C8 The BulleTin • Sunday, March 28, 2021
The power of touch: Boutique
stretching thrives amid COVID
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BY JULIE CARR SMYTH
The Associated Press
CENTERVILLE, Ohio —
Pandemic-weary Americans
starved for human interaction
and physical touch are taking
advantage of a growing well-
ness option once reserved for
Hollywood actors, rock stars
and elite athletes: boutique
stretching.
“It’s like a workout, but
you feel way more flexible,” a
masked Kelly O’Neal, 51, said
as her leg was being pulled
across her body during a re-
cent session at a newly opened
StretchLab studio in Center-
ville. “I get plenty done after I
get done here because you just
feel like you’ve warmed up re-
ally well.” She said her legs and
feet ache after her shift at a gro-
cery store in southwest Ohio
— often plus overtime because
of COVID-19 demands.
Others cite some intangibles
offered by assisted stretching
during the coronavirus.
“It’s really nice to be touched.
It is,” said Laura Collins, 39,
who visits a StretchLab near
her home in White Plains, New
York, twice a week.
“We’re being deprived of so-
cial interaction, we’re being de-
prived of hugs and people who
are familiar, and ... it’s just so
comfortable being there.”
Even before the pandemic,
assisted stretching studios —
with names such as Stretch
Zone, Stretch Pro, LYMBR and
Stretch*d — often featured just
eight or 10 widely spaced tables
in a shared area they say is con-
ducive to good air circulation.
Kory Floyd, a professor of
communication and psychol-
ogy at the University of Ari-
zona, said activities that pro-
vide social interaction and
some relief for “skin hunger”
can help people manage stress
better.
A lack of casual touch —
holding hands, hugging, put-
ting one’s arm around some-
body, shaking hands — can
have a significant negative im-
pact, Floyd said.
Touch, he said, “is benefi-
cial even when we don’t have
a solid, strong emotional con-
nection to the other person”
— which can be the case with
assisted stretching.
“We may not even know the
other person, and yet we can
still benefit in part from just
the attention and the sense of
connection that we have, but
also from the touch itself.”
Loren Anthes, who fol-
lows the health care industry
as a researcher at the Cleve-
land-based Center for Com-
munity Solutions, said stretch
studios appear to be using a
franchise model to offer lower
prices for services resembling
physical therapy and mas-
sage but delivered without the
overhead and certifications re-
quired of skilled nursing facili-
ties or hospitals.
He said the concept sounds
like a hybrid between rec-
reational fitness and insur-
ance-covered wellness services.
“The essential question we
have to ask ourselves related to
any of these organizations that
spring up is are they causing
folks harm,” he said.
“And as long as they’re not,
or purporting themselves to be
licensed medical professionals,
then I don’t see much of a dis-
tinction between what they’re
doing and offering a gym
membership or a Pilates class
or anything like that.”
Desperation for physical
touch and socialization during
COVID-19 lockdowns came
just as the stretching indus-
try was already transitioning
from an elite service centered
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Julie Carr Smyth/AP photos
Tara Albarron, 32, works with client Ron Bryant, 55, of Beaver Creek, Ohio, during an assisted stretching ses-
sion at StretchLab in Centerville, Ohio. Assisted stretching is intended to improve range of motion, flexibility
and circulation, among other benefits.
Kelly O’Neal,
51, of Ketter-
ing, works at
an assisted
stretching at
StretchLab in
Centerville,
Ohio.
in places like New York, Mi-
ami and Los Angeles to a retail
model, said Vanessa Chu, who
co-founded Stretch*d in New
York City three years ago.
“Our goal has always been
to make it highly accessible
to people — accessible from a
price standpoint, from a loca-
tion standpoint,” Chu said.
That includes taking some
activities and training online.
Another business, Stretch
Society, with two locations
in Georgia, has added one-
on-one stretching to its Stick
Stretch classes and other offer-
ings, according to its website.
Beth McGroarty, vice pres-
ident for research at the non-
profit Global Wellness Insti-
tute, said growing interest in
stretch coincides with a new
focus in the fitness world on
recovery rather than just ac-
tivity.
“Stretch was definitely a
trend going into COVID and
probably got ramped up be-
cause of it,” she said, noting
that ClassPass found that
stretch classes were among the
most popular online during
COVID. “I mean it’s ancient, a
lot of this stuff. It’s just getting
an update.”
Every company is a little dif-
ferent, but the technique gen-
erally involves a trained prac-
titioner elongating a client’s
muscles to somewhere past
where they could get them on
their own, and the client offer-
ing resistance for a period of
time.
Sessions in Centerville range
from $49 for a 25-minute
stretch to $95 for a 50-minute
stretch.
Four-, eight- and 12-month
packages are also available,
as are family plans and group
stretches.
No accreditation is yet avail-
able for stretch technicians.
Stretch companies typically
require a certification and ex-
perience in another bodywork
field, plus additional train-
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ing in their particular method.
Janna Proctor, who owns the
franchise in Centerville, said
the studio’s recent opening at-
tracted practitioners hurt by
the economic impacts of virus
restrictions.
“We had 40, 50 qualified
candidates apply,” she said.
“Because PTAs (physical ther-
apy assistants), personal train-
ers, massage therapists, all the
backgrounds we were looking
for — that prior knowledge —
they were all out of work.”
Nationally, 1.4 million fit-
ness industry employees lost
jobs as a result of the corona-
virus pandemic as of Dec. 31,
according to statistics from
the International Health, Rac-
quet & Sportsclub Association.
Amid revenue losses of over
$20.4 billion industrywide,
more than 17% of health clubs,
gyms and studios have perma-
nently closed.
Chu said Stretch*d is train-
ing hundreds of people around
the country through courses
that moved online during the
coronavirus.
“It’s going to be coming to a
lot of different markets now,”
she said.
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