Pandemic may change fitness industry forever

Great demand

Ng found people's demand for a good sweat, stretch and de-stress at home or in small spaces is growing as more people have to stay home longer amid closures of gyms and entertainment venues.

In tutorial videos, Ng concentrates on focused strength and stretching exercises. He also works with his wife, a yoga instructor, to show how couples can do home workouts together.

The AASFP now also provides an eight-hour online fitness training course for home workouts.

Fitness equipment for home use is in great demand amid gym closures.

According to Decathlon Hong Kong, a sporting goods retailer, resistance bands and dumbbells are popular in its offline and online stores. When China Daily searched through some home-use equipment in the Decathlon Hong Kong online store on April 15, two kinds of resistance bands and five kinds of dumbbells were shown to be out of stock.

A 27-year-old freelancer journalist surnamed Liu bought a yoga mat in April after her yoga class at a gym was suspended.

Liu downloaded a fitness app and followed some fitness influencers on social media. The young woman has more options on the internet, but she said she will return to the gym to have classes after the pandemic. She prefers to work out with an instructor telling her whether she is doing the exercises correctly.

"Different people will make different choices. Online fitness classes just provide us with more options," Liu said.

Making a bigger cake

The coronavirus pandemic temporarily imposed a negative impact on the city's fitness industry. Business may not recover quickly even though they were reopened after May 8, Chau believes.

"Some people still prefer to work out at home for fear of COVID-19 infection in the following months," Chau said.

The global health challenge will be a boon for the industry in the future, Chau believes.

"People are aware of the importance of boosting their own immune systems and enhancing overall fitness by doing exercises. Therefore, more customers will enter the market, either online or offline." he explained.

Chau disagreed that the boom of the online fitness industry will be a threat for the businesses of the offline world. "On the contrary, the boom makes the cake of the fitness industry bigger," he said.

The development of the online fitness industry also provides gym trainers with more options.

Chau said the off season is a good opportunity for gym instructors to strengthen their own competitiveness by learning more exercise techniques.

Tourism and catering industries also have been seriously hit by the city's months-long social unrest and the pandemic. According to the Tourism Board, the number of visitors to Hong Kong in the first quarter decreased by 80.9 percent from the same period last year.

The city's joblessness has been surging. According to the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong's jobless rate soared to 5.2 percent, the highest in more than 15 years, for the period from February through April.

Given that, Chau suggested laid-off young people take personal training courses and sit certification exams to prepare for the changing field and make themselves more marketable.