How Healthy Is Your Gym?

With gymnasiums and fitness centres popping up all over the place, seemingly everybody these days has a gym membership. Competition is rife and as such, many gyms are getting bigger and bigger, allowing for more facilities and even more members. Facilities in many gyms include a large variety of exercise equipment such as treadmills, cross-trainers, rowing and cycling machines, along with hot-tubs, jacuzzis, steam rooms, saunas and swimming pools in some larger gyms.

With all this apparatus and additional facilities, along with a body of staff whose job it is to assist you in your health and fitness regime, surely means the gym is one of the healthiest buildings in town, right? We'd like to think so, but is the gym or fitness centre you attend really as healthy as it should or could be? Equipment such a weight benches, cycling machines, treadmills and so on need to be kept meticulously clean between use as germs and infections can easily be passed around from person to person via such apparatus.

The average gym will have several people doing 'circuits' where they use a piece of exercise equipment for a short period of time before moving to the next. Has the press bench you're about to use been cleaned or at least wiped since its last user a few minutes ago? Has the control panel on the treadmill or the hand grips & saddle on the cycling machine been wiped since its last user? The warm and damp environs of the gym can be the perfect place for germs and bacteria to thrive and in the USA both MRSA and Legionella have been contracted simply by visiting a gym.

Infections including MRSA can thrive for days in a humid gym and are only killed when the area has been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. Also, in the warm and wet environment of the hot-tub, steam-room or sauna, Legionella can also thrive. Combating against the risk of infection is ultimately the responsibility of the gym or fitness centre itself, however those who attend can also take steps to make it a cleaner and therefore safer place to exercise. The management should have a fastidious cleaning regime in place backed up with initiatives such as undertaking a Legionella risk assessment backed up with regular Legionella testing.

For those attending a gym, the risk of infection can be minimised by using their own towels instead of using those provided. By making sure they don't leave a pool of sweat behind after using a piece of exercise equipment is a common courtesy for a good reason, and by giving each piece of equipment a quick once over with an anti-bacterial wipe will further protect yourself. Wear shorts or sit on a towel in the sauna or steam-room to avoid coming into direct contact with the wooden seats and wear flips flops to avoid picking up an infection from the floor.

We'd all like to assume the gym we attend caries out regular Legionella testing in their pool, hot-tub and sauna, but in reality we have no real way of knowing. You can however minimise the risk of Legionnaires disease by minimising your use of the hot-tub, jacuzzi or steam-room to once or twice a week at most. In the unlikely event you develop a chest infection, it is wise to contact your GP as soon as possible if you are a regular user of the hot-tub or sauna. When caught early, Legionnaires disease is treatable, but when left untreated it can be a killer.