Majority of Americans Don’t Support Gym Reopenings Yet, According to Washington Post Survey

Seventy-eight percent of Americans do not support their states allowing health clubs to reopen, a survey from the Washington Post and the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement found. The survey, conducted April 28-May 3 of 1,005 adults, also asked about reopenings of golf course, retail shops, barber shops and hair salons, gun stores, dine-in restaurants, nail salons and movie theaters. The majority of adults also opposed the reopening of all of these businesses in their states.

Democrats were less likely to support reopening of all these businesses than Republicans were. For gyms, only 10 percent approved of gyms reopening while 40 percent of Republicans did.

People were divided on whether they felt the worst of the pandemic was behind or ahead of their local community. Thirty-one percent said the worst was behind, 30 percent said the worst was happening now, 38 percent said the worst is yet to come and one percent said the pandemic is not a problem in their community. (One percent had no opinion.)

Fifty percent of American gym members surveyed don’t plan to return to their health clubs when they reopen, according to an online survey by RunRepeat, which gathered input from 10,824 gym members between April 24-May 1. The number of U.S. gym members who took the survey was 6,636. Worldwide, 47 percent of gym members don’t plan to return.

Even though Georgia has already reopened health clubs, that state had the highest number of people who said they would not return to their gyms right now (70.56 percent) followed by Maryland (63.16 percent), New Jersey (57.8 percent), Ohio (54.3 percent), Colorado (54.19 percent), Massachusetts (54.14 percent), Indiana (53.06 percent), California (50.29 percent) and Florida (50 percent). After that, the remaining states had more people (although many only slightly) who would return than who wouldn't. 

However, that same survey found that 64.3 percent of U.S. gym members do not plan to cancel their gym memberships. Ten percent have already cancelled their health club membership while 25.58 percent were considering cancelling. 

A survey conducted April 7-9 and featured on Statista.com found that 21 percent of Americans surveyed would not be comfortable going back to a gym for more than six months. Only two percent were comfortable coming back in the next two weeks while three percent said they would be comfortable in a month, 9 percent said in the next two months, 12 percent said in the next three months and 11 percent said in the next six months. Forty-one percent didn’t know when they would be comfortable returning or had no opinion.