Cin­e­mas re­mained closed but most of the pop­u­lar gyms in South Trinidad re­opened for the first time in three months yes­ter­day. Adapt­ing to the new nor­mal, some fit­ness en­thu­si­asts walked with their own sani­ti­sa­tion sprays and wipes as they cleaned the equip­ment be­fore us­ing it. For many of them, get­ting to the gym was like en­ter­ing par­adise.

“I feel great. I have been ex­er­cis­ing every day for the past 17 years. I am al­most 70 now and I am just hap­py to get back to my work­outs,” Rad­hi­ka Ra­j­nauth ex­claimed while do­ing leg press­es at the Fit­ness Cen­tre in South Park. 

Den­zil Layne al­so said he missed pump­ing iron and was thank­ful to fi­nal­ly re­turn. 

“It is an amaz­ing feel­ing be­ing here. I feel so hap­py and en­er­gized. This is like my sec­ond home,” Layne said.

Pen­sion­er Reuben Satoo said he too loved to ex­er­cise and missed his dai­ly gym work­outs.

Dur­ing his time at home dur­ing the COVID-19 lock­down, Satoo said he felt de­prived.

“I think they should have re­opened the gyms a long time. We on­ly had eight deaths. They could have left the bor­ders closed to their con­ve­nience but the gyms should’ve stayed open be­cause peo­ple stay fit and healthy through ex­er­cise,” he added.

Cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the Fit­ness Cen­tre Vin­dra John said she was sur­prised at the num­ber of peo­ple who showed up to work­out.

“We had over 40 peo­ple be­tween 5 am to 10 am. It was re­al­ly sur­pris­ing,” she said.

She not­ed that the gym has so­cial dis­tanc­ing in ef­fect and every piece of equip­ment is sani­tised af­ter every use.”

How­ev­er, at the Gulf View Fit­ness Cen­tre, su­per­vi­sor Ri­car­do Mungals­ingh said they had cut the open­ing hours be­cause of a low­er turnout. He said class­es have been dis­band­ed un­til fur­ther no­tice.

“We have had a 20 per cent re­duc­tion in cus­tomers. Be­fore we op­er­at­ed 24-hours but now we have cut down from 4 am to 10 pm,” he added.

Marisa Khan-Lutch­man and Lis­san­dra de la Cruz who were seen train­ing for the T&T Body Builders Fed­er­a­tion cham­pi­onships which are sched­uled for lat­er this year, al­so said they were pleased to be back in the gym. 

Khan-Lutch­man said she ex­per­i­ment­ed with work­outs at home but this was not suf­fi­cient for her train­ing. Say­ing she felt the COVID-19 re­stric­tions had ham­pered her abil­i­ty to com­pete ef­fec­tive­ly, Khan-Lutch­man said she was thank­ful to be in the gym once again. 

At South Park, best friends Mar­i­lyn La­m­ont and In­dra Sinanan sat down for break­fast.

The friends said the COVID-19 pe­ri­od was dis­tress­ing for them.

“We like to come out and have break­fast to­geth­er. We have been friends for 45 years,” La­m­ont said.

She ex­plained that they now looked for­ward to en­joy­ing a movie at the cin­e­mas. 

How­ev­er, even though Movi­eTowne cin­e­mas were sched­uled to be opened, they re­mained closed yes­ter­day.

Main­te­nance crews were busy at work clean­ing down every seat and cor­ner. The cin­e­mas are sched­uled to be re­opened lat­er this week once all works are com­plet­ed. (See page 15) (RDS)