An 110 year old building is always going to need some upkeep, but when you have gym patrons coming in and out 24 hours a day, maintenance becomes a little tricky.
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When they were forced to close by the government's COVID-19 restrictions, Lithgow Fitness owners Lyne and Jody Presbury turned their negative into a positive.
They set to restoring the building.
"It was tough closing for the past 11 weeks, we were one of the first sectors to get shut which we thought was strange since it is health and fitness," Lyne said.
"But we turned our negative into a positive and set to renovating the place, and making it COVID safe."
The couple who did all the renovations themselves, repainted, put up new mirrors, fixed a deteriorating wall, cleaned the ceiling and the alarms and used recycled materials on the walls including a climbing wall,.
"We fixed up our little kitchen, bathrooms, worked on the mosaic mural putting steel behind it and tidying it up which was lots of work but it is a feature piece in the gym," Jody said.
"It really stands out and is part of the character of the building, I say it is an engineering feat."
There are new sanitiser stations, as well as hand wipes around the gym for users to make sure they are staying COVID safe.
"I am so happy, impressed and proud of ourselves and what we have achieved," Lyne said.
The couple said when they heard the message about gyms reopening they were excited but also panicked.
"When we found out we panicked because we had like 10 days to finish the renovations and we knew just cleaning the place would take at least two days because it looked like a bomb had hit," Jody said.
With lots of room in the building, the gym can host up to 170 people and still abide by the one person every 4 squared metres.
The gym which now has an industrial feel to it is open 24/7 and the owners couldn't have been more excited to see everyone "flooding" into the gym on Monday morning.
"We opened on Saturday and there were a few gym goers but on Monday around 9.30am they all came flooding back, lining up to check in," Jody said.
Jody said a woman was so desperate to get her husband out of the house during quarantine that she rang the gym.
"A woman rang offering us $1000 to let her husband come and train because I think he was driving her a little crazy, he had renovated the kitchen and done all sorts," he said.
"Unfortunately we had to say no, the fine for doing that is like $50,000 and we weren't going to chance it."
Instead the couple loaned out equipment for free such as weights and benches so that their members wouldn't have to buy workout equipment.
"Some of our members offered us like $50 for the equipment but we weren't trying to make money from it," he said.
The building which is deceivingly big, has two upstairs areas, two cardio rooms and three weight rooms means that clients can be spread out as they do their workouts.
"This has been our livelihood for 18 years, so to be back up and running is amazing," Lyne said.
The gym will continue running classes, with only 10 to a class.
"We will be using common sense, changing the format of the classes so people aren't having to interact with another person or use touch them and we will space ourselves out," she said.
The gym also has contact tracing for the members who enter, when they scan they can see who has entered on what days so if a case does arrive they can immediately contact the other gym goers.
The couple said they just wanted to welcome everyone back to the gym.
"Thank you for being patient and understanding, Jody, myself and the staff here at Lithgow Fitness Centre are very excited to have everyone back," Lyne said.
But it isn't just the staff that are excited, an unnamed gym goer who passed by the couple on his way out of the gym had a few things to say.
"This place is like a family, no one has chips on themselves and any one could come in and train and be welcomed," the man said.
"I love it."
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