Kamloops gyms worked together to create safety guidelines for reopening

“We closed a week before Interior Health mandated us to,” said co-owner Justin Grover. “So, we closed around (March) 21st. And then we had an owner’s meeting and we had planned some renovations for August, and at that point in time we decided let’s move forward, let’s utilize the time that we’re down.”

No Limits Fitness underwent an accelerated remodel, one that created more space for this current time of physical distancing.

“We were able to grow our main gym by about 35-to-40 per cent,” Grover said, “We were able to grow our Kid’s Zone service by about 40 per cent, we almost doubled our ladies only gym zone, and then we were also able to refresh our boot camp into a No Limits Fitness Training Centre which will be able to offer dryland training.”

As the gym opened Monday (May 25), new safety measures were rolled out.

Each zone has a capacity limit to provide appropriate distance between members. In addition, some of the fitness machines are not in use and the gym has adapted its cleaning practices.

“We took it a little step further by introducing a self-sanitation station, if you will, where we then give the members a sanitation bottle that they pack with them instead of having a community sanitation station,” Grover said. “They have an antibacterial microfibre cloth and they’re required to clean their equipment before and after each use.”

During its closure, Anytime Fitness joined No Limits Fitness and others in creating safety guidelines for each facility.

“We’ve always tried to see it as we all occupy a different area of the marketplace,” said Trevor Mann, owner of the Kamloops location of Anytime Fitness. “We’re not seen as competitors, we’re seen as collaborators because we’re all just trying to do the same thing. So we worked with primarily No Limits and Gold’s as well in respect to the opening date. And really, just from an operations perspective and a logistics perspective it had to be today.”

Mann says he’s not concerned about issues with physical distancing in the gym as Anytime Fitness has a relatively small membership.

As a small business, however, the gym did struggle through the closure.

“I suspect, looking at the financials, that we’ll be probably back to where we were before closure, it’ll take about a year to 18 months,” Mann said.

With the doors now open, the people are returning and gyms are once again filled with activity.

“I think people, now more than ever, are a little bit more cognizant of how they can adopt a healthy lifestyle and so people are looking for where to do that.”

by Jill Sperling

Kamloops gyms worked together to create safety guidelines for reopening

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