When working out from home, knowing what gym equipment to get and how to use them are just the first steps.
You also need to learn how to keep home gym from smelling really bad.
Commercial gym owners clean their places all the time, and it is something that you might overlook with a home gym.
This would be a stinky and potentially hazardous mistake.
If you just let things take their course, you might end up with a dangerous home gym environment.
Fortunately, with a few simple hacks, you can prevent your indoor space from smelling like a neglected gym.
What Can Make a Home Gym Smell Bad?
Before we talk about how to prevent bad smells, we must first discuss why it smells in the first place.
What is it about human sweat that stinks, and why do the unpleasant smells come out minutes or an hour after a workout?
It is important to answer these questions first because it will help you understand better what needs to be done.
First off, fresh sweat is odorless. That is why you rarely smell it when you are right in the middle of your workout and your sweat is dripping.
However, your skin is home to countless microorganisms.
In fact, if you are like most humans, your skin would have over a thousand species of bacteria right now.
When these microscopic organisms mix with your sweat, a bad odor starts to come out.
So it all boils down to what type of bacteria is on you and how many of them there are.
That is why some people sweat a lot but do not necessarily emit bad body odor.
Conversely, some have a distinct smell, even if they are not visibly sweating.
Another thing that you need to consider is that your sweat does not just drip onto your skin.
It can also fall on your carpet, your floor, your gym gear, and other things in your workout space.
Again, these surfaces have their own ecosystems of bacteria that can interact with your sweat and generate foul odors.
That said, it is not just your sweat that you should be worried about.
Most homes are not designed to be used as gyms and may have bad ventilation or temperature control.
Also, your furniture might not be built to handle excess moisture.
How To Keep Home Gym From Smelling
Now that you have a deeper understanding of how unpleasant smells are made, it’s time to look at ways of preventing them.
Here are some tips on how to keep home gym from smelling:
1. Put Away All Dirty Gym Clothes
Many people love intense workouts. If you are like them, you feel that the more you sweat, the bigger your gains will be.
However, there is one thing that would take the brunt of all your huffing, puffing, and sweating: your workout clothes.
Your dirty clothes will absorb a lot of sweat and, given enough time, will produce tough odors.
To prevent these sweaty smells from accumulating in your home gym, ensure you put away your dirty workout clothes.
Even if you put them in a hamper, do not leave them in your workout space.
It might seem like an obvious thing to do, but it is quite easy to overlook when you have exercised yourself to exhaustion.
So make a habit of putting away all your sweaty clothes until it becomes second nature to you.
Another thing that you need to remember is to exercise in clean clothes.
It’s true that you are working out from your own home and don’t have to worry about other people.
Nevertheless, wearing clean clothes makes keeping the odor at bay easier.
2. Clean Your Gym Space and Equipment Regularly
Cleaning exercise equipment is another effective way to keep the smell of sweat from taking over your home gym.
That said, there is good news and bad news when it comes to the subject of tidying up.
The good thing is that it is fairly easy to do, and you do not have to be a cleaning expert to do it.
You can use a cleaning solution and traditional carpet cleaning methods to get rid of the sweat smell.
However, it comes down again to consistency, which is the hard part.
You need to have the discipline to stick to a regular cleaning schedule. This way, you can nip things in the bud and prevent sweaty odors from building up before they become too hard to handle.
One trick you can try is incorporating it into your cooling down process. If it helps, you could create a “cleaning playlist” with 15 to 20 minutes’ worth of songs that are not too intense.
3. Don’t Forget the Floors
As mentioned above, you shouldn’t just focus all of your attention on your clothes or your gym equipment.
Your sweat often drips on other surfaces, especially your floor. So whether you use carpets or rubber tiles or have a hardwood floor, you must clean it regularly.
Weekly cleaning should suffice for most workout spaces. If you feel that your home gym floor needs more TLC, you should go for it.
That is especially true if your living room, garage, home office, or other common area doubles as your workout space.
These areas often see heavy foot traffic and accumulate a lot of dust and dirt on top of your sweat.
If you have a carpeted floor, vacuuming it once a week is a good defense against bad odors.
For rubber floorings, you need to sweep or vacuum them first to get rid of as many particles as possible.
Next, mop the floor with a mixture of mild soap and warm water.
Ensure you do not get it too wet, so the cleaning solution does not seep in between the seams.
A similar method would also work with hardwood floors, except you need to mop the floor again to remove the cleaner.
4. Improve Air Quality By Opening Doors and Windows
Indoor air quality is very important for every home. It is even more so if you have a workout space inside the house.
The good thing is that, in most cases, it does not have to cost you anything to improve air quality inside your home.
You just have to open the windows or door for most of the days that you work out.
If you want, you could add a ceiling fan or a couple of stand fans to aid with air circulation. In any case, the idea is to let fresh air in to replace the musty air inside your home gym.
If you have air vents in your workout area, keep them open.
Some people tend to close their vents because they do not want to do climate control, especially in an unfinished basement. Avoid making the same mistake.
5. Clean After Yourself During Workouts
When you work out at a commercial gym, it is basic etiquette to wipe down any equipment after you use it.
This is true even if you did not sweat that much or even when there is someone hired to clean the area.
You should use the same approach even when working out in your home gym. It is not for someone else’s benefit but for yourself.
Giving your weight bench or treadmill a quick wipe after you use it will help get rid of the bacteria right away.
In effect, you are not giving them any chance to feast on your sweat and generate that ungodly stench.
Also, it will make things a lot easier for you when you do your weekly cleaning.
6. Invest in an Air Purifier
An air purifier is a very powerful device for eliminating bad smells, especially if it uses a HEPA filter.
This type of filter removes most of the contaminants in the air inside your home, which is better for your overall health.
The downside is that some air purifiers can be a bit expensive, and there is the cost of running them.
Nevertheless, if you can afford it, it would be one of the wisest investments you could add to your home gym.
You will eliminate not only the smell but also dust and airborne microorganisms.
7. Use a Dehumidifier
If your home gym is in your basement, purchasing a dehumidifier might be a good idea.
Basements are more vulnerable to moisture since they lie below ground level. Water could seep through, or there could be leaks.
Once they accumulate, they tend to create the perfect environment for molds and bacteria.
Under this condition, it would be very difficult for you to maintain a clean and odor-free workout space.
That is where a dehumidifier would come in. It will swap out the wet air with dry air, making it harder for molds to thrive.
8. Open a Box of Baking Soda
If there is still a bad odor in your home gym despite your best efforts, you could try one quick hack.
Open a box or two of baking soda and let it do the heavy lifting for you.
Most people use this method to get rid of bad odors in a refrigerator. It works for other places, too, including a home gym.
Baking soda contains sodium bicarbonate, which neutralizes acidic odors instead of just masking them.
9. Use an Air Freshener
Aside from baking soda, you could also try using air fresheners. However, note that many brands use chemicals that might be hard to breathe in, especially when you are working out.
So when shopping around for this product, look for one that uses all-natural ingredients, like citrus.
This way, you won’t just be masking your sweaty odor with something else that is repulsive or at least irritating.
Keep Your Home Gym Looking and Smelling Clean
A lot of thought goes into starting and maintaining a home gym, and it is very easy to forget about one important thing: managing the smell.
Fortunately, you can keep your workout space odor-free with these simple tips.
Do them until they become a habit, and you will enjoy a clean-looking and smelling home gym.