Temporarily Unemployed Government Workers Now Have No Excuse Not to Work Out

Boston Sports Club is officially giving furloughed government workers who can’t go into work or receive a paycheck this week no excuse to skip their workout.

In a bit of smart public relations,Town Sports International Holdings, Inc., which operates Sports Club franchises in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington D.C., is offering anyone with a government ID free access to their facilities until the shutdown ends. Lest you think that’s not applicable anywhere but the D.C. locations, note that the Boston Herald estimates that over 8,000 Massachusetts residents couldn’t go into work today because of the shutdown. In a press release, the company says:

Furloughed workers are facing the stress of a temporary lay-off. To help ease the burden, [we] are offering laid-off government workers a free pass to all of the company’s 161 fitness facilities and no-fee group classes where they can take a stress-reducing yoga class or work off some steam on an elliptical machine.

This is especially clever—from a company known to capitalize on big news stories—because it’s targeting people that are a) stressed about money and b) suddenly have a lot of unscheduled time on their hands. Speaking of which, the promotion isn’t available during the 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. rush hour when the rest of us are trying to get our workouts in. (Believe us, you’d much rather go at 2 p.m. anyway.)