By Luke Voogt
Hearts raced as thousands of fitness fanatics returned to gyms across Geelong following the resumption of indoor sessions on Wednesday.
Mount Duneed father-of-two Joel Dean joined gym owners across the city throwing the doors open as COVID-19 restrictions eased across regional Victoria.
The 34-year-old was thrilled to again provide a physical and mental outlet for members at his Manifold Heights franchise.
“We’re excited, we can’t wait,” he said on Tuesday night.
“It’s been a bit stressful since Sunday getting everything ready to reopen but we’re ready now.”
The pandemic had taken a heavy toll on the business, with only two of several physical trainers meeting JobKeeper criteria.
“The ones that were casual-based, we just had to let them go, unfortunately,” Joel said.
“The major stresses of the lockdowns would probably be still having to pay rent when we’ve had zero income for seven months and having to let go of great staff.
“Being in Manifolds Heights, on a busy road, the rent’s not cheap.”
During both lockdowns the gym’s parent company, 9Round, offered clients free live-streamed sessions at home.
“We offered the members a 9Round app which allowed them to access recipes and workouts,” Joel said.
“We just did it as a retention tool.”
But while plenty of clients got involved during the first lockdown, motivation began to wear thin during the second without physical access to the club.
“We found in the second lockdown… the motivation just wasn’t there,” Joel said.
The circuit-type program at his gym made it difficult to offer outdoor sessions, like some other local gyms over the past few weeks.
“The way we operate our business, we can’t really offer anything outside,” Joel said.
He looked forward to seeing clients’ faces and checking in on their mental and physical wellbeing.
“If you own a gym, you want to care about your members,” he said.
“You create a really good community in there.
“You’ve got members that rely on you for an outlet.”
The reopening of gyms is part of state government’s latest round of eased restrictions across regional Victoria.
The new restrictions also allow outdoor and indoor religious gatherings of up to 50 and 20 people respectively, 50 people at outdoor funerals, live music outdoors and the reopening of food courts.
