Why aren't gyms considered essential services

[Grokk]

You'd think that gyms would be considered essential services. So people can stay healthy and get exercise during the pandemic.

It's just really really not safe man. Lots of people breathing heavy, sweating etc in a confined space. It would be a Corona playground.

And believe me, of all the things that have shut down that have effected me the worst it is definitely the gym. I hate it, the gym is my favorite place outside of home. They have the weights I don't have at home to properly grow muscle, not to mention I feel like I'm more focused working out there and that doesn't even begin to touch on the mental benefits I get from lifting/working out (I feel like that part gets overlooked).

I stopped going about a week before they actually shut the doors just because I was starting to feel really uneasy about the possibility of virus transmission. Since then, I can visibly see less muscle mass (not just post-workout pump), I don't "feel" nearly as strong and my mood is kind of down from where it normally is. Admittedly the mood thing could be just as much to do with Corona stress in general but I feel like it would be lessened if I had my normal routine.

All of that being said, it's absolutely the right thing to do to keep the gyms closed right now. I couldn't think of a much worse place to be open to the public at this time. I'm doing what I can with body weight exercises, walks at the park, treadmill at the house, but it's just not the same.

[Forogil]

A place with a bunch of people sweating at close range from each other?

Sounds like a great idea.

I don't see that sweating is a major issue as the sweat itself shouldn't be contagious, but people are also often panting when working out - and that would be problematic.

[Acidbaron]

It is for me, now out of my routine for over 1 month.
Bodyfat increased and my muscle mass became less.

I try to maintain with cardio but have to less options outside the gym to really do my routine to hit my limits to keep my muscle maintenance.
I can cut my diet to lower my fat increase but then again it might come at a cost aswell.

Maybe next week i will check at a local steel store to buy some bars and weights to improvise but its not an ideal situation.

Figure out your maintenance caloric intake and eat that not more, body fat is all about your nutrition.

I found this series helpful, the book of his is also apparently good but as i am managing okay right now i have not found the need to buy it yet, however i am still some ways from my 15% goal, so i might just pick up the e-book.

Anyway enjoy, hope you learn something from it as i did.

[tromage2]

Lots of people in a confined space breathing deeply together during an airborne virus pandemia....hmm what could go wrong?

But when do you ever see sick people in gyms?
Heck in China they reopend everything and they just measure your temperature, can be done at the entrance.
If you do that with a weak glove rule and no touching your face rule then its a pretty safe environment atleast not less safer then in a grocery store where also older and sick people come to get what they need.

[Rennadrel]

Well, one can still go outside without necessarily going in public. If you don't have a yard or patio, you may be able to go to a secluded area to practice outdoors depending on your local directives. Alternatively, if you normally usually train at a school and you have a good relationship with the owner, you could ask about being able to use the facilities solo.

I have no idea what the height is on my garage (I'd guess 10') but I've never had an issue practicing staff in it aside from occasionally bumping the garage door motor. Unless you're swinging around an 8 ft halberd or something I feel like even staff is safe with 12 ft ceilings. Buuut I don't fuck with anything that long on a regular basis, so maybe my sample size just isn't big enough. 36" is about the extent of anything I train with regularly. Mostly the biggest restriction of being indoors is the lack of movement space, so I use my garage + driveway personally.

Yeah, my issue is more the length and width of my living space. If I got rid of everything in my apartment, I could probably do all of my kata's in the house. I can throw maybe 3 kicks before I hit any object in my place. I don't enjoy practicing outside because I don't have a flat concrete floor to slide my feet on, making it very hard to practice good form and techniques. And with my training, it's imperative that I have good balance and proper foot movement because our focus in training is on the ability to use the body to throw techniques without effort, using your own motion and momentum, something I didn't learn when I trained when I was younger.

[Grokk]

Figure out your maintenance caloric intake and eat that not more, body fat is all about your nutrition.

I found this series helpful, the book of his is also apparently good but as i am managing okay right now i have not found the need to buy it yet, however i am still some ways from my 15% goal, so i might just pick up the e-book.

Anyway enjoy, hope you learn something from it as i did.

Thank you for this video. Good quality information to have even when gyms are open again.

[Acidbaron]

Thank you for this video. Good quality information to have even when gyms are open again.

You're welcome i recommend subscribing to him as while he can be somewhat aggressive and arrogant at times, he has a PhD in nutrition based sciences and spends quite some time also debunking fitness myths in his "what the fitness" series, like the vegan misinformation in the documentary "game changers"

He also doesn't try to push his products in every possible video either.

[Jotaux]

If the gym was open I would be still going.

[Fkiolaris]

It all depends what level you are training at, if you are used to lifting a lot homework outs won't replace the gym, again as in my reply to Tzivia i had a specific person in mind when making that comment. From what i follow on my feeds people claim it is possible to not lose muscles with home training if you are at that level that you used to lift a lot.

