Fitness enthusiasts glad to be back at Southern Nevada gyms
Gym regulars anxious to get back to their fitness regimens feel a big weight lifted off their shoulders.
Many fitness buffs are happy to be back at Southern Nevada’s gyms. Gyms were permitted to reopen with safety and sanitation programs beginning May 29 under Gov. Steve Sisolak’s Phase Two directives. Some people have dropped their memberships, but many have shown interest in joining gyms such as Life Time and Orangetheory Fitness, according to representatives of those gyms.
“It seems like everyone went in one direction or the other,” Life Time Green Valley general manager Nic Rodriguez said Tuesday.
Business has been good at the Henderson Life Time location, 121 Carnegie St., with members largely excited to hit the gym after two months off, Rodriguez said. He said it’s been an “interesting 12 days or so since we’ve been open,” but members’ eagerness return to the gym demonstrates the importance of the facility in their lives.
All staff members are back with new responsibilities, he said. They focus on cleaning the facility and enforcing social distancing among patrons. Each staff member receives a temperature check when they come to work and wears a face covering, Rodriguez said.
“Things are quite a bit different but Life Time is still the same,” Rodriguez said.
Life Time member Keri Mladenov of Las Vegas said she’s running into people she knows and everybody is in good spirits. Mladenov had no qualms about returning to her gym.
“I came back because I knew before the quarantine I felt safe and completely comfortable here, so I knew there was not gonna be even an issue of coming back” given its cleaning and safety procedures, she said.
Classes at Orangetheory Fitness, 5990 S. Rainbow Blvd., were “pretty booked out for the month” when members learned the gym was reopening, head coach Kennady Whitehead said.
“We’ve had wait lists on pretty much all our classes, especially those early morning and after-work classes,” she said.
The fitness center operates classes at a maximum of half capacity, 18 people, and gives each member their own station during classes. Its staff shuts the doors and cleans equipment “head to toe” between each class, she said.
Not all gyms are faring well in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and related shutdowns. On Monday, fitness chain 24 Hour Fitness filed for bankruptcy. The company plans to reopen three of its 11 Southern Nevada locations on June 29. Its gyms at 2090 Village Center Circle in Summerlin, 5651 Centennial Center Blvd. in Centennial Hills and 2556 Wigwam Parkway in Henderson will open, while the other locations will stay closed.
Some gyms and health clubs that have earned the trust of their members have seen as high as 70 percent of their members returning during the first few weeks of reopening, according to Nick Rizzo, fitness research director at fitness shoe review website www.runrepeat.com.
That’s based on information, data and research from other organizations, Rizzo said. Some CrossFit or similar gyms “have actually experienced growth after reopening,” he said.
“Since they are more of a community and everyone is more connected, people care about the well-being of their fellow gym members and they trust the other members to feel the same,” Rizzo said.
Contact Mike Shoro at mshoro@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290. Follow @mike_shoro on Twitter.
