Soddy-Daisy, TN Health and Fitness

A team of cycling enthusiasts populates the staff of River City Bicycles, helping clients attain and maintain two-wheeled transportation. The shop specializes in sales and service of road, mountain, comfort, commuter, and children’s bikes, serving customers with a large inventory of products by top brands. The cyclery ensures a proper match between man and machine by performing a free custom fit before new bike purchases. In addition, new bike owners get a free initial tune-up to fix the stretched chains and loosened spokes that are common after the passionate first few weeks of bike ownership.

Rocky Top Guides' AMGA-certified instructors take their customers on outdoor expeditions to scale rocky terrain across scenic Lookout Mountain and through regions in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. The expert climbers lead both half- and full-day trips that can cover climbing styles such as standard rock climbing, solo climbing, and aid climbing, which teaches how to ascend fixed ropes without a bat cape. With a 6:1 climber-to-guide ratio, the staff easily customizes each trip to clients' individual skill levels and goals. They also include all requisite climbing gear for free, asking that climbers only bring a few essential items and pens to get autographs from mountain trolls.

Set atop a sparsely wooded expanse of the Cumberland Plateau, Lake Tansi Village Golf Club’s 18-hole championship golf course traces an undulating tract buttressed on both sides by Lake Tansi and Hiawatha Lake. Though the course is not particularly long, the course layout demands precision with its rolling terrain, deep bunkers, and multitiered greens that will terrify golf balls who fear roller-coasters. When approaching the tee on the par-4 17th, golfers look out onto a green protected by a frontside pond that forces them to carry the glassy surface with a lofted wedge or short iron.

Perched at an altitude that typically keeps the area an average of 10 degrees cooler than Knoxville and Nashville, Lake Tansi Village complements its golf facilities with a full-service marina, lakeside cottages, and stay-and-play packages ideal for golfers hoping to get away for a weekend after a heated argument with their live-in caddy.

As she watched the dancers of Canopy Studio Repertory Company twirl and flip using a long cord of aerial silks during their evening performance, Amy Powell knew she wanted to do the same. Less than a year after joining the studio and taking classes, she was asked to perform in one of the company's shows, drawing from former gymnastics training and a natural affinity for high-flying dance to hone her abilities. More than a decade later, she now helms Chattanooga Aerials, located inside Scenic City Dance Center, as the director and head instructor and passes on her skills on silks, slings, and trapezes to all levels of students and budding telephone-company workers under the high ceilings of Scenic City Dance Center.

Amy instills students with a solid aerial foundation while also working to advance abilities toward graceful dancing and strength conditioning. She starts exercises at the lowest possible height to assuage first-timers before teaching dancers to work in tandem, using each other's bodies to perform coordinated moves. She and her fellow teachers can pinpoint the root cause of many of their students' physical limitations and inhibitions and often revise the curriculum or help students with their fears directly, perhaps by doing floor work that translates to the air. Muscles that have grown accustomed to more traditional workouts awaken in each class, and Amy's Something New workshop challenges students further with hybridized methods including aerial yoga and outdoor sessions using trees as aerial gear. When not teaching, she and her staff frequently perform for the community in programs for the children's Creative Discovery Museum and for Nightfall, a downtown concert series.

After obtaining a bachelor's degree in chemistry and biology, Kristen Nicole Hall seemed destined for a medical career. But after 14 years of competitive cheerleading and gymnastics, she couldn't shake the desire to share empowering, rhythmic routines with others—and a pole-dance fitness studio provided just the right venue to share her dream. She has since been titled Pole Dance America's Miss TN Pole Fitness Champion in 2012, Miss TN Echo Award winner, and Miss TN People's Choice Award winner.

More than 20 classes are scheduled per week at Studio Goddess, including pole-dance and flirty fitness workouts that help participants bolster confidence and climb up trees quickly when confronted by a prowling wolf pack. Sessions such as Pole-Lates and Shake Your Abs might blend dance and muscle-toning movements, and various pole-dancing levels progress students from basic spins to upside-down high-fives. Private pole parties teach small groups to twirl around the studio's 14-foot poles while celebrating special events or simply helping to "unleash the goddess" in each woman.