According to recent data released by the real estate firm Avison Young, Downtown Vancouver’s office vacancy rate has now surpassed 10%. To add some perspective to this statistic, the last time the vacancy rate broke the 10 percent threshold here in Downtown Vancouver was in the last quarter of 2004.
Now the most obvious reason for the high vacancy rate in the Downtown core is primarily at fault of the Global Pandemic we’ve all been living through for the better part of the past 3 years. COVID-19 took millions of lives, permanently shut down hundreds of thousands of businesses, and destroyed many people’s livelihoods, their health and our food systems.
At the same time, COVID-19 transformed the way that many companies operate and as a result of the lockdowns that were enforced by Governments across the Globe, transitioned to having the vast majority of their employees work from home. Even though we are all still feeling the impacts of COVID-19, the world has now returned to a somewhat relatively “normal” state in 2023 (despite rising inflation, high-interest rates, and a looming recession). People are now allowed to return to their offices. Yet for many people, those offices no longer exist. Fortunately, many people still have their jobs, but now most of these jobs are being done from the comfort of their own homes (at least 2-3x/week).
Whether I agree or disagree that this new era of Hybrid Working is a good thing or a bad thing for businesses is somewhat irrelevant to this week’s blog. However, I do question the impact and the side effects that working from home has and will continue to have on people’s mental health and physical health long term.
Is Hybrid Working Negatively Impacting Our Health?
Like most small businesses, our business took a hit during the beginning stages of COVID-19. Fortunately for us, we have a solid roster of clients that were able to continue to work with us both in-person with masks on at our private training facility and online throughout the pandemic. COVID-19 has helped us grow our online training revenue substantially over the past 26 months. With that being said, it hurt our small group classes as once gyms were allowed to re-open, group training was still not permitted. And eventually, once group training was given the green light to restart again, many of our group class participants were still working from home. This of course made it challenging for those clients that did not live close to our gym and in the past would come in for their classes during their lunch break or after work. As a result, even with the best of intentions to work out from home, many of these clients stopped working out completely.
Does Working Out From Home Work?
If you want my honest opinion on this – NO. Working out at home most certainly does NOT work for the majority of the population. Now of couse, like anything there are exceptions to this. If you have a squat rack, barbells, dumbbells/weighted plates that weigh more than 25lbs and a few cable machines that allow you to target your back and arms from multiple angles, then I do believe you can get a fairly good workout at home. But if you’re stuck playing with a few 5lb dumbbells, a random kettlebell, a swiss ball that is in desperate need of inflation, and a cheap elastic band, then my opinion is that your workout is going to suck and offer little to nothing in the form of results.
And yet, even if you have a somewhat decent setup at your home gym, how often and how long are you going to use it? Most home gym equipment either sits around gathering dust or gets used sparingly throughout the week. There is nothing and I mean NOTHING that is less motivating to me than working out from my home. My home is my sanctuary. When I’m in my home the last thing I want to do is squat 315lbs for reps or do a 48 set back workout. I just want to rest, relax and pour myself a neat scotch.
So Did COVID-19 Fuck Up The Fitness Game?
I think for many people it really did. It was already challenging enough to find the time to workout for most people prior to COVID-19. This global pandemic that closed gyms and shut the world down for an extended period of time was and still is responsible for breaking people’s good habits (exercising in gyms regularly) and replacing them with bad habits (excessive drinking, staying at home watching TV).
I am a firm believer that most humans crave and function better with a regular routine that they can follow. Numerous studies have proven that routines have the power to improve our sleep, reduce anxiety and boost our cognitive function, and can even have an impact on our mental health problems such as depression and bipolar disorder. The Coronavirus disrupted our routines, and for many of us, it’s become a challenge to get back on track.
I can sit here and list off all the benefits that regular exercise/resistance training can offer to you, however if you’re not self motivated enough to break your current routine and get your ass back to the gym, then those benefits will seem meaningless to you and wasteful to me.
“You’ve got to stay strong to be strong in tough times.”
Tilman J. Fertitta
Yours in Good Health,
Nick Cosgrove
Forever Fit Performance