JOY AS GYMS FINALLY REOPEN
FITNESS FANATICS BACK TO WORK OUT:
GYM owners in Wales were delighted to open their doors to returning members yesterday and saw a great turnout despite the bank holiday weekend.
Gyms, fitness facilities, spas and swimming pools are allowed to reopen from May 3 after more than four months of coronavirus lockdown.
And despite the bank holiday weekend with bars and restaurants being open, people have found the motivation to return to their gym, and owners have reported a fun and positive atmosphere.
“Today has surprised me how many people have returned already,” said Alex Bodin, director of One Gym in Newport.
“We have had 246 people in since this morning and for a bank holiday that is really good. I think opening on a bank holiday was a good decision as people are off work so have been able to come throughout the day.”
Alex said gym owners like him have spent the last few months twiddling their thumbs waiting for an announcement on their return.
Speaking from the gym’s front desk, where you can hear plenty of activity going on in the background, Alex said seeing people happy to return to the gym had given him and others the motivation to keep going, with a long financial recovery ahead.
“It has given us the motivation to spur us on and keep pushing to keep going. We know it is going to be a couple of months’ recovery from this.
“But it is nice – when people are leaving they are stopping and saying how great their first session was.”
However, Alex said he knew there would be some people who would struggle with the return, so they are keeping some online classes available until people see the success of those other customers who have made their way back already.
“We have created a sixweek programme too for all our members, just to get them started again,” he said. “People have been inactive for so long they need that help and guidance. I think it is good, it will give people some structure back too.”
ION Strength & Conditioning gym owner Robin Sowden-taylor shared the same sentiment about reopening.
Speaking from his gym in Cardiff, which held its first classes yesterday morning, Robin said: “It has been fantastic this morning. Obviously it is a bank holiday Monday and usually hours are a little bit more restricted, but we have had classes on the hour back to back since 6am.
“They have all been full classes. We have our afternoon classes coming shortly. I think everyone is just glad to finally be back in the gym and seeing each other with smiles on their faces.”
As a class-based training facility, Robin explained the restrictions are a little tight, but they had an idea of what restrictions to expect when they reopened this time around based on the 2020 lockdown.
“After the first lockdown we were pretty aware of how things would look, we had to change the way we operated. We are a classbased training facility so we implemented social distancing throughout our facilities. Every member has their own set training area.
“There have been a lot of positives on that same front. I think it makes it less intimidating coming into a new training facility when you know exactly where to go, where all the equipment is, it is obviously a lot safer from a health prospective.
“We will continue in this manner obviously in the short term but also further down the line,” he added.
Robin’s customers were also pleased to be back. Iwan Morris compared his home workouts to “Mickey Mouse”.
He said: “It is fantastic to be back. I’ve got Mickey Mouse equipment in the house, nothing compares to the proper thing.
“I was doing a bit of gym work in the house, lifting light weights, squats, and I was walking an hour and a half to two hours a day just to try and keep fit. I’ve been doing a lot of exercise, I’m sure if I wasn’t it would have affected me mentally.
“It is great to have the whole family back again, it is really good.”
Iwan added that he plans to return to the gym three times a week “to keep this belly down!” he joked.
One key issue those campaigning for gyms to reopen focused on is the mental health aspect of it, and that is one thing that Lindsey Sian White, a personal trainer from Swansea, has seen great benefits for already.
Lindsey owns a fitness studio in the city and was running classes since 6am yesterday, an unusual start time for a bank holiday, she admitted.
“I am fully booked for the week.
“I’m having half a day on Friday, but I say half day – I will be starting at 6am. I even had new people enquire over the weekend,” she said.
She trains women in classes and one to one, and said she had found that for women in particular, the past 13 months had been hard for them to keep training at home as they have seen an increase in other responsibilities, such as caregiving and home schooling.
“A lot has gone on in the last five months,” she added. “I think this lockdown has been a lot more challenging, a lot of people have lost their jobs, home life has not been easy.
“I think people haven’t been putting themselves first, so it’s good to get back to the classes.
“I’ve been doing classes on Zoom throughout, and it has been quite nice to focus on the technique instead of the lifting.
“When we are in the classes women want to lift heavy stuff so it has been good to take them back to the basics and show them the correct techniques.
“The women who have been doing the classes online have been skipping out of their cars to get in here,” she said.