Will We Ever Get the Gym Back?
Editor’s Note: This article is part of “Uncharted,” a series about the world we’re leaving behind, and the one being remade by the pandemic.
It’s Day One of the reopened future, and as people have always done when it’s time for a new start, you head to the gym. Well, hold on. We should begin before Day One, because you’ll actually have booked this time slot the week before. It’s good for 90 minutes. Don’t be late.
You grab a door handle wrapped in germ-repelling vinyl and walk inside. A Bluetooth-enabled beacon at the front desk recognizes your phone and checks you in. The receptionist takes your temperature and hands you a towel, plus a colored wristband that’ll help the staff remind you when it’s time to go. Hopefully you brought some water with you, because touchless bottle fillers have replaced the drinking fountains.
[Read: Pandemic dining: temperature checks, time limits, and dividers]
You put your things in a locker and then walk out onto a fitness floor where alternating treadmills are unplugged, where roaming maintenance workers with specialized sprayers coat the equipment in clinging antiseptics, where extra-strength-Purell dispensers lurk in every sight line, where people lifting weights wear latex gloves, and where gym-logo masks dot the faces of all the people who forgot their own.
Later, you’ll head into a yoga class with a dozen other students, spaced out in a studio built for 50. The teacher will be physically distant but attentive; you’ll sense the breathing around you and follow the lead of your classmates for the poses you don’t know. You’ll remember what it’s like to be in a room designed for a single thing, with other people who are also there for that thing. Then you’ll go back to the locker room, grab your stuff, and head home to shower. No flip-flops necessary!
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