CHARLOTTE, N.C. – For nearly six months gyms in North Carolina have been barred from allowing a key part of their revenue stream: indoor workouts. Braving the heat has been their only option to stay afloat.


What You Need To Know

  • Gyms have been barred from holding indoor workouts since mid-March

  • Many gyms have been holding outdoor workouts in order to stay in business

  • Beginning 5 p.m. Friday, gyms in North Carolina can re-open with a maximum of 30 percent capacity at any given time

 

But they're now preparing to reopen after Gov. Roy Cooper relaxed parts of the stay-at-home order.

The COVID-19 screening will start well before members even set foot inside Charlotte's Hustle House gym.

“Each class has a requirement that they register before coming in and we have that capped,” explains Hustle House co-owner Destiny.

Beginning 5 p.m. Friday, the governor's “Phase 2.5 safer-at-home” order will allow gyms to have a maximum of 30 percent of their capacity inside at any given time. In the case of Hustle House, Destiny says that equates to 14 people. She says pre-COVID-19 – the gym could accommodate up to 40.

“We'll take what we can get at this point,” Destiny says. “We definitely thought we would be open long before. Thirty percent is tough because our bills aren't at 30 percent capacity.”

Nevertheless, she says she and her staff are prepared for the governor's relaxed restrictions.

“Such a sigh of relief, as a small business owner, someone that opened in December, so just three months prior to being shut down for COVID, it's been a long time coming,” she said.

The studio, which features HIIT-style or “high intensity interval training” workouts, is already configured with COVID-19 guidelines in mind.

“The X's [for a member's area] are all marked 6 feet apart for social distancing,” Destiny says. “The coach will clean all of the stations, and we do three to four people max at each station.”

She says the amount of equipment is scaled down.

“Prior to COVID, we would put in four bikes here and have it as a partner workout,” she says.

Now, there are just three bikes and there's no teaming up.

“We hand out our wipes, and we have wipes all around the room,” Destiny says as she walked around the lime green and black studio. “We also have the entire studio sprayed every week with an electrically charged, hospital-grade disinfectant.”

Under Cooper's order, gym members are required to wear masks inside the gym when they're not exercising, but gym owners say that will be hard to enforce.

“It's a tough, tough HIIT-style workout, and so it would not be safe to be in here in a mask,” Destiny says.

Overall, she says she is confident it will be safe for people to return to gym workouts. She points to other establishments that have already begun having them.

“They're not seeing any community spread in those studios,” she says.

Yet, it's a touch-and-go situation that entrepreneurs like her have had to endure multiple hits from.

“Yes, it has been frustrating, but you know, at the end of the day, who are we to decide what happens? We just have to kind of go with what it is,” she says.

Be sure to check on any gym memberships you had prior to or ones you started during the stay-at-home order. After Phase 2.5 goes into effect, many gyms have said they will resume charging members.