The biggest challenge to hit the fitness industry in 31 years.
That’s how Gary Piper, Okotoks fitness coach and owner of G3 Fitness, described the current situation for an industry in a constant state of flux due to a number of restrictions placed on training over the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’ve been in the fitness industry since 1989 and this COVID is the biggest challenge that our industry has ever seen, for sure,” said Piper. “And it’s not the virus that’s killing our industry, it’s the lockdown measures.”
Currently, the sports and fitness spaces in the province are heavily restricted. Fitness centres are closed, group training is not allowed and one-on-one personal training can only be done virtually, outdoors or at a client’s home.
The restrictions were put in place in December, and to be re-evaluated after a month. They’ve since been extended for a two-week period and now for an indefinite period of time.
“I get that the government is giving out all these rent subsidies, well a rent subsidy doesn’t help now that I don’t pay rent, I pay a mortgage for my house so I don’t get any subsidy for that,” he said. “They’ve got the employee wage subsidy, well I had to layoff 13 of my staff and so now it’s just me and I don’t qualify for a wage subsidy because I’m self employed.”
Piper launched G3 Fitness in the basement of his home in 2011 as a means of launching an alternative to the big box gyms.
“I saw people coming in day after day, week after week, month after month and not getting anywhere and then I would see people buy a membership and never use it,” Piper said. “So in either case people didn’t seem like they were making any kind of progress. They were spending money, and sometimes spending time, but not being able to see any results from it.
“Rather than have people buy a membership and then pay for personal training over and above the membership, I got rid of the gym model completely and just went to private one-on-one training.”
Within two years Piper’s clientele outgrew his set-up, leading to a move to a space over four times the size. By June 2019, G3 expanded once again to a 6,000 square foot facility.
Unfortunately, less than a year later the first lockdown in 2020 struck and put many of the fitness coach’s clientele on the sidelines with just 38 of 220 sticking with it.
Piper had to layoff his staff of 13 people and closed the facility, moving the business back to a home set-up, in a 1,200 square foot space, after completing a move into a new home in Okotoks’ Cimarron community.
All of this took place within a five-week whirlwind.
“The government said we could re-open by June 15th and by June 20th I knew I was in a lot of trouble,” he said. “I have to give props to Terry Korth, Terry was my landlord at the other facility and Terry allowed me to get out of my lease. I ended up buying a new home and moved all of my personal training equipment into the basement of my new home and have been operating there since the 27th of July.”
Since then it’s been about rolling with an ever-changing landscape.
Piper said the industry is trying to collect a unified voice through the Fitness Industry Council of Canada as well as the Alberta Fitness Alliance, the latter formed as a result of the COVID lockdowns, to get the message out to the public and try to work with the government to promote re-opening.
“A small studio like mine, or what they might call a boutique fitness centre, shouldn’t be rolled in with the same groups, I’m lumped in with big box gyms that might be 25,00 square feet that have hundreds or even thousands of members,” Piper said. “I’m lumped in with movie theatres and bars and even with the Saddledome, 19,000 people, I’m not the same as that.
“I get one person at a time in my studio and we have the ability to clean and disinfect between clients. I think that’s what all the boutique owners are finding frustrating is that we get lumped in as the same.”
Piper emphasized the inconsistency between the government’s health measures which at the same target an industry that fosters both physical and mental health.
“I’ve been working for almost 32 years on people’s health and it’s more than just physical health, it’s mental health and stress relief,” he said. “This COVID has had such a drastic impact on the mental health of people all over the world.
“Suicide rates are way up, domestic abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, people need to find a way to deal with this kind of stuff and that’s we do as fitness professionals.”
When asked about those in the fitness and restaurant industry facing uncertainty with the timelines of the measures, health minister Tyler Shandro said the distinction is not based on what is considered essential or non-essential and comes down to risk evaluation.
“What we’ve done with these measures and what we’re going to be doing going forward as we ease restrictions, like we did a week and a half ago related to personal services, is about risk,” Shandro said at a Jan. 25 press conference. “All these activities, including activities that happen within a business, all have different levels of risk and what we have to do as a government is assess the various levels of risk that these activities might pose to the community and easing restrictions depending on our hospitalizations and other metrics.
“Our focus with the November and December measures was to ease the pressure on our health-care system to make sure the people that are critically ill continue to get the care that they need and people can continue to get the surgeries that they need.”
