'Like a family': Rotorua gyms thriving almost a year on from lockdown

F45 Training Rotorua studio manager Jessica Hazelwood and coach Wiremu Taui. Photo / Andrew Warner

For many of the city's fitness aficionados - their gym community can best be described as "like a family".

And for some of the city's local gyms, this relationship was what kept them afloat after lockdown crippled their businesses with many flourishing again almost a year on.

However, others are still seeing the repercussions of "fear" and "uncertainty" holding members back.

F45 Training Rotorua owner Jesse Acton said although lockdown was tough, having a gym community focus while remaining innovative helped keep his business afloat.

From allowing members to borrow equipment over lockdown to providing daily online classes for a half membership price, he did everything he could to "keep members engaged", he said.

Acton and his wife Alana coached and worked at the gym every day and had built relationships with all the members who walked through the doors.

He described the community as "like a family" with 80 per cent of members who chose to keep paying half or full price over lockdown doing it solely to support them.

This was something that he was extremely grateful for as he himself had young children and a mortgage to pay.

He said they were also blessed to receive the wage subsidy to keep all his staff employed over a difficult time.

They lost a third of their membership base post-lockdown as a result of "uncertainty" but had nearly managed to recuperate close to a year on, he said.

Wellness Hub owner Belinda Bennett said they saw a "steady decline" in members at the gym for about six months post-lockdown as their wellness routines had been shattered and they were struggling to get back into it with the "ongoing uncertainty" and "fear".

Something she was noticing with gym members was that although numbers were back to normal now, people were not using their memberships even close to as much as they used to, she said.

Membership at the hub was limited and mainly aimed at older demographics. Lockdown had "knocked" many of the members' confidence and they were struggling to get it back, she said.

"Wellness falls to the bottom of the pile when people are in survival mode."

The Hub housed a gym, a hair salon, massage therapy, yoga and accommodation among other things.

The Wellness Hub made the choice not to reopen their cafe as the risk was too high. Photo / Google Maps

Bennett said they decided not to reopen the cafe because of the risk to the whole hub if a patron with Covid visited.

She said pre-Covid the place had been "buzzing" but all the businesses were still suffering a significant drop in visitors.

"We aren't back to our normal numbers or vibe. People haven't got the money."

Steve Gardiner had owned Gold's Health and Fitness for 30 years and said 2020 was "one of the most uncertain" he had experienced in his career.

However, he said since lockdown membership numbers had grown "quite significantly".

He believed this was a result of people having time to "decide to get active" and realising they had taken it for granted previously.

Without the wage subsidy, things would have been a "completely different story", he said

He had even had time to get some overdue renovations done at the gym, he said.

Sport Bay of Plenty's communication team leader Danene Jones said during lockdown there was a noticeable increase of people utilising their local environment to keep active.

Jones said Sport Bay of Plenty wanted to remind people of the importance of being active for a person's overall wellbeing and that being active could be as simple as swinging on a swing, enjoying a swim or taking a leisurely walk in your neighbourhood.

According to Sport New Zealand's Active New Zealand Survey 2019, Bay of Plenty adults spent an average of 5.5 hours a week in organised and informal fitness activities compared to 11.7 hours a week for young people aged five to 17.

Chief executive of Exercise New Zealand Richard Beddie said the fitness industry had bounced back "very well" post-lockdown and most gyms had seen a 90 to 95 per cent return of members by level 2 restrictions.

He said most gyms that shut their doors had been facing problems pre-Covid and it was not the catalyst to the closure but instead a likely factor.

They had expected "mass gym closures" of about 10 per cent nationwide when lockdown hit but this did not eventuate, he said.

He said the industry had diversified a lot in the past decade with either some gyms charging 10 times more than others for different, more personalised services.

"In the past, there were more gyms that were the same than different but that is constantly changing."

A gym community was something that was really important in a post-Covid world, he said.