Weight of the world on gym owners as revised guidelines reduce capacity

A NAVAN fitness studio owner has opened up about the struggle of trying to adapt to the ever-changing government restrictions regarding group activity.

Aoife Bradley who runs My Studio in Mullaghboy Industrial Estate says she has had to remodel her business for a second time during the pandemic and has hit out at the Government for putting small local enterprises and large commercial gyms under the one umbrella.

She has also slammed the “poor manner” in which these new measures were dished out having just a matter of hours to put a new system in place.

“Throughout lockdown I did complementary live Facebook classes from my sitting room for all of my clients then we got back up and running in the first week in July,” said Aoife.

“My Studio size is big, it is just short of 3000 square ft so I could have 15 to 17 nicely with loads of space either side and everyone felt really safe, it was working really well until last Tuesday when the Government announced the new restrictions and they put indoor training to six but that was putting us under the one umbrella regardless if your studio was 800sq ft. or like mine.

“On Tuesday I had to organise for Wednesday 59 to not come to the studio and instead jump into the live group it was mayhem, I think that they dealt with it very very poorly.”

Aoife suggests that the size of your facility should be taken into account when adapting new guidelines.

“It should be about the size of your facility, once you have that two metre distance between you and your client is should be safe.

“They never touched the big commercial gyms, they can still accommodate 50 in the gym area but six per class.

“There hasn’t been any cases reported from any gyms or any fitness facilities. I saw people who were never active getting out getting moving, buying runners and bikes because that’s what gave them that little bit of control and made them feel good they are taking that away from people.

“The amount of people I have spoken to who are running a business and they are at their wits end is frightening. It is a matter of survival now.”

Despite the upheaval, the Navan business owner is taking the positives from the situation.

“There are now people logging in live on social media that wouldn’t normally be able to come to class but this morning there were more people physically doing the workout than there would normally be so I’m just looking at the positives there from it.”