Covid-19 (Corona Virus) Update
11/25 Update With the holidays
I just wanted to give a quick update to the gym and how we are trying to continually stay safe and also remain open.
We are still of course limiting how many people are scheduled at any one time. With this, please try to stick to your schedule. Late cancellations have been a pretty big problem recently. Please understand that when you cancel the day of you are not only affecting our schedules, but also the ability for others to use that time slot to come in and train. We have had a lot of clients not be able to schedule because we thought we would be to full at certain times. We of course try to schedule these same clients if we have a cancellation, but many times it is too late. Obviously if you are feeling sick or have just found out someone you’ve been in contact with has Covid-19, then of course cancel and stay away.
If you are traveling for the holidays or are having a giant get together we also ask that you stay away for a week to make sure you and no one else at your party has any symptoms. We of course do not want to stop anyone from seeing friends and family, but we also need to make sure our family at the gym stays safe and can remain open. We will help with in-home workouts if you will be away from us for a week or so too.
The above mentioned also applies to college kids who are coming home and wish to come back into the gym. I know many of you have been tested regularly, but if you haven’t and you have been out at parties recently then we ask that you stay away until you can confirm no one you were with has been infected. We may also set aside specific times for college kids only to be in the gym. Tonight (Wednesday before Thanksgiving) is normally a big night for gatherings. Obviously everything I said above applies to tonight as well.
We are open as normal today, Wednesday the 25th. Tomorrow (Thanksgiving) I will be opening the gym to workout myself in the late morning. If others would like to come and do a conditioning workout please message me separetly. We will still be limiting the amount of people of course, so don’t just show up whenever you want. Friday the 27th and the rest of the weekend will be business as usual.
Also, please have a mask with you when you come to the gym. All rules listed below for occupancy and cleaning still apply. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Happy Thanksgiving!
6/5:2020 Gym Rules
* Don’t pay too much attention to the spotting rule. We will obviously still make sure no one drops a weight on themselves when the weights are heavier.
5/30/2020: Green Phase Reopening
As most of you have probably heard, Allegheny County will be moving to the Green Phase on Friday, June 5th. This means that we are able to reopen again! We will be taking extra precautions still. Our goal is to make sure everyone is comfortable coming back into the gym. To do this we will be limiting the number of people in at one time. A MAXIMUM of 12-14 people will be in the entire studio (2100 sq ft) at a time. This will be coordinated with the other trainers who are working out of the gym too. I don’t expect this to affect most personal training clients, but those that are in groups, open gym, or high school programs will have less flexibility than before. We plan on opening extra hours as needed on the weekends to help spread all of our clients. We would appreciate anyone volunteering to move their normal training slots to a weekend day/time, but that is in no way required. Conditioning Class on Saturday mornings will not be available for now; however, we will plan to move class outside for most of Summer. Also, warming up before workouts will be very limited. Normally I would love everyone to get in 10-15 minutes early to walk and get ready, but to make sure not too many people are in the facility at one time don’t plan on coming too early for the time being. If you do get in early I suggest you take a walk outside (weather permitting).
If you’re ready to schedule, text or email me. danknorr@becomebettersppt.com - 262-408-9750… I am available to answer any questions or concerns too, don’t hesitate to reach out.
I look forward to seeing you all again very soon!
-Dan Knorr
5/3/2020: Phase Reopening
As the state slowly starts to reopen I wanted to give an update on our plans for the gym and where we stand with the different phases. As it stands currently, gyms are apart of the “Green Phase” for reopening. Since we are much different than a normal commercial gym we are trying to get an exception made for our facility to be apart of the “Yellow Phase” instead, but I don’t have high hopes for that happening. Regardless of which phase we are in we will be taking extra precautions when we open. We will of course be cleaning all equipment after each use, and do deeper cleans every weekend. We will also be more strict on our occupancy numbers. We will likely stick to only 1-1 or partner training throughout most of the day. Small groups will be very limited to when the gym doesn’t have other clients. In addition, we will not do any large group training such as conditioning class on Saturdays. Anyone apart of the open gym/semi-private or High School groups will need to schedule in advance, similarly to normal personal training clients in order to minimize the amount of people at the gym at any one time. We realize this will make it harder to get in, but it will keep the gym from being crowded which we hope will make everyone more comfortable when coming back and of course make it safer as well. When we get more information on dates to reopen I will of course update everyone again and have more specific information on how we will move forward. Those that “froze” your accounts, you will not be required to start up your membership again until you feel you are ready and safe.
