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Even with New Year's resolutions, local gyms months away from pre-pandemic membership numbers

Locally owned gyms were some of the last businesses to reopen during the pandemic. New memberships after New Year's Eve have helped little.

AUSTIN, Texas — After small businesses were forced to close at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, gyms were left waiting the longest to reopen. They're still waiting to get all their clients back.

"Traffic is down about 60%," Brook Jones, owner of Hyde Park Gym, said.

Jones said the clientele at his gym typically leans toward older demographics, the ones most impacted by the pandemic. However, people 40 years old and younger have started to trickle back in. While Jones said January is his biggest month for business, it isn't a boom like commercial gyms typically see.

"Most of our clientele, they're consistent throughout the year," Jones said. "This is part of their lifestyle. It's not something they do because it's a fad."

In North Austin at Gym One, manager Nick Sanquilly sais his gym follows a similar trend.

"Our members are paying a premium price for the selection of equipment," Sanquilly said. "That price keeps a lot of those newer people out because it can be kind of intimidating coming in and seeing all this equipment that you kind of have no idea how to use." 

According to Sanquilly, the gym attracts long-time trainers and people looking to compete in shows. 

In South Austin at Onnit Gym, general manager Larry Maloney said despite the space, they're limiting capacity to only about 10 people or so per class.

"We had had classes of up to 20 people in a pretty small space," Maloney said. "While we're doing only 10 people now, it helps us put everyone very specifically where they should be and make sure that we have enough equipment for everybody so they don't have to cross over on equipment."

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According to Maloney, Onnit took advantage of the closure from March and waited until the summer to open back up after doing some remodeling.

Even after reopening at various points in 2020, all three gyms are still not close to the same membership numbers they had before the pandemic began.

"We're getting a handful of new members," Maloney said. "We're still not quite where we were before, but it's kind of looking like projection-wise by the mid-summer of this year, that will be back to where we were before."

RELATED: Is it safe to go to the gym during the coronavirus pandemic?

"November was the first month we actually started to go back up," Sanquilly said. "That was very encouraging to see after months and months of down, down, down. It has kind of leveled off and the new year just started, so I think we're going to start creeping back up."

All three gyms have instituted new policies to keep the gyms clean and safe for everyone. Gym One has extra cleaning supplies and makes sure all members clean all of the equipment after every set and requires everyone to wear a mask. Onnit separates everyone to their own machines during small group workouts, whether inside or outside, and provides cleaning supplies and a new air filtration system to cycle air quickly through the gym. Hyde Park Gym limits the number of people in each room at the gym, requires masks to be worn inside and cleans equipment every 30 minutes or so.

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