Back Alley Fitness is closed due to COVID-19 public health restrictions. The gym is trying to make the best of it, renting equipment to clients for home use. (CHAT News Photo/Colton McKee)

By Chris Brown

Helping clients keep fit

Back Alley Fitness renting equipment to clients during closure, eager to reopen

Jan 12, 2021 | 3:05 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Back Alley Fitness was forced to close its doors again when enhanced provincial health measures were put in place in December. When that happened, the owners sprang back into action.

When the gym was closed in spring during the first round of provincial COVID-19 restrictions, Back Alley Fitness began to rent equipment to its members to use at home.

“We understand how important fitness and nutrition is to the general populace. There are so many barriers to entry. It is hard to get people into it to lead a healthy active lifestyle,” said Back Alley co-owner Colin DeWolfe. “So when you cut that out on people it’s very easy for them to just stop. Our community, it’s very important to them, it has become a part of their life for mental and physical health so we tried to facilitate that as best we could.”

He says it was a “gong show” the first time around. But they took the lessons learned then and were better prepared in December.

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Nearly all the available equipment was quickly snapped up and picked up. The gym took the orders, set a pickup schedule and everything went smoothly and safely.

DeWolfe, says the income helps but isn’t much more than a drop in the bucket when it comes to covering expenses.

More important for him was helping Back Alley’s customers maintain their fitness and nutrition at a time when they could have thrown in the towel.

“When it comes to mental health a lot of people think it’s about body image but there’s actually a lot of scientific research behind how exercise, the hormonal response your body has to it actually changes your mood and your attitude,” DeWolfe explains. “There are studies out there showing that exercise is just as important for people as anti-depressants if they are diagnosed with depression. It works on almost the same level.”

“Outside the whole, ‘I do this to look this way’ or ‘I lost weight and I’m trying to maintain keeping it off’ … it actually just elevates your mental state. The endorphins from exercising help calibrate what you do.”

He said there are odds and ends still available and some equipment may be brought back, but it will likely be scooped up quickly if it is returned.

Back Alley will continue to rent equipment as long as they are closed, something DeWolfe doesn’t agree with considering the lack of virus transmission that happens in gyms.

“When we look at the cases of transmission, the best example I can think of is, they announce there’s been zero cases in salons, and they follow up by closing them. From the business owner end of things, how do you justify making a decision?” he asks.

Gyms and salons were among the services forced to close by December’s enhanced public health measures.

He says if an industry isn’t contributing to the problem, then removing it isn’t going to help that problem. That applies to the fitness industry as well.

I’ve seen reporters ask, you know, ‘I’ve heard of nothing in the fitness community, why is this going on?’ and the answer is ‘We’ve seen it in other jurisdictions.’ Our policies and procedures province-wide have been successful and we’re still being reprimanded for what happened somewhere else. So it’s very hard to trust their I guess decision making at this point.”

Unable to pay themselves or their employees during closures, DeWolfe and his wife have taken online training in nutrition positions with an American company to help cover their own bills.