June is upon us and gyms across the world are opening back up.
CrossFit affiliates have opened into even stranger times where over 1,250 functional fitness gyms have decided they needed some social distancing from the CrossFit brand.
HybridAF is fortunate to work with 150+ functional fitness gyms in 6 countries which has allowed us to garner feedback from facilities that have had different levels of governmental impacts to their business. We took the initiative in mid-April to work with HybridAF affiliates on how to safely reopen. As a result, we recently enabled a new feature to require each gym member to complete a heath questionnaire prior to accessing the gym. Morning Chalk Up featured HybridAF as a “tool of choice” for reopening safely and in compliance with CDC recommendations. Since April over 30 gyms have chosen to partner with HybridAF to offer 24/7 access and help them reopen the doors to their facilities in a safe manner.
We asked some of our gym owners that are in different phases of reopening to tell us how 24/7 access through HybridAF helped them reopen their businesses in a safe and compliant way. We highlighted a few examples below on innovative ways gym owners have leveraged our platform to maintain social distancing and to provide members with every opportunity to stay in shape mentally, physically and spiritually by choosing the times that work best for their comfort level.
“We are using it a few ways for our IL gym – since our classes are limited to 50% capacity and so many people are still working from home, we are allowing members to use it to come in on their own outside of classes. In one case, we have a member whose husband cannot get sick so she comes in on her own when no one else is there to try and stay isolated. – Melissa Biniewicz Donoghue, Owner CrossFit Salire
Hybrid has been a big part to us reopening as we have a small space closed off from the main part of the gym that allows us to let members who aren’t quite ready to return to class reserve it outside of our regularly scheduled class times. It’s worth every penny! – Scott Panchik, Owner CrossFit Mentality
We are using it the same way we always have – as an outside of class only option. this currently helps those who are nervous about joining a group class or just can’t make a class time because of scheduling changes. Most are craving community so make the classes when they are able, but it’s being utilized often if not because …barbells! and rig! – Jamie Wilkes Cormier, Owner CrossFit Candor
We have opened up our 24 Hour Access to everyone at this time for no charge. It has helped in several areas. One, we wanted to provide it for those that want to come at a time when no one is there because they are concerned about the virus and being in large groups (two come at 3:45 a.m. to workout before our 5 a.m. class because one is pregnant). Two, because of current capacity restrictions and spacing guidelines we are limiting class size to 12 when we typically can do 22. With the reduced space in classes it allows us to create “Open Gym“ time slots. We have had 10 to 12 people a day take advantage of those extra time slots when they can’t get into a coached class. – Drew Reeves, Owner CrossFit Katy