I agree especially with the bold part and that was my point. And as to the topic of this thread, I don't believe gyms are essential and they I agree that they should be closed for all sorts of health and safety issues in relation to the virus, as much as it bothers me not going for almost a month now.

[Polyxo]

I've tried to do some light olympic work inside my apartment. So far I still have lamps and tvs.

[Ravex]

Because my experience is limited to simply working out and staying healthy while not turning it into a life style that involves heavy lifting means i make use of other sources from experts that do, i find the notion that you can only be knowledgable if have an athlete lifestyle to be absurd as the opposite also holds not true, plenty of information out there from people that work out through heavy lifting and give a ton of bad advice.

As someone with limited experience how are you supposed to know who is giving the good advice or the bad advice? You can link videos all day but all you are doing is being a puppet. Reading and watching if very different from living and doing. These videos you are linking are made to draw in beginners AND MAKE MONEY FROM THEM. They aren't there as a kindness of wanting to inform, they simply wouldn't exist if there wasn't a hook.

So when people like Jeff Cavaliere claim that you won't lose muscle in this period by training at home without needing an advance gym setup they are all just wrong? Bold to claim that educated physical trainers do not know what they are saying.

Depending on fitness level, yes he could be 100% wrong in saying that. Unless you have the equipment I doubt anyone could even maintain a 1/2/3/4. If all you do is jog and pump 20's then sure nothing is going to be lost.

PS: So far you made no argument about how i am wrong on this both of your posts are ad hominem's, so can i expect an argument at any point or do you want to keep making this topic about me personally, i mean go right ahead all it will do is stroke my ego so *shrug*

There were points, they just flew over you head, because watching a few youtube videos makes someone an expert.

- - - Updated - - -

It is for me, now out of my routine for over 1 month.
Bodyfat increased and my muscle mass became less.

I try to maintain with cardio but have to less options outside the gym to really do my routine to hit my limits to keep my muscle maintenance.
I can cut my diet to lower my fat increase but then again it might come at a cost aswell.

Maybe next week i will check at a local steel store to buy some bars and weights to improvise but its not an ideal situation.

Bodyfat is diet, I 100% agree with the muscle mass. Cardio is great for your health, doesn't do a whole lot for your weight though. That's just a calorie in calorie out kinda thing, it's much easier to not eat a cookie then it is to run for an hour.

That said having the gym taken away can impact your normally good habits so I can see that point if it is what you are making.

[Powerogue]

It seems like they'd be a quick cutoff for much the same reason all the playground equipment in my area is. Lots of sweaty people touching the same things.

[Acidbaron]

First off cut the shit with putting words into my mouth, if you want to turn this into a dick wagging contest I can reciprocate, but I'd rather not have an internet cool guy fight.



As someone with limited experience how are you supposed to know who is giving the good advice or the bad advice? You can link videos all day but all you are doing is being a puppet. Reading and watching if very different from living and doing. These videos you are linking are made to draw in beginners AND MAKE MONEY FROM THEM. They aren't there as a kindness of wanting to inform, they simply wouldn't exist if there wasn't a hook.



Depending on fitness level, yes he could be 100% wrong in saying that. Unless you have the equipment I doubt anyone could even maintain a 1/2/3/4. If all you do is jog and pump 20's then sure nothing is going to be lost.



There were points, they just flew over you head, because watching a few youtube videos makes someone an expert.

You are the one who made this personal from the start by calling me out and now suddenly i am the one acting as the internet cool guy? Even better you are saying you'll gladly turn this into a what is ironic enough yet another ad hominem.

Also never claimed to be an expert, so speaking of putting words in someone's mouth.... Starting to notice a pattern here. Do you often accuse people of something while doing it yourself?

Both people i linked in this thread have a rather good reputation to being knowledgable. I don't have to be an expert i simply have to know how to filter information.
You are free to look up them up or call out things they said recently that are incorrect. What i do notice that a lot of people who do some level of exercise for a certain amount of time appear to be rusted in their ways and their mindset and another stereotype is that there are a lot of charlatans in the fitness industry, there for i was already on my guard.

I also don't believe that i have to fall through all the same pitfalls to actually learn something, i also find that notion to be rather ridiculous if we were to reject knowledge we would still as a species be stuck farming berries and making fires from twigs.

If you are so certain that unless you barely do some level of exercise there's nothing you can do at home to keep in shape (Keeping in my i already elaborated further on my previous statements of who i had in mind when commenting) and prevent losing muscle mass you are free to cite those sources, if not i will take the word over people who are actually trainers for a living with actual schooling behind them, with content that is scientific in nature over random joe on MMO-C offtopic. You are free to present me with video's that discredit Jeff Cavaliere, whos content isn't aimed at just beginners, so again feel free to provide me with something that tells me i am wrong otherwise i simply have to accept you are doing this based on your stereotypical view of fitness content creators and a bias.

