North Carolina gym members head back to fitness centers — with some modifications
For the first time since March, some gyms in the Triangle were humming with fitness activity on Tuesday morning before Gov. Roy Cooper’s announcement of the next phase of the economy’s reopening, which will allow gyms to reopen at 30% capacity beginning Friday.
Once-active gym members like Tyre Basden said he saw on Facebook that Planet Fitness in Raleigh was reopening and quickly reactivated his membership.
“Trying to exercise at home is very difficult, plus doing schoolwork and plus trying to go to work, it’s like I lost my mojo a little bit,” said Basden, 24, who spoke to The News & Observer before lifting some weights at a Planet Fitness on Strickland Road in north Raleigh.
“We could have been open a long time ago,” Basden said. “Everything is socially distanced anyway. We were wiping everything down even before COVID, so I don’t see the issue now. Even if we’re not wiping down, [staff] is wiping down behind us.”
Basden said the measures taken to separate people at the gym were secure, including a “crowd meter” on the Planet Fitness smartphone app that tells members how full gyms are before they go.
“It’s hard to get out of my element because this is my element,” Basden said.
Planet Fitness, Crunch Fitness and O2 Fitness reopened Tuesday despite the state’s executive order shutting them down. The News & Observer reported on the gyms’ decisions Monday.
The gyms cite an exception to the closure on indoor gyms from the state Justice Department that says gyms can open to those prescribed gym use by a medical or health care professional.
Planet Fitness told its members it wouldn’t require any medical documentation, however.
The gym has closed every other cardio exercise machine like treadmills to socially distance people working out. It has set up sanitizing stations and directed staff to periodically clean the equipment. It’s open 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. instead of 24 hours a day.
Though masks are necessary to enter, those exercising can remove them while “actively working out,” the company says on its website.
“I don’t know that reopening gyms is long overdue,” said Erica Robyn, 26, who was planning to get a membership at a newly reopened Crunch Fitness in Cameron Village. “I think there’s a lot of livelihoods at stake, and I think that’s an important consideration, but I work in health care and that’s also an important consideration.”
Robyn, who said she worked at a hospital in the Triangle, said physical fitness is also important to public health.
“I think that gyms have massive benefits for mental health, but people who need to be worried about their physical health who are immunocompromised or have health problems should be more cautious of going to gyms,” she said.
Crunch Fitness is taking sanitation and safety measures similar to Planet Fitness. This includes an airPHX clean air system, the gym says on its website.
The gym is only open to members — no guests allowed — to reduce traffic at its facilities.
The Cameron Village location also includes an outdoor workout area, which is also for those who don’t have a medical waiver, the gym says on its Facebook page.
Staff at this Crunch Fitness location declined to give further information to The N&O and directed questions to the gym’s site and social media pages.
No other Crunch Fitness gyms in North Carolina have been listed as open on its website yet.
Websites for Planet Fitness locations indicated that they opened Tuesday in Durham on Guess Road and on Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway. This includes gyms in Knightdale, Garner, Holly Springs, Wake Forest, Fuquay-Varina, Hillsborough, Cary, a three Raleigh locations.
Planet Fitness stopped charging fees when the clubs closed in March. In an email to members, the company said billing will start again unless people decide to freeze their memberships, The N&O reported.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, state Department of Health and Human Services secretary, has said that indoor workouts increase the chances of viral spread because of heavy breathing during exercise.
“I find it weird that we were one of the few states that didn’t have gyms open,” said Chad Fitzpatrick, who glanced inside the newly reopened Planet Fitness in north Raleigh. “The metrics of everything that’s COVID-related is kind of similar here to other states, and yet they had them open. I ’m going to sign up somewhere for sure. I’ve been looking forward to it.”
This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 2:17 PM.
