Girl Gains is a national student-led women's weightlifting club with local chapters across 95 universities, according to their website.
The purpose of the organization is to allow women on campus to become involved with lifting and fitness health while providing a safe space and a community to enjoy working out.
"I've been really empowered to want to bring women into those types of spaces and make them feel comfortable," said Caroline Ayala, the president of Girl Gains and a senior studying marketing.
Since taking over as president, Ayala said the main focus has been growing the club by hosting events monthly and planning workouts at every skill level. Through an active social media presence and tabling around campus, the club has grown to over 200 members this year, according to Ayala.
The club's board of directors is currently working each month to further improve the safe space and produce a schedule that includes events, regular workouts and social hours.
"It was just a really huge jump and it was just crazy to see the last meeting that was had (compared) to our very first meeting of the year," said Amaya Wilson, the new member director and a junior studying family and human development. "It was really cool to see that and hopefully we're able to grow more."
To adapt to the organization's large growth, a new version of the buddy system, called "swole-mates," was implemented. The new system provides a way to group women with similar skill levels during workouts.
Ayala said the new system assigns women based on a group activity where members get to know each other first and then fill out preference sheets of people they wanted in workout groups.
"I honestly did it on the fly because way more girls showed up than I was expecting," Ayala said. "I actually used ChatGPT to figure out who I should put with who because everyone had different preferences and so then I made groups based off of that as well."
Now, club members are still assigned to groups but are able to have more specific common goals in mind. The club also offers opportunities to get together in a group of nearly 60 women for socializing and chapter meetings.
Ayala and Wilson said their favorite part of Girl Gains, this year, has been seeing the large groups of women attend meetings, which take place on the first Wednesday of the month.
During this year's October meeting, members gathered together and put embarrassing gym confessions into a hat and attempted to guess which one applies to each.
"One by one we all read one and everyone tried to guess who it was," Wilson said. "Knowing that you're not alone in that, everyone goes through that, it happens to all of us. It was just really fun and funny, honestly."
Girl Gains' Vice President Yarania Rodriguez, a senior studying clinical exercise science, said the club is all about finding an empowering female space and prioritizing health, no matter what level of experience students may have.
"I've been embarrassed in the gym too, I totally get it, but you have to be able to laugh at yourself and you also have to be able to know that showing up is for you," Ayala said. "It's not for other people and you can't really think about what other people think about it, because it's not for them, it's for you."
The first event of the fall semester was a "hot girl walk" around Tempe Town Lake where girls chatted and got to know each other. Another event the club hosted was a club-wide cycling class at the local Rev'd cycling gym.
Ayala said the biggest hope for Girl Gains is for new members to continue to stay encouraged and not worry about what people think.
"For one, you don't need lifting experience to be a part of Girl Gains," Rodriguez said. "Girl Gains is open and welcome to all different levels of lifting. ... It can be really scary and intimidating and that's what Girl Gains is all about, it's trying to break down those barriers of a male-dominated space and opening it up more for women."
Edited by Senna James, Abigail Beck and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at @msmill32@asu.edu.
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