BROOKLYN, N.Y. - Meagan MacBride cleans the weight machines with sanitizer before and after her sets. It's part of her new routine at Harbor Fitness. She says the hardest part of her new normal at the gym is breaking a sweat while wearing a face mask.

"In the beginning, it was a little easier — bit harder to try to catch my breath and everything like that,” said MacBride. “But I feel the longer I have been working out with it on it's increasing my lung expansion, actually helping me to feel a little bit better."

 

What You Need To Know

  • Building confidence for members is a challenge for gym owners

  • Many memberships have been put on hold because of safety concerns

  • Gyms reopened in late August with a reduced capacity and strict safety protocols

  • Fog machines spraying disinfectant and personal sanitizers for members are among safety measures

 

MacBride works in a hospital and says getting reps in with weights are good for cleaning her head as well as toning her muscles.  

"I'm a nurse. I work the night shift,” explained MacBride. “So it's the one thing that helps keep me going.”

Owner Mike Ganim says that after having to close his five Harbor Fitness locations because of the pandemic, simply reopening them was not enough. Now he's doing all he can to get members like MacBride back.

"Restoring consumer confidence is probably the biggest problem we're facing right now,” said Ganim. “We take the safety of our members and our staff very personally. And we're hands on."

One cleaning machine is a confidence-builder of his. It emits a fog of disinfectant to kill all the coronavirus. Ganim bought two of them. 

Members must have their temperature checked at the door, and leave their phone numbers for potential contact tracing. 

His staff provides personal sanitizer bottles, and distributes towels with tongs to limit physical contact. The gym also requires social distancing, has taken machines out of service for more spacing, and limits visits to 90 minutes. 

But Ganim says the state made it more difficult for him to overcome the safety perception here when it said this neighborhood had a worrying uptick in COVID cases.

"The most recent shutdown we had in this location was because we were one block into the orange zone”, said Ganim. “If this building was across the street, we would've been able to stay open."

MacBride used to come with her mother, but her mom is staying away because of a medical condition that puts her at risk. 

Ganim says he's grateful for members like MacBride who've returned. As for others who aren't ready to return, Harbor Fitness is allowing them to put their membership on pause.