As we ever so slowly start to see the beginnings of everyday life seeming more familiar, quarantine upended our daily routines from schooling to shopping. Mel Johnson, owner of M3 Studios in Hopewell Borough, shares the two trends he has seen from the effects of quarantine from a fitness and training perspective.
MJ: While many of my clients were able to train with me virtually, there were clients who preferred to train in person and only recently have come back over the past few months. Whether people took a break from working out in person at the studio or continued to train virtually, quarantine life affected many of my clients in various ways.
Because so many people’s daily routines changed, their daily movement and activity also changed. People who commuted to an office were no longer getting dressed and wearing dress shoes. They weren’t sitting in their cars for hours a day or walking across a large parking lot to get to their office. Clients who traveled for business were no longer lifting heavy suitcases, sprinting through an airport to prevent a missed flight or walking up a flight of stairs with bags in tow because the escalator was out of service.
Big, sweeping, wide range of motion movements from everyday life got smaller when the commute disappeared. Hours of daily commuting or regular travel was reduced to a walk to the in-home office, spare bedroom, or the kitchen island. Lifting and reaching for suitcases in the overhead was all but a memory.
And from all of this, the most common issue that I am seeing is a reduction in mobility across the board. Many people are most likely familiar with the importance of flexibility and strength training in their overall fitness programs. Mobility is the ability to move the body freely (without pain or stiffness) from one position to another.
Examples:
The ability to get on the floor and play with your kids or grandkids
The ability to open the fridge and not pull your back out while reaching for the eggs
The ability to wash your hair without shoulder pain
As clients have come back, the evaluation process starts before they even enter the studio by observing how a person might get out of their car, get off their bike, or the way they may sit down. By observing mobility, I can determine the areas in need of rebalancing in order to get back to proper form and function.
Types of exercises that can help to increase mobility: https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness-exercise/joint-mobility-exercises
Like so many other businesses affected, M3 Studios was not immune to a pandemic business-model overhaul. We now offer virtual training which has allowed clients to maintain their workouts while out of town for a few days or when they are away for longer stretches as in summer or winter.
In addition to virtual personal training, we are also piloting “Open Studio Hours” for my current client base and will be opening up Open Studios Hours in September for new clients.
Many people are no longer comfortable going back to the indoor gym environment and so we came up with the Open Studio Hours concept as a solution for the unmet need in our community. People are looking for a safe, clean environment in which to workout and M3 Studios can guarantee that environment.
We opened M3 Studios thirteen years ago based upon the concept of marrying the privacy of working out in your home with all the equipment and personal training expertise required for safe and effective workouts. We have said, “keep your gym membership, but personal train at M3”. With Open Studio Hours, we are marrying the concept of a private personal training studio with the ability for clients to work out on their own with one personal training session per month. There’s nothing new with that concept; gyms have been selling that with memberships for years. What’s different about M3 Open Studio Hours is that the one personal training session per month, is serviced by me, an expert trainer, not the random floor trainer available that day.
For more information about M3 Open Studio Hours concept and pricing, please visit www.m3studios.net. M3 Studios is located at 5 Railroad Place in Hopewell Borough.
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Note from MercerMe: This article is sponsored content thanks to our advertising partner, M3 Studios!
