From 25th July or when they’re ready after that.
I will be waiting until my gym…publish their revised protocols; convince me their protocols are working properly to keep clients and staff safe; have a demonstrable clean record for at least 4 weeks.
What about you lot?

I was talking to a trainer at the Puregym I go to. He explained all their protocols and it seems really sensible, I will be happy to go in.
Puregym are helped by their electronic entry system. Can easily control a max number and you can look on the app and see how many folk are currently in there.

I rarely shared my gym with more than 2 or 3 people anyway so maintaining distance should be easy enough, just need to be fastidious with the anti-bac wipes!

Will you be expected to wear a mask?

What about the pool, is the chlorine content enough to kill off the bug?

For a gym and a pool to be lumped together in risk classification seems bizarre.

I would go to a pool tomorrow, but a gym? No chance!

Just think about how much goo would be on a treadmill where someone has been panting on it for an hour. There’s no way a bored PT is cleaning tat effectively with a wipe every time. God knows what’s also being circulated by the AC in some places!

I’m no clean freak, and I’m completely pro gyms, but they are a petri dish compared to other fitness pursuits.

By now I’m missing swimming like a limb – but the pool I use is small and Swim England’s guidance of 6 metres between users is pretty much unworkable unless they have double-width lanes, which would mean the 4 lanes become 2 lanes. That’s surely going to cut capacity by half, so how will they prioritise which members get to swim? Also – no swimming ‘side by side’ so unless swimmer’s speeds are well-matched it could prove frustrating.

What about the pool, is the chlorine content enough to kill off the bug?

This is the info I found

Swimming pool technical operation after Covid-19 shutdown (TN46)

I’ll be cross-checking with the pool-manager. It’s not just the chlorine level it’s the relationship between free chlorine and pH value (lower pH more effective against the virus). Then there’s the issue of sufficient water-circulation/chlorine-distribution:

The lower the pH the more easily chlorine kills microorganisms. To deal with the Covid-19 virus, a chlorine residual between 1.5 and 3mg/l is believed to be effective at a pH between 7.0 and 7.4. The characteristics of the particular pool and its treatment regime may influence how closely it is possible to follow these recommended levels…

… 5. Circulation and hydraulics

In order to get good dilution of any released virus particles and to ensure the distribution of free chlorine such that the risk of infection is minimised, it is important to maintain the circulation of the pool water at 100%.

It’s nuts, if gyms are fine then why aren’t dance studios or ice rinks?

I’m really looking forward to Hathersage outdoor pool opening next week. They’re limiting sessions to 30 people at a time, bookable online and in one hour slots. I really hope they can make it work but the days of sunny summer weekend days where they’d have families queueing our the car park are gone and that’s surely where they made their money.

Reduced capacity and increased costs will have to mean increased prices at some point, in all businesses. Barber’s and hairdressers round here have put up prices 30-40% to reflect it, I expect the same in gyms, pubs and restaurants.

Daughters gymnastics club are very excited to be reopening. Dad’s Taxi service less so 🙄

I would go to a pool tomorrow, but a gym? No chance!

Agree. A gym is a warm sweaty place with people breathing out very heavily. Of all the places to go I would think a Gym is at the top of the risk list by a mile and I wouldn’t go near one (not that I ever did as I find them horrible anyway)

When the stage is right to open Gyms all other activities should go back to how they were pre Covid at same time.

My pool and gym have just reopened and are keen for members to get back. Routine cleaning in gym, no showers, spaced out lockers, I really wanted to go as used to go every day. I ‘ll give it a month maybe but not really keen to rejoin. I hope it’s not true for the wider population but we have found alternatives, kayaking, sea swimming, Pilates on terraces, those subs savings buy a lot of kit.

It’s nuts, if gyms are fine then why aren’t dance studios or ice rinks?

I presume the ice rink is considered the leisure equivalent of a meat processing plant, which seems to be the ideal environment for the virus to spread, judging by the number of outbreaks they’ve had at them.

No idea about dance studios vs gyms (or vs pubs, for that matter). I think we’ve more or less abandoned evidence for economic expediency at this point.

The focus on sanitising surfaces at gyms is a bit misleading. Of course it’s important, but the elephant in the room is the large cloud of tiny droplets produced by forced exhalation and able to circulate without settling for hours. The solution to this is proper ventilation, or some hopes and prayers that levels of the virus in your area are sufficiently low to reduce the risk that someone with the infection is visiting the gym earlier in the same day as you.

I’d love to start using the climbing wall again. God knows my core needs it. But I can exercise outdoors, which is relatively safe.

Dance studios are open from August 1st, much be socially distanced and no more than 15 in a class with a published and demonstrable cleaning regime.

Little Miss K restarts Ballet & Tap in a hall rather than online after that.

I rarely shared my gym with more than 2 or 3 people anyway so maintaining distance should be easy enough, just need to be fastidious with the anti-bac wipes!

Safe distances are relative to the space you share. We have the 2 metre rule (and now 1 metre rule) drummed into us, but it’s not a universal protection. 1 heavy breather in a poorly ventilated space could easily spread the virus across the entire room over a period of time. Add to that all the heavy breathers who’ve been there before them. Can’t say it’s something that appeals to me.

