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Fitness industry wants to be next in line to reopen in Alberta

CALGARY (CityNews) – The fitness industry says it’s tired of coaching remotely and are asking the province to let them allow patrons back into their facilities.

They want to be next in line for reopening, but those speaking with the government said it could be weeks away.

Grit Fitness opened a 4,000 square foot space in September, spacing out equipment, doing temperature checks and contact tracing.

But since December’s restrictions, trainers can only work online or at a client’s home.

“They don’t want to put on a face mask or a shield, there are no precautions,” said Thomas Chiang with Grit Fitness. “So in some sense, if the trainer if positive and asymptomatic. Isn’t that more dangerous than going to a gym where a trainer is keeping distance and having a mask on because it’s a public area with a mask mandate? So, the conflicting information I think is the bigger problem here.”

RELATED: Alberta confirms 678 new cases of COVID-19, 16 additional deaths

Chiang said people are safer in a controlled environment like this, where doors are locked to the public during personal training.

“Government is uninformed on what our standards and protocols actually are because we’ve had conversations with some government officials who don’t realize that we use apps to book times, that we have the spacing in place, plexiglass dividers,” said President of the Fitness Industry Council of Canada, Scott Wildeman.

From big box gyms to small studios, many say they’re safe to open now and they don’t want limits on types of gyms like stopped indoor group fitness, but weight rooms remained open.

“With a fitness professional or a coach, organizing the traffic, going from station to station, or everything is at a singular station, in a structured way,” said Wildeman. “That, we believe, is much more efficient and safe than people just doing it on their own.”

The fitness council said it was assigned a government liaison, but haven’t met with them yet. The industry will get a one-week heads up to prepare to reopen but there has still been no word from the province.

For Grit Fitness, owners want gyms to be part of pandemic health and overall well being.

“We’re looking at substance abuse, mental health issues, that goes above and beyond and that’s why a lot of fitness studios are saying ‘let us be open’,” said Chiang.