Health & Fitness in Chattanooga

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.

In 2001, Carrie Rezabek Dorr's only venue for her Pure Barre workouts—a blend of dance, Pilates, and strengthening stretches—was the basement of an office building. Crowds drawn by Carrie's choreographing expertise and the infectious music of her routines necessitated expansion, however, and eight years later, Pure Barre spread its franchises to what is now more than 160 locations across the country, spurred by mentions in Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Health magazines.

Pure Barre guides students through precise isometric movements that craft lean, not bulky, muscles. By flowing through scalable maneuvers that balance limbs against a ballet barre, physiques can lift and tighten traditional problem areas such as the thighs, abs, seat, and arms. The total-body workout is accessible to all fitness levels, and can help new mothers to regain their desired shape without leading the daycare's piggyback carpool. High-energy, intimate classes with small amounts of attendees ensure personalized adjustments and tips, allowing each guest to derive the deepest possible burn from the workout's alternating strength and stretch drills. Pure Barre also offers private barre-ties, DVDs, equipment, designer exercise apparel, and more.

Woolfson Eye Institute’s founder and medical director Dr. Jonathan Woolfson is a board-certified ophthalmic surgeon who has performed more than 70,000 laser vision-correction procedures. Such clinical experience has helped him earn the trust of other medical professionals; he has performed more than 300 surgeries on his fellow eye doctors and trained and certified more than 100 North American LASIK surgeons. He has also fine-tuned the eyesight of professional athletes, including Ovie Mughelli, Curtis Lofton, and Kroy Biermann of the Atlanta Falcons.

Dr. Woolfson draws upon this extensive experience each time he customizes a laser procedure to his patients’ needs. He and his staff of doctors begin every treatment with in-depth consultations, where they determine the lasers, instruments, and novelty sound effects needed to successfully enhance eyesight. Once they’ve completed their procedures, they also offer eligible patients a Lifetime Assurance Plan, granting them free lifetime access to any fine-tuning surgeries.

You don’t need a million-dollar ego to train like an elite athlete with today’s Groupon: $35 gets you four classes at D1 Sports Training, an $80 value. The 25,000-square-foot facility, about 20 minutes from downtown Nashville, is the same place where pros such as Peyton Manning and Chris Hope, among others, have pumped iron. We’re not saying that a trip to D1 will make you next year’s first-round draft pick and we’re not saying it will make you a second-round pick either; what we are saying is you can train as if you were.Follow @Groupon_Says on Twitter.

Sports Barn welcomes students of all skill levels and interests with an array of classes that includes gentle, intensive, and restorative yoga styles. The studio’s robust schedule of sessions helmed by dedicated instructors, focus largely on flow sessions that synchronize gracefully cascading transitions with measured breaths to create an invigorating practice. Power yoga engages limbs with vigorous dynamism as it bolsters strength, stamina, and high-fiving ability. Yin yoga draws thoughts inward with a centering sequence of poses that helps loosen uptight connective tissues with deeply held stretches as students learn to focus on improving their range of motion. Although the studios cushion postures with the necessary yoga mats and props, instructors advise students to purchase their own, as chakras can become territorial over particularly good equipment.

Rather than practicing weight-loss medicine, Blue Sky MD Chattanooga specializes in weight control. Dr. Jack Rowland and the staff of advanced registered nurse practitioners tailor all treatments around changing patients' relationships to food cravings. After a thorough physical, licensed clinicians connect patients to wellness coaches who craft personalized nutrition plans, shape workout regimens, and lend support throughout the emotional process.

Blue Sky also ensures each patient's hormones are balanced, offering additional hormone therapy to combat side effects. Besides helping patients shed pounds and maintain a healthy weight, Blue Sky can further transformations with aesthetic services such as Obagi skin system, Botox and Juvederm. The office accepts accepts insurance for their weight control and hormone therapy services.