With more than six months of rent arrears, Helen Li, who bought into her South Melbourne yoga studio business just over two years ago, is under enormous financial stress.
"I need to be strong to push through the uncertainty," she said.
"To repay the rent and interest owed during the epidemic, I must keep the yoga studio open."
Once indoor gyms, fitness and dance classes begin again in Melbourne on November 9, they will only be able to fill to a capacity of 10 people per class, with a density limit of one person per 8 square metres and 20 people per venue overall.
At 125 square metres, Ms Li's yoga studio can only fit 15 people.
She is keen to retain her customer base, but says it will be hard to make money for the business under those density and class size limits.
"We have already had too many people begin booking classes for the classes starting November 9," Ms Li said.
"But the cost of running the business would not be covered by these small classes."
After being forced to close at the end of March, Ms Li opened her studio doors briefly on June 22.
Only 17 days later, she had to shut the business due to the tighter COVID-19 rules and regulations.
Ms Li said she was busy working on the reopening of her studio by booking yoga instructors, cleaning, doing a class schedule, and developing a thorough cleansing routine, gearing up to the official reopening on November 9.
"As long as I can keep myself alive for the first few months, I think I can make a comeback," she laughed.
Premier says changes will be made when possible
When asked about the issue on Tuesday, Premier Daniel Andrews said New South Wales was "a little further along" its path to reopening and all the measures in place would be reviewed over the coming weeks.
"And if we can make any changes, we will," he said.
"And we do know that that industry has been hit very hard. And if there's further support that we can provide to them, in whatever form that might take, we'll definitely look at that."
The Government has also released more detail on its rules around masks in fitness centres, which it says should be worn where possible.
"In a gym this is likely to mean that when running on a treadmill you don't wear a mask, but you do wear a mask if you are doing bench weights, stretching or doing Pilates," a government spokesperson said.
"The strenuous nature of exercise within a gym is one of the reasons for the one person per 8 square metres rule — this means there are fewer people in the space and if more people are wearing masks, there is a greater protective barrier against this."
Businesses say interstate examples offer 'blueprint' to safe reopening
Northcote F45 business owner Chris Scales said after weeks in lockdown, his clients were "really over" online workouts and had taken to the opportunity for two-on-one workouts in significant numbers.
"We're doing about 130 sessions a week, which is just massive," he said.
"And now again, you're getting that extra wave that want that group training element."
He said the feedback from clients to the news that indoor classes would return from November 9 was "huge".
"We're all really happy that we are going back inside, everyone is really excited," he said.
Mr Scales said other fitness businesses had been working within restrictions interstate, providing a "blueprint" for those in Melbourne to reopen indoors.
He said his business would adopt 15-minute spacing between classes, temperature checks, hand sanitising as well as masks and gloves for trainers to reduce the risk of potential transmission.
"So what we've got planned is that we'll have a taped-off 4-square metre area, your members will come in, they'll stay in that area, they'll have their own equipment around them, they'll do the whole session in that area, they'll wipe down and they'll leave after the class," he said.
Mr Scales said he could see how limiting class sizes to 10 while allowing up to 20 per venue made sense in some settings, where smaller rooms of a gym might be used for spin classes, for example.
"But if we've got 15-20 people all in their own section with their own equipment … I don't see how we couldn't do that," he said.
"If you're having 10 people within a 200-square-metre place, it's hard to maintain your pre-COVID business model."
