Norway has opened their gyms and Covid19 where the virus is declining without a rise in infections. Gyms may be safer than we thought.

Norway has opened its gyms and Covid19 where the virus is declining without a rise in infections. Gyms may be safer than we thought.

If you are a regular gym person, Covid19 has affected your daily routines for staying healthy.  Sure, there are some innovative folks that are taking personal training outdoors with socially distanced classes but it is not the same and can be weather dependent.

Norway has reopened their gyms as their numbers have decreased and so far, there is not been a rise in COVID cases.  This is good news for those who love their gym but in NJ, gyms have remained closed including those that offer one on one training.  While personalized training may be very safe, so far the state has not wanted to reopen them yet.   Perhaps, this new study published in the NY Times can offer a strong argument for doing this safely providing gym owners and their clients honor some simple rules.

The study was performed at 5 gyms in Oslo with 3,764 members, ages 18 to 64, who did not have underlying medical conditions. Half of the members — 1,896 people — were invited to go back to their gyms and work out. They were required to wash their hands and to maintain social distancing: three feet apart for floor exercises, and six feet apart in high-intensity classes. The subjects could use the lockers, but not the saunas or the showers. They were not asked to wear masks.

Another 1,868 gym members served as a comparison group; they were not permitted to return to their gyms. During the two weeks of the study, 79.5 percent of the members invited to use their gyms went at least once, while 38.4 percent went more than six times. Some were overjoyed to restart their routines.

The results? The researchers found only one coronavirus case, in a person who had not used the gym before he was tested; it was traced to his workplace. Some participants visited hospitals, but for diseases other than Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

There was no difference in hospital visits between the groups, and there were no outpatient visits or hospitalizations because of the coronavirus. The findings were posted online on Thursday but had not been peer-reviewed nor published.

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