From June 13, gyms, fitness centres and yoga and Pilates studios in NSW will once again be welcoming back members for the first time since they were forced to close on March 23. After 12 weeks of waiting and wondering, it’s great news for fitness fans, but safety restrictions will still be in place. Gym occupancy is capped at a maximum of 100 people at any one time, and group fitness classes are limited to a maximum of ten people inside and 20 people outdoors. Far stricter hygiene standards will also be expected, with certain facilities remaining unavailable.
All this means that a trip to the gym will not be the same as it once was; there is a new normal for us to adjust to, but exactly how that will impact or challenge the way we use fitness venues from now on isn’t entirely clear. To find out, we spoke to four fitness industry experts – Asia-Pacific general manager of Mindbody Hema Prakash; Fitness Playground cofounder Justin Ashely; director of Flow Athletic gym Ben Lucas; and director of Studio Pilates Mosman Louise Hanisch – to find out what gym-goers can expect. As they explain, change isn’t always a bad thing.
‘Peak times’ at the gym might be a thing of the past
The hours between 6am and 8am and 6pm and 7pm, have traditionally been rush hours at the gym, with people either cramming in a workout before heading to the office or stopping into the gym on their way home from work. “We used to see roughly 50 per cent of our total daily use over just a three-hour period,” Justin Ashely of popular Sydney gym chain Fitness Playground says. “But moving forward, because of the work-from-home culture that’s been created during iso, we expect that usage to become spread out throughout the day.” Having more flexibility over our daily schedules should mean more people choose to exercise outside of those high-traffic times, but some gyms might still require you to book your session in advance to ensure crowd control.
Fewer people in the gym could make your workout much faster, and the gym could be a less sociable place
With fewer people allowed in the gym at any one time, there’s likely to be less standing around waiting for a piece of equipment to become free, Ashely says: “From a member experience point of view, I reckon it’s going to be a lot better than before.” However, group training classes, particular circuit-style training or CrossFit, will look very different. This has required some significant problem-solving at Paddington-based Flow Athletic. “Because there’s no sharing of equipment and we need to factor in physical distancing, we’ve had to really rethink how we structure our classes now. We used to be able to loan out yoga mats, spin shoes and towels, but we won’t be able to offer that anymore. We can't even offer access to drinking fountains,” Ben Lucas says. Trainers will also be retooling, to offer the same level of guidance while remaining hands-off. “Our instructors will definitely go through some development – it’s always much easier to manipulate a client to improve their form, and now we’ll need to be able to achieve those same results purely verbally,” Louise Hanisch says of the instructors at her Pilates studio. “But we kind of see it as an opportunity, in a way. When our instructors can use touch again, they’ll have those verbal communication skills too, so they’ll have even more tools at their disposal to get our clients moving.”
Gyms are going to be cleaner – a lot cleaner
During the shutdown, there was considerable speculation about the ability of gyms to offer physical distancing and enhanced hygiene, with the perception that sweaty classes and shared weights would be a perfect storm for community transmission. “Cleanliness and physical distancing – it’s the highest priority because we know it’s going to be under such close scrutiny,” says Hema Prakash, who oversees the Asia-Pacific operation of fitness support platform Mindbody. At Fitness Playground, as with the majority of gyms preparing to reopen, a strict hygiene strategy has been developed, including the use of high-tech electrostatic sanitisers (which use ionised air to kill contaminants) and regular deep cleaning by outsourced specialists. “It’s really about keeping everybody safe – not just our members, but our staff too," Ashely says. "It’s our responsibility to protect every person inside our gyms.”
But you will be expected to play your part
“By and large, people are aware that things have changed. Using hand sanitiser, no hugging or kissing or high fiving, we’re used to it now,” Prakash says. But even with those habits already ingrained, Ashely encourages gym users to speak out if they feel their gym isn’t meeting the necessary standards. “Ultimately, members should feel empowered to hold their gym accountable, and these days, when you do have bad operators who aren’t doing what they should, members are going to be the first ones to take a photo and post it on social media. They should also vote with their feet. If you don’t feel safe in your current gym, there are plenty of other venues that will be glad of your membership.”
In-person class sizes may be capped, but you can still take your workout online
While their premises were shuttered, many gym owners and fitness professionals remained hard at work, adapting their services to support their members’ fitness goals in the digital space. As the leading timetable platform used by the fitness industry, Mindbody was at the forefront of this major shift in the industry’s attitude to going virtual. “The shutdown forced many [gym owners] into it,” Prakash says with a chuckle, “some of them kicking and screaming.” Ben Lucas from Flow Athletic concedes: “We’d been talking about running an online program for seven years, I think, but had never really taken any action to get anywhere on it. Then, within the space of about two days, we’d figured out how to offer an online platform streaming 65 classes a week over four channels. It’s been a massive success.” Now that gyms have the technical know-how to livestream classes in realtime, the limits on the number of people who can attend a class in person becomes less of a barrier to entry. If your class is fully booked, simply save yourself the trip to the gym and get your sweat on from home.
More people will be mixing up their gym schedule with both IRL and digital workouts
Now that gyms have braved this new digital frontier, streamed fitness classes look to be here to stay. “Our research has shown that at least 46 per cent of consumers who regularly go to the gym want to continue doing online classes,“ Prakash says. In the future, we’re likely to spread our time between in-person and digital, on-demand classes, Ashely says. “Say you’ve got a busy corporate person and they get stuck at the office, they should be able to go home and do a 30-minute workout in front of their TV. I think the best gyms will offer both, so their members can exercise when they want the way they want.”