None of your posts made has presented any point, they can all be summed up in saying: "oh you don't lift enough bro?! your opinion doesn't matter!", Again if i am wrong very easy to proof, take your past posts and show me those crystal clear points you made.


So in short, you are saying that only absolute beginners can maintain muscle mass nobody else can without a gym and i am flat out saying you are wrong and proof it.

[GreenJesus]

but gamestop is considered an essential service.

The government in some states forcibly closed them down.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

After reading a few people's replies in this thread.. clearly the reason they aren't essental is because you can come here and flex on the internet instead of at the gym.

I mean... brah.. I got .08 body fat and bench 290 while running a mile in 3 minutes brah. Come at me brah.

Imperial measuring system brah? America fat guy brah..

[Ravex]

You are the one who made this personal from the start by calling me out and now suddenly i am the one acting as the internet cool guy? Even better you are saying you'll gladly turn this into a what is ironic enough yet another ad hominem.

Also never claimed to be an expert, so speaking of putting words in someone's mouth.... Starting to notice a pattern here. Do you often accuse people of something while doing it yourself?

Both people i linked in this thread have a rather good reputation to being knowledgable. I don't have to be an expert i simply have to know how to filter information.
You are free to look up them up or call out things they said recently that are incorrect. What i do notice that a lot of people who do some level of exercise for a certain amount of time appear to be rusted in their ways and their mindset and another stereotype is that there are a lot of charlatans in the fitness industry, there for i was already on my guard.

I also don't believe that i have to fall through all the same pitfalls to actually learn something, i also find that notion to be rather ridiculous if we were to reject knowledge we would still as a species be stuck farming berries and making fires from twigs.

If you are so certain that unless you barely do some level of exercise there's nothing you can do at home to keep in shape (Keeping in my i already elaborated further on my previous statements of who i had in mind when commenting) and prevent losing muscle mass you are free to cite those sources, if not i will take the word over people who are actually trainers for a living with actual schooling behind them, with content that is scientific in nature over random joe on MMO-C offtopic. You are free to present me with video's that discredit Jeff Cavaliere, whos content isn't aimed at just beginners, so again feel free to provide me with something that tells me i am wrong otherwise i simply have to accept you are doing this based on your stereotypical view of fitness content creators and a bias.

None of your posts made has presented any point, they can all be summed up in saying: "oh you don't lift enough bro?! your opinion doesn't matter!", Again if i am wrong very easy to proof, take your past posts and show me those crystal clear points you made.


So in short, you are saying that only absolute beginners can maintain muscle mass nobody else can without a gym and i am flat out saying you are wrong and proof it.

Dispute my points, don't go off on a hurt feelings rant.

[PACOX]

Put gloves on and dont touch your face... done.

Gyms are common vectors for molds and fungi, which don't always care that you are wear gloves or not touching your face.

That problem is easily controlled if people are wiping and disinfecting equipment but usually doesn't happen.

[united]

I really miss the gym (and barbers)

[Sunseeker]

If you don't know how to exercise and stay healthy without a gym, you have much bigger problems.

[breadisfunny]

I don't think that's really fair or accurate. Access to specific pieces of equipment or personal trainers is probably a big drive for people who genuinely are there for fitness, and just because you use a stair machine your gym four days a week doesn't necessarily mean you're familiar with the proper body mechanics for body squats or whatever the fuck at your house. People like the machines because they are often easy to use and you don't need any kind of specialised fitness knowledge. Additionally, if you have a personal trainer at the gym who has always coached you through what to do, you may be somewhat lost without one at home. In fact, that seems like an especially useful aspect of a gym membership. I workout from home but I still pay for fitness coaching to customise my workouts, teach me how to do various things I have no idea otherwise how to do in a safe/proper manner (that you can't necessarily always get from, say, watching a youtube video), monitor my progress, and help me with problem areas. I would even go as far to say that I needed one when I first started because I was doing a lot of things wrong and hurting myself and was not doing the right exercises to help the things I wanted to help.

Do you need any of the machines or weights or whatever from the gym? Of course not. But it is entirely possible people genuinely don't know how to properly workout without them. And look, this is coming from someone who has literally never worked out in an actual gym in my entire life. The closest I've ever been is using the stationary bike in the clubhouse of my old apartment complex. So I'm definitely not holding some kind of pro-gym bias by any means.

(that said, I can't imagine using the gym as a social activity either. Who wants to meet new people when you are at your absolute grossest? Sure as fuck not me.)

this is why we have home gym workout stations?