Thank you to those that have donated to Nik and Joey, prepaid for sessions when we reopen, and/or have continued to follow our programs online during this time. This has helped us substantially. The business was also finally approved for a PPP loan through the SBA which will help us stay functioning even if we still can’t open for awhile. If anyone has any questions, comments, concerns, or just wants to say hi please don’t hesitate to reach out. I have plenty of free time. If you’re looking for a good read and want to see what we’ve been up to, check them out here:
3/16/2020: 8:30 pm
As of right now, the governor of PA has requested a mandatory shut down of all non-essential businesses. This unfortunetly includes us. So after tonight we will be closed until we are allowed to re-open. Health and fitness for all of our clients is our #1 priority and will continue to be during this time. We hope this closure will stop the spread of this virus and get us back to our normal lives as fast as possible. In the meantime, we will do our best to provide each and every client of ours a workout that they can do at home without us. We will create individual plans for anyone who wants one with whatever equipment that they have available. We will also loan out basic equipment such as bands, dumbells, and plates when requested (we don’t have an unlimted supply, but we do have extra bands on the way to our gym now). All of this will be free to our clients. We will however accept donations of any amount for any of these services. We will also offer skype/facetime training, or possibly even in-home training (if allowed) for anyone when requested. Your normal sessions/rate will suffice for these. Please contact us if you would like to pick up equipment or get a customized plan. We are currently working on videos of demonstrations of each exercise that will be on your workout. It will take us a little time to get everything done, but we will be working all night until it’s ready for everyone. Click here to see what we have done already.
Don’t be shy, contact us with any fitness/nutrition need/question. Please don’t let this stop you from Becoming Better.
Stay Safe.
- Dan Knorr
3/15/2020, 10:00 pm
Things change so fast. Allegheny calls for voluntary shut down of non-essential businesses.
This is voluntary so we still plan to stay open. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a mandatory shut down in the near future, but for now we are still going to be open. Many of our clients have specific health and fitness goals they are trying to achieve and we would like to help them as much as possible by staying open. If anyone would prefer us to send them a workout they can do on their own at home please contact us and we promise to get you set-up right away.
Again, we totally understand if any clients wish to not come in. Just let us know as soon as possible and let us know if there’s anything we can help you with while you’re stuck at home.
Keep checking back here or on our social media pages for more updates.
Thank you.
3/15, 4:00 pm
With many closings around the country we wanted to give a quick update on our plans during the next couple weeks.
Yes, we are open as normal. We don’t have any plans on closing unless we are forced to by some sort of government regulation or the outbreak gets substantially worse. We will keep everyone updated with anything that changes.
We are doing the best we can to keep our gym clean and safe. We will never be a totally sterile facility like a hospital, but I guarantee we are much different than typical commercial gyms. First of all, between all of the trainers and their clients, we only have about 200 people (if that) that come through our gym in a whole week and rarely more than a dozen at any given time. Secondly, we will be cleaning equipment constantly throughout the day. We have already done some extra deep cleaning using a stronger industrial grade disinfectant, and we will also continue to clean before and after every client. Many commercial gyms have 100+ people in the gym at one time, 1000’s/week, and don’t have people cleaning all that often. So when you hear that gyms are one of the worst places to be during all of this, I want to assure you that I don’t believe they are referring to small private places like we have. Whether you are in the gym with us or not, remember that exercise can help boost the immune system.
We still understand if people are hesitant about coming in and would like to take some time off from us. Especially for those that are considered high risk. If you are planning on taking some time off please let us know ASAP so we can adjust our schedule. We would appreciate it if we didn’t get a text message an hour before your session. Here is some information on those that are considered high risk.
For those that are coming. Please wash your hands before touching any equipment. Also, please help us out and wipe down anything that you use. We have extra spray bottles around the gym with paper towels for everyone to use.
If you are feeling sick, then please don’t come. This is a good general rule of thumb anyway, but being on the more cautious side is probably best for now. For more information on the symptoms of Covid-19 Click Here:
Scheduling:
This is especially important for the high school/college kids and others with flexible scheduling. Please let us know when you are planning on coming in. We really prefer 24 hour notice when possible. With people being off work and school our busy times may change. We would like to keep people spread out as much as possible.
If anyone else would like to change their normal times please let us know.
Please don’t hesitate to come to us with any questions, concerns, or any other information that you feel could help us keep all of us as safe as possible.
Thank you
-Dan Knorr
Our information in the hyperlinks have come straight from the CDC website along with Medline Plus of the National Institute of Health.