At-home workouts were just as synonymous with the COVID-19 lockdown as sourdough bread starter and “Tiger King.”
When statewide shutdowns were put in place and gyms and fitness studios were ordered closed, it seemed possible that the industry would never be the same. Maybe gyms as we once knew them would become a casualty of the worldwide health scare that forced people into self-isolation.
But for Kim and David Hackett, that hasn’t been the case.
2020 coverage: Sarasota gyms, fitness studios reopen
Body by Barre Fitness, the Venice-based business Kim founded about five years ago, definitely suffered during COVID. But once the studio was allowed to reopen post-shutdown, clients came back. Limited capacity classes quickly filled up, and it became clear, as it had been before the pandemic, that there was room to grow.
“We had cut the class sizes down and we were masking in classes, obviously, trying to hang on, and our clients were hanging with us,” David Hackett said. “We felt like, ‘hey we’re going to get through this. We will get through this, not just us, but society as a whole will get through this.’ And at that point, we began searching to expand.”
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They moved Body by Barre to a bigger, 2,000-square-foot space in Venice’s newly revitalized Jacaranda Plaza, at U.S. 41 Bypass and Shamrock Boulevard. The new studio, now called B Fitness and Smoothies, has class space for barre, yoga, TRX and personal training, as well as a smoothie bar and retail sales area.
The Hacketts are both former journalists who worked for the Herald-Tribune. Kim discovered barre after she left the newspaper business — all the new downtime she had caused her to become more aware of injuries she’d been ignoring.
Other workouts she tried, with the exception of swimming, only caused more pain. But barre gave Kim the relief that her body so desperately craved.
“Even after that first class, when I finished, particularly in my hips I felt something shift,” she said.
The problem was, there was no barre studio in Venice — she’d have to drive to Sarasota or Lakewood Ranch to get her fix, and the commute there and back would end up taking over her day. So she got certified to teach, and practiced her skills in a home studio she and David set up in their garage.
She initially rented teaching space at Venice Fitness with a pilates instructor, until she and her co-tenant grew so big that they decided to get their own place in South Venice. That was about five years ago. Over time, she added more services, like yoga, total body conditioning, TRX classes and personal training.
Kim had been wanting to add a smoothie bar and retail component to her fitness studio for quite some time. She got the idea on a visit to Syracuse, New York, where she saw a barre studio next to a yoga studio next to a smoothie bar. It was a dream, but it just wasn’t possible in her former space.
“At my old studio, a couple of years ago, the pilates instructor had her own space and I had my own space, and we were both kind of getting big and bumping into each other. Over time, the front lobby got absorbed into the classroom space,” she said. “There was no space to do any more. The smoothie bar was just in the back of my head – if we ever did expand, that was something certainly worth looking into.”
The new studio opened May 1. And despite the issues COVID caused for the fitness industry, business has been good.
There’s no question that COVID caused long-term problems for some parts of the fitness industry. Several national fitness chains, like YogaWorks, 24 Hour Fitness, Gold’s Gym and Town Sports International – the parent company of chains like New York Sports Club and Boston Sports Club – filed for bankruptcy in 2020.
According to a study from consumer-focused investment bank Harrison Co., billions of dollars in consumer spending shifted from membership-based gyms to at-home fitness at the beginning of the pandemic. The study, which included feedback from 1,000 fitness club users in April 2020, showed that about $10 billion per year could move from gyms to at-home fitness or other alternatives.
However, it does seem like the shift toward working out at home wasn’t completely widespread. A different study, conducted several months later by Kelton, a Material Company for the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, found that 50% of the approximately 1,171 people they interviewed reported being dissatisfied with their new, pandemic-era fitness routines.
Nearly all respondents to this survey – 95%, in fact – said that they missed at least one aspect of physically being at their gym. They missed going to the gym (59%) almost as much as they missed visiting loved ones (65%), and more than they missed going to concerts or games (55%), bars and restaurants (51%) or the movie theater (46%).
“While at-home workouts satisfy some, many feel they’re no match for the health club experience,” a line in the report’s summary said. “They’re taking note of and are satisfied with the safety precautions their club is taking, leaving many feeling ready to hit the gym again – if they haven’t done so already.”
A lot of what people missed seemed to be the community that comes from working out, David Hackett said.
COVID created a sort of paradox, he said. While people took steps to protect their health during the virus by self-isolating and working from home, those same things also led to things like weight gain and muscle loss.
And now that the U.S. is coming out of the pandemic, people seem interested in improving their fitness and health, he said.
“Clients tell us that despite buying home gym equipment, it was hard to stay motivated working out at home,” David Hackett said. “The bigger gyms have plenty to offer, especially for the knowledgeable and self-motivated, but small, specialized classes like we provide have a sense of community, more instructor focus and complete, planned workouts that take the guesswork out of it for clients.”
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