Is it safe to train in fitness clubs during corona?

In many European countries including the Netherlands, the government has closed fitness clubs to prevent COVID-19 infections. Is this justified? What about the risk of infections in fitness clubs? EuropeActive and ThinkActive (2020) published a report in collaboration with SafeACTIVE in December 2020 on COVID-19 cases in fitness clubs in Europe. A total of 2,362 fitness clubs and leisure centres from 112 organizations in 13 different European countries participated in the study. In the study, a total of 59,999,476 club visits were recorded from May 4th to October 25th (week #19 to week #43 2020). In Figure 1, you can see the results of this study summarized.

Total Club Visits	Number of COVID-19 Cases among Club Members	Number of COVID-19 Cases among Staff	Ratio of Positive Cases per 100,000 Club Visits
59,999,476	311	196	0.85

As you can see from the figures in Figure 1, the COVID-19 infections contracted in fitness clubs from May 4th to October 25th are particularly low, namely 0.85 per 100,000 club visits. The study also looked at the number of cases in different types of fitness clubs. In this part of the study, the numbers at some types of facilities were sometimes very low, so caution should be exercised with these metrics. It is particularly striking that boutique fitness studios score high per 100,000 visits (10.2). See Figure 2 for an overview.

Type of Facility	Number of Visits	Member Cases	Staff Cases	Cases per 100,000 Visits
Boutique Fitness Studio (n=4)	68,625	7	0	10.2
Budget Fitness Club (named low-cost club as well) (n=27)	44,169,861	88	113	0.5
Community Leisure Centre (including indoor and outdoor facilities) (n=1)	140,981	0	0	0.0
Mid-Market Fitness Club (n=50)	12,054,848	126	68	1.6
Premium Fitness Club (n=21)	3,541,584	85	15	2.8
PT/Specialized Studio (n=2)	8,557	0	0	0.0

The most obvious explanation for this is that these studios are on average small in size, so they provide less space to maintain distance. In studios under 500m2, the case ratio per 100,000 visits is 9.2, while facilities of 2000-5000m2 show a ratio of 0.9. Even though studios score slightly higher, they remain a safe place to exercise with a particularly low risk of infections.

References

1. EuropeActive & ThinkActive (2020). An independent assessment of COVID-19 cases reported in fitness clubs and leisure facilities across Europe. A report by: Jimenez, A., Mayo, X., Lopez-Valenciano, A., Dalton, C., Del Villar, F. Luque, A., Broughton, L., Wade, M., Shakespeare, J., Copeland, R.J. Brussels, December 2020.