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By Shane Clausing

Alberta gyms

Alberta gym owners calling on province to ease gym restrictions

Feb 7, 2021 | 7:00 AM

Gym owners across Alberta are calling on the provincial government to ease up on gym and fitness restrictions as the province moves into Step 1 of the Government of Alberta’s Path Forward plan.

Under Step 1, gyms are only allowed to open for one-on-one personal training sessions, by appointment only.

Emily Slaneff is the Founder and CEO of CrushCamp Gym in Calgary and the Alberta Chair of the Fitness Industries Coalition of Canada. Over the last week, she has helped launch the #SafeFitnessAB movement.

So far, over 200 gym owners across the province have put their support towards the campaign, which focuses on getting gyms re-opened.

“The #SafeFitnessAB campaign is a video, website and social media campaign willing to take control of the narrative and remind Albertans that fitness really is safe and has incredibly low transmission rates (of COVID) across our industry and asks our government leaders for additional aid, support and clear goalposts to re-open gyms and fitness centres across Alberta.”

According to the #SafeFitnessAB campaign, out of over four million workouts between June 2020 and November 2020, only 147 people have tested positive for COVID-19.

Slaneff tells EverythingGP that number came directly from the province.

“We reached out to the government and said ‘help us understand where the transmissions are and cases were’. They gave us the details of 147 total cases out of those four million workouts. When you do that math, it’s 0.0037 per cent of workouts that resulted in an issue. We are kind of left going, ‘we think that’s pretty good’.

“There’s no question that every time you leave your home right now there’s a little bit of a risk associated. We understand that there is a pandemic, but our argument is the benefits outweigh the risks.”

Slaneff says for the province to only open gyms for one-on-one sessions doesn’t do much, as personal training sessions are expensive and only select people can take advantage.

“It’s not accessible to everybody, especially for people who’ve lost their jobs this year. An average hour-long personal training session is usually around $60 to $100 an hour. To be doing that three to five times a week is out of access for Albertans. I don’t think it’s the solution yet.”

Slaneff also points to the fact that gyms in British Columbia are open and are safe for users.

You can learn more about the campaign by clicking here.