Eddie Cortes, a Houston lawyer, thought he had gotten a jump on the competition.

He had seen toilet paper and hand sanitizer fly off shelves as the coronavirus pandemic worsened. He thought exercise fitness equipment would be next after gyms were closed in mid-March.

He was right.

Houstonians hoping to stay in shape have made a run on exercise equipment, flocking to fitness stores to assemble impromptu gyms to help them wait out stay-at-home restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus and the disease, COVID-19, that it causes. National chains began closing on March 16, and Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order that temporarily closed gyms later that week.

At Fitness Unlimited, 5911 Westheimer Road, store manager Andy DeGroff said he sold a six-to-eight-month supply of free weights in a week. Customers snapped up more than 12,000 pounds — six tons — of barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells, DeGroff said.

BOOZE RUN: Houstonians flood liquor stores after bars shut down by coronoavirus

More Information

Read More

“It’s been outrageous,” he said. “As soon as the gyms shut down, the influx started.”

The gym and exercise equipment manufacturing industry generated $2 billion in revenue in 2019, according to a report by IBISWorld, a global market research firm, The majority of those products were treadmills (29.7 percent), followed by ellipticals and step machines (26.8 percent ), exercise bikes (11.9 percent ) and free weights (10.2 percent).

In Houston, free weights are most in-demand, retailers said. Across Eclat Inc.’s nine Houston fitness equipment stores—which include Fitness Unlimited, Preowned Fitness and Winston Fitness—all free weights are sold out.

“We can't keep up with it,” DeGroff said.

Hard to get

Complicating the situation, free weights and other equipment are becoming increasingly hard for retailers to get.

Many of the major manufacturers have either moved operations overseas or turned to foreign contract manufacturers over the past decade due to lower production and labor costs, according to IBISWorld. China, which closed many of its factories to stem the spread of the coronavirus in January, accounted for an estimated 65 percent of exercise equipment imported into the United States.

Domestically produced equipment hasn’t been much easier to restock in some cases after manufacturers closed as part of the social distancing efforts aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

FOOD AND FEAR: Coronavirus fears spark panic buying at grocery stores

At Texas Fitness Warehouse, in northwest Houston, customers initially rushed to snap up free weights and benches but have increasingly bought larger items including treadmills, ellipticals and bikes as gyms remain closed, said owner Marsha Taulton.

Texas Fitness Warehouse has been in operation for 15 years. In that time, it has rented treadmills and sold equipment to consumers and even hotels. In recent weeks, Taulton has seen individual rental requests for treadmills , soared from 20 per month to about 40 per day.

She said overall sales have jumped 40 percent.

“This is a lot. I can’t even accommodate that much,” she said. “I didn’t expect anything like this.”

Scavenger hunt

Cortes hoped to preempt the surge. But it took him three days to scavenge for weight plates, kettlebells and a curl bar for his home gym—a hunt which took him to three Academy Sports + Outdoors stores.

“I kind of felt like I was in The Walking Dead scavenging for stuff in different places,” he said. “Usually that stuff is fairly full but sure enough, every store that I went to, there were people looking around for stuff.”

Cortes was a competitive powerlifter in his late teens, but he stopped lifting with any regularity into his 20s.

Motivated by the passing of friends and co-workers who died of heart attacks, he began to prioritize his health about two years ago, joining fitness-related Facebook groups and starting to exercise again. His recent purchases were part of a larger project to rehabilitate his dilapidated weightlifting bench in an effort to continue working out during the pandemic.

TEXAS INC.: Get the best of business news sent directly to your inbox

That will be much easier with a refurbished home gym, although he intends to keep his LA Fitness membership when the chain reopens.

“I’ll still go,” he said, “but at least I know if there’s an off day or a late night, I have the equipment here.”

glynn.hill@chron.com

Loading…