NORFOLK, Va. — Good news for the more than 45,000 active-duty personnel who work at Naval Station Norfolk: the base's two of three gyms are back open.
They've been closed for months because of COVID-19.
The Navy has standards for maintaining optimum health, physical, and mental stamina. The idea is for sailors to develop their physical ability to complete tasks that support the command mission and Navy operational readiness.
So, keeping fit is important in that way. And for some sailors, it's just kind of a way of life.
"Definitely, I just come here because I enjoy it, being able to come to a gym and doing all these different things is huge for me," said AWS3 Harrison Lutz.
But for over four months, after the COVID-19 outbreak hit, all three Naval Station Norfolk gyms were closed.
Now, two of the gyms are back. They're now open from 5 a.m. until 10 a.m., then they close for deep cleaning. Then, they open up again from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., then another hour of cleaning.
Finally, they open once more, from 3 p.m. until 8 p.m.
"The biggest thing is spacing out. You know, spacing out. And wear a mask is what we've been doing a lot of. Also, the cleaning, regular cleaning by both the patrons and our staff," said Naval Station Norfolk Fitness Director Anthony Benning who is just glad to be able to offer this free service again. "We support the sailors. We love to support the sailors. So being back in here and seeing the sailors back in, it's nice to have that normalcy for all our staff as well."
Lutz can now resume coming to the gym five days a week.
"Definitely made me pretty happy to be able to just know that I was going to be able to come here and kind of blow off some steam and also a place to relax and sweat it out and be able to work on myself," he said. "It's definitely a morale enhancer and a mood improver."