Unfortunately, many states considered public gyms a non-essential business at the height of the pandemic. There is nothing more motivating than working out with people and being alongside those who care about their health and fitness as much as we do. At the same time, gym owners also deserve support since they are among the small business owners who most likely took the biggest hit during the public health crisis.
But with vaccines being rolled out across the United States, we might be seeing a return to normal soon, and ow may be a good time to open up your gym again. Here are some key tips for keeping it clean as we battle COVID-19.
Get rid of unwanted odors
With multiple people huffing, puffing, and sweating it out in an indoor facility, you can expect that there will be a lot of unwanted odors in your public gym. Combat this problem by investing in an ozone treatment for facilities or cars, which can eliminate unwanted smells like food, smoking, indoor, pet, or musty odors.
Everyone knows how it feels like to enter a public gym or locker room and be greeted by the unpleasant odor of dried sweat—and this is the last thing we want our customers to experience once we open up our gym again. The best part about investing in one machine that can do this job is that you can use it anytime, without the need for opening windows or incorporating better ventilation into your facility.
Invest in clean but effective products
If you want to ensure that your facility and equipment are clean but you’re not entirely sure about which products to use, peruse the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website and check which products they have approved for cleaning and disinfecting. Making the switch to EPA-approved products means choosing those that contain safe ingredients for the environment and human health.
Make sure to study how to identify clean-and-green products in the supermarket and opt for them instead of your run-of-the-mill products that contain more harmful chemicals. Clean products can do the job of sanitizing just as well, but we can be assured that human beings won’t be inhaling toxic ingredients and that we’re only letting out particles that won’t harm our planet.
A step-by-step guide to disinfecting your public gym
Disinfecting your facility entails more than just a regular dust-up. After you’ve done some tidying up and sweeping the floors, it’s time to do some deep cleaning. If you’re planning on doing this yourself until your business recovers enough for you to be able to hire a more permanent cleaner, here is a step-by-step guide to ensure that you’re keeping yourself safe from being infected:
- Wash your hands for at least twenty seconds. Make sure to use water and soap, and lather the soap into every area of your hands and wrists.
- Wear personal protective equipment (PPE). There are cheaper ones from Amazon that you can invest in, and you can keep wearing them whenever you have to clean and disinfect your facility.
- Spray the products onto the hottest spots of your gym, like handles, doorknobs, levers, countertops, and other high-touch surfaces. Leave the products on for the amount of time the label recommends, wipe them down using a clean cloth, and do so in the same direction.
- Once you’re done wiping down every area you feel needs disinfecting, immediately remove your PPE and rewash your hands. Dispose of every cloth you used during the process.
Keeping it clean
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises people not to visit a gym if the facility does not have a mask policy and social distancing. This is why it’s important to put these rules in place:
- Add some barriers and visual guides to remind people to keep their distance. Some public gyms have even put up plastic barriers in between pieces of equipment.
- Stay updated on the CDC’s guidelines on wearing masks because the organization says that the guidelines can change as the trajectory of the virus changes as well.
- Don’t allow people to share lockers. Control the traffic in and out of your locker room to avoid overcrowding.
- Limit how many people can enter the facility at once.
All this may seem like a lot of work, but it’s worth protecting our customers and ourselves. Open up your gym again, keep it clean, and bask in the return of the world we knew before the pandemic.
