Before the coronavirus pandemic, Wendi Kelly exercised in the therapy pool at the Centre Club to ease the pain she felt in her joints due to fibromyalgia.
Then, after Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order on March 16, the Centre Club, with facilities in Gurnee and Libertyville, as well as other Lake County group exercise venues, including park districts, closed.
Kelly was able to continue her exercise routine, albeit not in a pool, at her Grayslake home by watching free online videos and live classes offered by the Centre Club.
She enjoys seeing her favorite teachers during the online classes. She also does yoga following a free online program.
Many Lake County workout clubs are offering free or low-priced online exercise classes – from yoga and aerobics to piloxing (a combination of pilates and boxing) and meditative belly dancing.
“After we shut down the club on March 16, we were filming instructors at their homes to be shown on Facebook live the very next day,” said Jodi Ryczek, group fitness supervisor and event coordinator at Advocate Condell Center Club Gurnee.
“In between the Libertyville and Gurnee clubs, we offer 150 classes per week,” Ryczek said. “We wanted to keep our members healthy and engaged with their Centre Club.”
She teaches an online piloxing course, which has had more than 5,000 Facebook page views in a little more than a month, she said.
“A lot of people that are not even our members are” taking the online classes. People can take live classes or videotaped classes, by clicking on videos on the website: https://www.facebook.com/advocatecentreclub.
“The biggest comment we’re hearing is that it’s giving folks a little sense of normalcy,” Ryczek said. “It’s a little bit of what their normal routine was, and that’s comforting to a lot of people.”
When offering online exercise classes, safety is first and foremost, Ryczek, added.
“Though we can’t replace actually being in the same room to give one-on-one personal attention, we can remember to give cues about safety in the online classes,” she said.
Kelly said she set up an area in her office studio where she can watch Ryczek and other teachers lead online classes. Her husband John connected a television screen to her computer, and she keeps a yoga mat on her floor.
“That really helps me to stick with it,” Kelly said.
“In this time of quarantine, it’s been helpful for me to say that’s my exercise area,” she said. “I’m not really one for going out there a lot. I have not been to grocery stores. I’m a high-risk person. I have asthma. It’s not safe for me to go out there.
“It is important for me to get my blood going and get some exercise. It really does help my mood. It’s important for me personally to get those endorphins going.”
Kelly added she likes the Centre Club classes because they suggest modifications for people like her. Doing a deep lunge is too much for her, she said. “They have modifications you can do, which I really appreciate.”
She said she just uploaded an hour-long belly dancing class from Centre Club. It’s something she’d likely never try in a group setting. “But I can do it at home alone when no one can see me,” she said.
Ryczek said the belly dancing class Center Club offers online is restorative. “It almost has a calming effect,” she said.
If there was ever a time when people needed to do a combination of movement and getting calm and centered, now is the time, said Andrew Gurvey, who owns Total Body Yoga in Mundelein with his wife Julia Jonson.
“Yoga has always been a great tool we use to navigate life,” Gurvey said. “People are feeling out of sorts. They’ve lost their jobs, their livelihood. It’s a big struggle for people.”
It’s been a struggle for Total Body Yoga, too, he said.
“When we had to close our doors, it was either let our business completely fold or switch formats,” Gurvey said. “We decided to switch to an online format.”
The studio offers online live classes through Zoom for a reduced price of $12 per class. “We also realized not everybody will have money at this point, so we’re offering a sliding scale of prices on the Zoom app,” Gurvey said.
For people who cannot afford to take the live classes or aren’t using Zoom, Total Body Yoga has a video page with 19 classes that can be taken for free and at any time. (totalbodyyoga.com)
“There’s yoga there for everyone,” Gurvey said. “We do feel strongly that people should continue practicing yoga like they were before. We don’t want to turn anyone away.”
Vicki Repsholdt has been taking Total Body Yoga classes once or twice weekly for six years. It’s where she finds a sense of community and keeps centered, she said.
She’s now participating in the online classes. Recently retired, she changed a work room in her Mundelein home into a yoga room.
“I put a yoga mat down. I moved a TV from my basement (to hook up to the computer), and I also had a bunch of old workout tapes. I’ve been doing a mix of them and yoga,” Repsholdt said.
She said while going through a difficult transition period leaving her job, yoga helps. “It makes me feel calm,” she said.
“I missed the owners Julia and Andrew,” she added. “I signed up for their live classes. I really feel very good when I see them because they’ve been part of my life. I hear people talking about belonging to a gym. They have friends there, teachers there. It’s like a community.”
Having an online yoga community keeps Repsholdt motivated to work out she said.
For more than a month, the Waukegan Park District’s website has been offering online fitness challenges and a four-minute workout.
“Residents enjoyed those, so we kicked off live classes on April 13,” said Kaitlin Fischer, manager of sports and fitness for the Waukegan Park District. “It’s a way for us to make sure we’re helping the community as much as we can, even though people can’t come into our facilities.”
Cindy Zamudio, the district’s recreation specialist, said fitness instructors are teaching classes people can do at home easily with minimal equipment.
“We wanted to make it fun and easy, so people can stay motivated,” she said. “They’re 20-minute classes. You get a good work out.”
The classes are free for anyone who signs up for them on the park district’s website (waukeganparks.org). Zamudio welcomes questions about the online exercise routines at czamudio@waukeganparks.org.
Average attendance for the group online exercise classes has been 25 to 30 people, Fischer said.
Health clubs and park district recreation centers that offer group exercise will remain closed at least through the end of May.
“I know everybody can’t wait to get back,” said Ryczek of the Centre Club. There’s nothing quite the same as being in a group taking a class together, she said.
But in the meantime, working out with online guidance makes sense, she said. Physical exercise not only helps the body, but it’s also “good for the brain.”
Ryczek offered suggestions to those just starting an online exercise program:
* Set aside a clear safe space in the home.
* Start slowly. Don’t do too much too soon, or you could risk injury.
* Create a scheduled time to do exercise.
* Choose classes with names that include words such as gentle or low-impact.
