Ventura County Gyms Try to Stay Afloat During COVID-19 Pandemic Closure

By Brandon Freed

As of Dec. 7, Ventura County was issued a stay at home lockdown order with the recent increase in COVID cases across the county. However, gyms in Ventura County are trying the best they can to stay open in order to recover from their financial decline when they were forced to close down for four months from mid July until early Oct. Outside gyms are allowed to stay open right now. Private gyms are allowed to only hold private sessions and indoor gyms are supposed to be closed, but some are staying open for the time being.

Gyms remain open with caution

Simi Valley couple, Angela and Jeff Freed give their perspective and experience of what it’s like working out at Crunch Fitness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Angela decided to join Crunch Fitness earlier than Jeff and was able to convince him to join the gym to stay physically active.

Ventura County gyms are taking many precautions to ensure their members are working out in a safe manner during the current lockdown.

Exercise facilities that are allowed to remain open are outside gyms like Fitzone Ventura. Fitzone Ventura don’t require masks, but are highly recommended by the facility.

“If people are exercising outside, we don’t want to risk people getting overheated with the masks on,” said Molly Phil, Owner of Fitzone Ventura. “We have sanitizing wipes outside, so people can clean the machines after they use them and we have all the machines spread apart to maintain a six feet distance.”

Ladies at Fitzone Ventura practice social distancing while exercising outside its facility at 6 a.m. in the morning. They are following along with the instructor for class and refer to this session as Girl Power Hour. (Fitzone Ventura Instagram feed)

Indoor gyms like Fitness 19 are supposed to be closed down, but are instead staying open.

“We’re supposed to be closed down, but we’re going to continue to stay open,” said Cheyenne Robinson, a Fitness 19 sales associate in Thousand Oaks. “If we get fined for staying open, we’ll take it to court. Other indoor facilities have gone to court and they have won their cases, so we’re going to do the same.”

Instead of closing down, Fitness 19 ensures they’re doing the best they can to maintain a safe and healthy environment, starting with each active member has to wear a mask at all times inside the gym.

“Everyone has to have a mask on when they work out,” Robinson said. “We also limit the capacity of people inside the gym to just 10 percent, which is equivalent to 35 people and the work out machines are all spread apart to maintain social distancing.”

Christopher Hahn, an active Fitness 19 member, says so far he has felt completely safe being back at Fitness 19.

“Everyone is wearing masks and being very careful,” Hahn said. “With the limited capacity, we have a lot of room to work out and I feel completely safe.”

A trainer at Fitness 19 holds plack showing the facility is sponsored by Stone Wright Biotech Services for its health and safety measures. Fitness 19 wants to ensure that the safety of their members is their main priority. (Fitness 19 Instagram Feed)

Private gyms like Anytime Fitness are taking a very cautious approach and are only allowed to hold private sessions during lockdown.

“We have a system of cleaning the gym every hour,” said Jasmine Ababdali, Manager of Anytime Fitness in Simi Valley. “We don’t let our members use our towels or drink from our water fountains. They have to bring their own towels and water bottles.”

Ababdali says their number one priority is the safety of their members.

“We only allow five or six people at a time for a private session in the facility, which is about five percent capacity,” Ababdali said.

Gyms have financial set back during closure

With Gov. Gavin Newsome issuing a closure of indoor restaurants, hair salons and gymnasiums on July 13, gymnasiums in the Ventura County region suffered a financial decline during the four month closing period.

Phil said, “why would the gym members continue to pay when they aren’t able to use the gym? There is no point.”

Fitzone Ventura ended up losing over half of its approximate 300 members during quarantine.

“Losing half our members hurt us because it resulted in us losing about half of our overall revenue,” Phil said. “It’s definitely been a challenge for us to try and recover from that. It will take about a year and a half to two years to get back to where we used to be.”

During the time Fitzone was closed, Phil said they had no option but to lay most employees off.

“We were forced to lay everyone off except for the employees that were teaching virtual classes,” Phil said. “It was definitely not easy to make that decision.”

Like Fitzone, Fitness 19 was forced to lay off their employees as well.

“When we lost most of our members, we weren’t making any money and had no other choice but to lay off all the employees,” Robinson said. “Since reopening, we’ve been able to rehire only three of our current 10 employees.”

Private gym Anytime Fitness went through a similar situation financially, but was able to keep their employees because they received grants from the government.

Ababdali says over half of their members cancelled their membership during closure of the gym.

“Many people closed their accounts or put their accounts on freeze,” Ababdali said. “This hurt our business because we weren’t making money. The only thing fortunate was that we didn’t lay off any employees. The trainers just weren’t able to make any money because they had no work, which was a struggle for them personally.”

Gymnasiums Go Virtual During Quarantine

With the quick decision to close down gyms mid July, the gyms in Ventura County were forced to act quickly and work remotely to keep their businesses running.

Phil said it was very hard at first to transition to remote workouts so quickly, but had no other option.

“Going online and having private Zoom work out sessions with our members was all we could do at the time,” Phil said. “We even delivered weights and different equipment to their houses so they felt they weren’t losing out on anything. We did the best we could with the cards we were dealt with.”

Robinson said the closure happened sooner than they thought and it took a couple of days to understand what virtual workouts would look like.

“Once we got things up and running, we started to post classes on our Instagram page because that is our most active account,” Robinson said. “We currently have about 25 plus videos on our Instagram feed and they are all mentioned on our stories. When quarantine first began, we were posting our classes every day or every other day.”

Fitness 19 trainer Krista Horwitz, posts exercising class on Fitness 19’s Instagram page to allow its members to stay active during closure of the gym. Most of the videos that Horwitz posts are kickboxing classes. (Fitness 19 Instagram Page)

Robinson says they post a variety of classes.

“We post classes like Zumba, Pilates, Kickboxing and many more,” Robinson said. “We just tried to keep our members as active as possible when our facility was shut down.”

Hahn says he appreciated the gym doing what they could, but working out over the computer just wasn’t the same.

“It was a lot different,” Hahn said. “I definitely missed working out at the gym and using all the equipment.”