| Photo: Courtesy of Best Life |
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You know your gym is germy, and that's why you always bring your own water bottle, towel, yoga mat and shower shoes. You haven’t let your bare skin touch the stretching mats since you first joined, and no one needs to tell you to wipe down the treadmill control panel before you press "GO." But you may not realize where else viruses and bacteria may be hiding, says Michelle Kennedy, MS, a Best Life fitness expert. Take these extra precautions, especially with the CDC's recent announcement that flu season, significantly delayed this year, is just getting started.
Disinfect the disinfectant containers: Think about it: you see people spraying and wiping everything in the gym—except for the spray bottles and wet wipe receptacles. Wipe them off before you put them down for the next germaphobe to use.
Store your gear high: Even fastidious gyms don't get around to cleaning every single locker every single night. The bottoms of the lockers tend to be the dirtiest because that's where people tuck away their outside shoes, says Kennedy. She always hangs her clothes and gear from hooks so that they come in contact with as few grimy surfaces as possible.
Don't co-mingle your clothing: Kennedy points out that most people don't think twice about taking off the shorts that just spent an hour on the stationery bike (one microbiologist found the fungus Candida albicans, which causes yeast infections, on exercise bike seats all over New York City) and tossing them into a bag with clean clothes, books and other items. She suggests a sports duffel with separate pockets for shoes and sweaty gear, like this one.
Read more:
A primer for good gym hygiene
Foods that can boost your immunity to colds
How healthy is your gym?
| Photo: Courtesy of Best Life |
If you have a question, send it to us!
Q: I've started to worry about old-lady bones. What can I do to keep mine strong?
You know Bob Greene loves this question, right? It not only shows that you're proactive (bone density, like height, fertility, and, Jane Fonda reassures us, self-consciousness, decreases with age), but it also gives him a chance to praise the virtues of something he's been passionate about for over 30 years: vigorous exercise. "When you're working out hard the body doesn't say, 'This person is already 50; time to throw in the towel,'" says Bob. "It says, 'Whoa! This is still an active individual whose muscles and bones aren't meeting the challenges that are being imposed on it. Let me make those physiological changes.'" But when it comes to bone-building, not all exercises are created equal. The moves must force you to work different parts of your body against gravity, and muscle pulling on bone will trigger specialized cells to begin building more bone. Bob's favorites include jogging for at least 30 minutes ("Amazing for building more bone in the legs," he says), a weight routine with overhead presses, squats and lunges (you can do these strength-training moves at home) and hiking uphill with a pack ("This strengthens the muscles around the spine," he says). Are none of these working for you? Perhaps you're injured, or you don't live near the mountains, or you're just looking for something you haven't heard before. Well, Bob's got more ideas:
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