The Coronavirus Pandemic has dominated the year 2020 and has affected everyone, directly or indirectly. Some have battled with the virus directly and some have had to alter their lives due to lockdown and various other restrictions put forth by governments worldwide in a bid to control the spread of Covid-19.
One industry that has been severely affected by lockdowns is the fitness industry. Health officials suggest that there is a high probability of the COVID virus being easily spread while working out in an enclosed environment especially gymnasiums, where a number of people work out together using various equipment.
This, in turn, has affected gym-goers and fitness trainers alike. Job losses, sporadic income, difficulty in maintaining health are just some of the effects on every one that is associated with the industry.
Celebrity nutritionist Rihana Qureshi from Get Fit With Rihana elaborates, ‘There is no doubt this Lockdown has been a challenging time for everyone – personally and professionally. But in between all this chaos, we observed a changing trend – that people had started prioritizing their health over everything else. We saw this as an opportunity to reach out to a broader audience with content focused on raising client awareness. It actually helped us engage with our audience. In fact, we recorded a 37% increase in our sales in Q1 of 2020 compared to Q1 of 2019. ‘
Shifting to online training from going to the gym earlier has also been a major change, Rihana says, ‘Personal meetings with clients shifted to calls & video calls, training sessions shifted to zoom. I was able to save a ton of traveling time and consult/train more clients in that time. Back-to-back training and consultations kept me so busy, that it hardly felt like a “lockdown” to me. I was holed up at my favourite place (home) doing my favourite thing (training/consulting clients). I am happy that so many of my clients too were able to make the most of this time. We have had some fantastic client success stories in this lockdown. ‘
A lot of celebrities also shifted to exercising from home during quarantine, some of them even posted videos and photos from their workouts.
Virat Kohli who was holed up in his Mumbai home during the COVID lockdown in July 2020 had posted a video of himself doing Power Snatch Lifts.
Jacqueline Fernandez was seen executing the perfect Surya Namaskars from home.
Malaika Arora, known for her gym looks was making sure she kept her body in shape by doing Yoga at home.