had our Bible studies on it. It was a lot. I feel like I didn’t sleep for the whole month of February when it first launched because I was so worried about the glitches, and it did have some, but it’s been awesome. And there’s our Bible studies on there for free. There’s exercises on there for free. We’re still learning. There’s so many things I haven’t even accessed yet, so I’m excited about it.
Q: What advice would you give to other mothers who want to prioritize their fitness and well being, while also managing family life and the pressures that come with it?
A: I’d say schedule exercise like a doctor’s appointment because it is. Exercise is medicine. And for moms, especially, they tend to push away their own health, and focus only on their kids or, you know, and then they lose themselves. So it doesn’t have to be maybe it’s not a workout class because they can’t get to a class, but maybe it’s like, I’m prioritizing a 15-minute walk every day. It becomes a catalyst. It’s just the power of consistency and building habits.
Q: This season of your podcast is focusing on equipping and empowering. What led you to choose that theme?
A: Well, I spoke to this Women in Business Conference in December, and my whole speech was on, how as women, can we be equipped and empowered to just really love other women? It was about business, but it was a lot about just serving and impacting other women too, and like, training up the next generation, because for us to have all this knowledge we have to be able to share it. It’s not like, okay, God’s equipped me with all this great stuff for me, me, me, you know. That really does us no good. When you’re serving others, you’re like, oh okay, it is a good day, you know?
Q: What is one thing you are particularly excited about for the future of TransFit?
A: Really just wanting to leave a legacy, whatever that looks like. Just to know that TransFit left a lasting impression on our community of kindness, and goodness, and we did good things in the community. So if at any point, we had to close for any reason or anything happened, I mean, we don’t know. Everyday we are grateful to be here, so just that we would leave a lasting legacy where people could say this was a place where women felt loved. You know, it was just a place where the Lord was.
M’Kaylah Jackson is a student in the undergraduate certificate program at the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
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