One of our local gym’s is really going to have to up it’s game, especially studio sessions. Nothing is wiped down from Spin classes to the next exercise class – so pools of sweat are left on the floor for the next class – my wife hates it.

Hmm… pretty valid points all round! Shame cancelling my gym membership won’t pay for a power meter at home, the gym was my only access to a Wattbike!

I guess the cancelled membership might pay for a trainerroad subscription, so I could use virtual watts from my dumb trainer…

Swimming pools will be nice to go to, again.

Vested interest in them reopening, with family working at one.

Be interested to see how pools will work. No overtaking has the potential to be a bit of a nightmare. I’m not so fussed about the ban on butterfly.

It’s nuts, if gymspubs are fine then why aren’t all indoor facilities?

FTFY

Be interested to see how pools will work.

Reduced numbers mostly.

Lane swimming only (I think) so no fun sessions with giant inflatable aliens or whatever.

Increased cleaning rota, obvs.

Some other stuff. I think Swim England have guidelines out.

I used to swim 3 times a week and was always frustrated by many members not adhering to the simple rules eg showering before entering the pool, removing their shoes before entering the changing rooms.
After seeing the way a lot of the public have decided that lock down rules don’t apply to them, it’s a no from me.

I have an issue with the gym reopening, they get to start charging me £50/month and I won’t be stepping foot inside it. Once the WHO confirm it’s air born, there’s no way these places can open up safely.
I’m checking my contract to see if there’s a Pandemic clause to get me out of it. I was going 4 times a week before lockdown but there’s no chance I’m risking it. I’ll stick to riding my bike more.

I used to swim 5 mornings a week before work until the pools closed and really missed it but Bunnyhop sums my feelings up exactly. My membership was a rolling monthly one so that has been cancelled and I won’t be returning for the foreseeable future.

I now ride my bikes much more often instead.

I cancelled my gym membership the week before the lockdown started, I won’t be renewing it anytime soon. The gym (The Gym on Newport Road, Cardiff) is a warehouse one and even though they have a cleaner going round all the time and the PT’s wiping down equipment anyway there’s no way I’d go in there sharing equipment, breathing in the recycled air (you could smell the BO of someone the other side of the gym coming out of the A/C at times) and most worryingly sharing the showers. Just too much opportunity to pick something up in the current climate.

I only went there to do upper body and core exercises. I get as much of a workout for that at the local indoor karting centre. They’re opening soon so I’ll just go there instead. I have my own balaclava, they disinfect and rotate the helmets after every use and their extraction system is so good you can see the exhaust fumes being sucked up and out when the karts are idling! A session there once or twice a month plus some home workouts should be just as effective.

The problem for many businesses is that they are in the same class as a gym so under the same regulations but much lower risk. I’m not keen on visiting a gym but I am keen on going to a skatepark and maybe a family trip bowling and these venues seem to have been caught up with the blanket gym umbrella. Even though much lower transfer risk.

The pool I used to swim at in the mornings was normally fairly quiet at the times i used to swim – I’d often have a 50m lane to myself – but not sure if it will be busier if people are not working or on furlough etc. They also often only have 3 lanes open in an 8 lane pool so plenty of opportunity to space people out even more.

I am a regular gym user prior to lock down there was cleaning materials at every machine to use after or before use or both. If your gym was not following this before I can understand not rushing back but for me I am straight back in.

I’ll be camping outside the pool the night before it opens….

The guidance appears to completely screw climbing gyms – not least

If equipment cannot be cleaned after each use, it should not be used.

I guess the only hope they have is if they can claim that climbing holds aren’t equipment and in fact are just surfaces that are to be cleaned frequently. Seems a stretch tho and i’d be surprised if insurers allowed it.

I think a lot of climbing gyms are either going to completely ignore the guidance or go bust.

I play a water based team sport – underwater hockey. I’m not holding my breath (arf arf) about getting back into the pool – we need a whole load of stuff put in place by the pool and by our governing body before we can resume our sessions, and even then we’d need commitment from sufficient players to make it financially viable.

The focus on sanitising surfaces at gyms is a bit misleading. Of course it’s important, but the elephant in the room is the large cloud of tiny droplets produced by forced exhalation and able to circulate without settling for hours.

This. The stuff that has recently made the news about airborne transmission suggests that indoor spaces are inherently more risky than our current guidelines would have you believe, and I can’t imagine that the more enthusiastic exhalation at a gym is going to help that.

I got into a really good gym habit as I was in the office 5 days a week and it’s near the office. Work are now in no rush to get us back into the office, so there’s no local gym. It’s a 7 mile ride away so not really something I can do at lunchtime.

I miss deadlifting and squats. But the gym was a budget place in Cambridge, it wasn’t cleaned much, had no ventilation (or windows) and was stuffed to the brim with equipment. I can’t see how it’s a good idea in the current world.

Maybe I should stop speaker shopping and buy a rack, bar and plates for home!