This Gym With Plastic Sheet Pods Might Be The Only One That Won’t Get You Covered In COVID

Let's get physical! 🏋

Miss going to the gym? Inspire South Bay Fitness in California set up plastic sheets in their workout pods to observe social distancing amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

📷 AFP/Frederic J. Brown pic.twitter.com/knvHtgLxFO

— Philstar.com (@PhilstarNews) June 16, 2020

KTLA – The pods took three days to build using shower curtains and pipes — a lower-cost alternative to installing plexiglass dividers, [Inspire South Bay] gym’s owner Peet Sapsin said.

Gyms and fitness centers have been shuttered for months as the state grappled with the spread of the coronavirus.

“It’s been really tough, we weren’t sure if we were gonna [be] able to reopen again,” Sapsin said. “But because now that we’ve come up with this solution, it’s a lot more affordable and, now, we can reopen back up a little more safer and healthier for our clients.”

Only nine gymgoers will be allowed inside at a time, nearly half the gym’s usual capacity, he said.

Here’s a picture of Peet showing off the admittedly pretty clever handiwork:

The similarly sized gym in my apartment building opened back up yesterday and, I have to say, I’d feel a MILLION times better if my gym resembled this one. I’ve gone both days because I desperately have to combat the caloric ravages of quarantine and I’m totally going to get coronavirus from this experience. An indoor gym with unmasked people working hard, even if socially distanced and less in numbers, with exceedingly good air circulation is a bad situation. There’s aggressive machine cleaning but, still, all it takes is one person in that gym taking a heavy breath while asymptomatic. If that virus hits the fans or HVAC vents, we are all getting a hefty dose of the ‘rona.

And this gym? Maybe it looks stupid to start, especially if you don’t have the weights you need as readily available in your little cube. But there are a lot of positives. The open air in the back should give the gym some sort of “outdoors” component, something that helps lessen the spread of the virus. That, plus social distancing, plus these pods limiting people spraying spit everywhere is a recipe for making this work as well as you can.

So sure, it’s all a little dystopic and Black Mirror-looking. But I like the ingenuity and hustle that Inspire South Bay showed here. They may have the last laugh when I want to rip my lungs out when their gym creates no new cases while I get COVID from hitting the elliptical for five minutes without a mask.

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