Minnesota gyms, fitness centers, and pools can allow more people into their facilities when COVID-19 restrictions get dialed-back starting Monday.
On Friday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced a major turn of the dials when it comes to the state's COVID-19 response. Included in those changes was an increase in capacity for gyms, fitness centers, and pools who will be able to hold up to 50% of their capacity.
The changes won't mean every gym or fitness center will be able to increase capacity, especially for smaller, community-focused gyms like The Power House which operates locations in St. Louis Park and Highland Park.
"The type of training we're doing requires equipment, racks for weights, and barbells," said Jill Stein-Lipset, who owns The Power House with her husband Max Lipset. "Unless we can have people within closer space, it's going to be hard to really increase our class sizes."
The Power House isn't like Life Time or Planet Fitness locations which boast large, spacious facilities with ample space for social and physical distancing.
While there is room to make classes work, classes at The Power House have been forced to stay relatively small to ensure people are safely distanced.
"We're at six-person classes, down from 12 or 15 person classes, at our Highland Park location," Stein-Lipset said. "We're at 12 person classes, down from 25 person classes, at our St. Louis Park location."
Stein-Lipset says they have developed strategies to keep class participants as spread out and safe as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each person has their own space, with their own equipment.
So far, there has been zero COVID-19 transmission linked to The Power House locations, according to Stein-Lipset.
Still, with the eased capacity limits, they won't be making many changes on Monday.
"We are just so vastly different in how we run compared to bigger gyms that it feels like the rules haven't fit us very well."
Despite not directly benefiting from the latest round of dial-turns in Minnesota, Stein-Lipset says they support the changes being made and remain dedicated to making their gym as safe as possible for the community.
"They don't want to come to the gym if they are not safe," Stein-Lipset said. "We are really dedicated to upholding the mask mandate and the distancing at all times. We have the highest air-exchange we can have every 12 minutes. We are also doing extensive cleaning every hour."
Minnesota Republicans applauded Friday's announced dial-back, but said Governor Walz needs to do more to help small businesses.
Representative Dave Baker (R-Willmar) says because of the six foot social distance mandate, many smaller restaurants don't have the ability to increase capacity to 75%.