Northampton personal trainer offers training and safety advice for those heading back to gyms

After four months of gym closures, many gym-goers will be running on the treadmill and using bench presses once again when doors are allowed to reopen today (July 25).

But after such a long period of time of not being able to visit gyms training plans will need to be adapted and the gyms themselves will look very different to how they did pre-Covid.

To prepare gym-lovers for the new normal, Tristan Stowe, who is a self-employed trainer and owner of Revamp Fitness, has offered some much-needed health and safety and training advice for people who will finally be going back to the gym.

Tristan said: “Loads of people will have been doing a lot of walking and Instagram workouts.

“If people were doing heavy weights before lockdown they will probably be looking forward to going back but they shouldn’t be lifting as heavy as they were before.

“It is likely we will have all lost a bit of strength and technical skill so the risk for injury is high, so I suggest starting with fewer sets and lighter weights.

“Have a few weeks doing 50 to 75 percent of what you would have been before and work your way back up.

“And the advice is to only spend 45 minutes in the gym so plan your workout before so you know what you’re doing as soon as you get there.”

In terms of health and safety, Tristan believes the new measures will encourage generally better gym etiquette that should have been practiced pre-Covid.

He added: “There are a lot of positive measures that have been introduced to gyms.

“Due to social distancing, equipment has to stay in the same place so even benches that would be movable, will not be allowed to move, so you’ll never feel like people are training on top of you.

“And gym etiquette will improve. A lot of people don’t put their weights back, but they will have to.

“There will also be a lot more cleaning and staff will have things like sanitising guns that spray a mist and members will have to clean equipment after they’ve used it, which should have been happening anyway.

“Face to face training is something to be wary of as well, especially if it’s high intensity and encourages heavy breathing. Do it side by side instead.

“Extra things people can do to help protect themselves and others is to bring a large towel that can easily be put over a bench or the piece of equipment they are using so they aren’t actually touching the equipment.

“Again this is probably something that should have been happening anyway.”

Tristan is also expecting usual peak times at busy gyms to change due to people still working from home, which, alongside reduced capacity will help to aid social distancing.

Although there will be far fewer concerns at his own studio in Kingsthorpe where he trains clients one-to-one.

“Training in a studio hopefully reduces a lot of these risks all together," Tristan continued.

“There should be no difference at all to the training and it will be a lot easier to manage the cleaning and people going in and out.”

To help people with their gym return, Tristan will be offering a free back to the gym taster session.

More information about this can be found on his website.

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