Cctv news(Reporter Zhu Chunyan) "If you don’t lose weight in March, you will be sad in April". Every year in March and April, it is a good time for gyms to engage in sales, but this year is different due to the epidemic situation. Will the gym that missed this spring usher in the peak season in May?
Wear a mask to keep fit.
On April 30th, Liu Jian, a fitness coach, finished exercising in his fitness studio and picked up disinfectant to kill bacteria. "I’m finally ready to welcome members". During this time, he always went to the studio to exercise alone, and then closed the door and left. He joked that it was spending tens of thousands of dollars every month to configure a luxury gym for himself. Liu Jian’s fitness studio is located in Chaoyang District, Beijing. It was closed during the epidemic and is expected to reopen in early May.
As the epidemic situation eased, many gyms opened one after another. Mr. Wu, the head of public relations for Super Orangutan, a chain fitness institution, told the reporter that half of the more than 100 classrooms of Super Orangutan in eight cities across the country have been approved and accepted by various places and started to resume business. During the epidemic period, the business should implement systematic epidemic prevention and control measures. When members enter the store, they must take temperature measurement, register their real names, check their health codes, etc., and increase store housekeepers to do cleaning, disinfection and hygiene management.
The reporter learned that many yoga studios in Beijing will also open for business. Phoenix Yoga staff said that after the class started on May 1st, the number of members in the class was strictly limited. Previously, the class that accommodated more than 40 people was changed to a maximum of 15 people, and members also needed to carry their own yoga mats to go to class. Yoga mats, towels, cups, etc. were no longer provided in the venue. She said that the venue has arranged to disinfect classrooms, auxiliary rooms, dressing rooms, public areas and toilets at regular intervals every day.
According to the Work Plan on Safe and Orderly Opening of Sports and Fitness Facilities in novel coronavirus during the Epidemic Period issued by Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau, at present, except swimming pools and underground sports and fitness facilities, other indoor sports and fitness facilities can be reopened.
Dapeng, the coach of an underground swimming and fitness venue in Beijing’s West Third Ring Road, told reporters that the membership card will be postponed. As for when the gym will open, the company is also waiting for a policy notice. Dapeng said that at this time in previous years, he would go out to hand out leaflets after giving lessons to members, "Learn about fitness swimming", but he has been unemployed at home since the Spring Festival holiday this year. Dapeng said that the company didn’t do anything during this time. "The boss has other business." In fact, he himself is not sure whether he can return to this gym to continue his work.
The life-saving straw "Cloud Fitness" will not stop.
On January 30th, the State Sports General Administration issued the Notice on Vigorously Promoting Scientific Fitness at Home, actively advocating scientific fitness at home. For each gym, driving home fitness has also become a lifeline for enterprises to survive.
The Music Carving Campaign, which focuses on private and small class teaching, has about 500 stores nationwide. After offline suspension, it spends tens of millions every month. Han Wei, the founder, predicted that the epidemic would cost Leke at least 100 million yuan, or even several times. During the Spring Festival, Han Wei assembled 100 employees to form a "death squad" to carry out online business, including recording and broadcasting small videos, live broadcasting and offering special courses, which were launched on platforms such as Aauto Quicker and Tik Tok. Yang Shuting, the public relations director of Leke, said: "Online live broadcast has broken the barriers of time and space and attracted a large number of users."
"Cloud Fitness" has become a must-have at home for a time. The super orangutan opened the "Super Scarlet Squat in the Home" on a live APP, and the number of online users in the first live broadcast exceeded 170,000, becoming the TOP1 anchor on a live broadcast. Mr. Wu, the head of public relations for Super Orangutan, said that with the arrival of the resumption of work, the number of viewers during this period was less than that in the early days, about 50,000 people per game, and many users have developed the habit of watching live exercises together.
With the growth of users, "cloud fitness" has not only become a lifeline for gyms, but also attracted a large number of giants from outside the industry. Alibaba Entertainment, Suning, etc. also joined their sports institutions to continuously launch videos and live broadcasts of fitness guidance on the online platform.
For fitness coaches, "cloud fitness" is a challenge, and it also gives them more room to play. During the epidemic, Keepland opened a "cloud small class" to allow coaches to start classes online in the form of a two-way camera. Coach Wang Wei said that he has never adapted to enjoying "small classes in the cloud" now. "Although his income is not as good as usual, he is more motivated to use his own training logic to attend classes."
Probe into the boundary of fitness industry
Although the income of online teaching is far less than that of offline courses, many insiders said that online exploration has cultivated people’s habit of online consumption, and offline is still the best fitness choice in the future, but online will also be indispensable. Online and offline access will become a new direction of the fitness industry.
He Wenyi, executive director of China Sports Industry Research Center in Peking University, believes that if the fitness industry wants to innovate and upgrade, it is necessary to seize the opportunities and challenges in the epidemic, or it may be eliminated. The so-called opportunity is that it is very important for the fitness industry to grasp the innovation of fitness content and products after the epidemic has made people pay enough attention to health.
The manager of a gym store in Beijing said that due to the epidemic, the physical store could not operate normally, but the company launched the "2020 Anti-epidemic Memorial Card" to upgrade and innovate its products. In addition, online celebrity Store was launched earlier to explore the fitness venues in the new media era, making it a lifestyle platform, a club and a new social place.
Han Wei, the founder of Leke, summed up the model of the gym into three versions: 1.0 model, opening a store to earn money from a store; 2.0 mode, establishing an online platform mode to connect users with offline gyms; 3.0 mode, after establishing the online platform, self-operated offline stores, "connecting people and goods yards, and making money offline".
In the post-epidemic era, fewer people may invite you to "learn about fitness swimming" on the street, but there may be more and more advertisements recommending you to "buy chicken breast" on the mobile APP.