Optimizing Cleaning in Fitness Facilities

Optimizing Cleaning in Fitness Facilities

Optimizing critical fitness facility cleaning protocols will help ensure that post-COVID membership numbers continue to grow during the crucial first quarter and beyond.

Optimizing Cleaning in Fitness Facilities

Cleaning is Critical to Fitness Facility Success

Cleanliness is an essential element in any fitness facility--ensuring the safety and health of members and staff.

Maintaining high levels of facility hygiene is especially critical during peak membership periods, like January.

The reason being is that an increase in membership means more people touching the equipment more often--right in the middle of cold and flu season.

Unlike COVID, common colds and the flu are generally spread through touch--for example, contact with a treadmill handle that a previous member sneezed on and didn't wipe down well enough after using.

In more conventional public facilities, increasing occupant handwashing with soap and water could help offset the increase in foot traffic.

However, given typical public gym dynamics, the only practical and proven method for combatting the spread of illness in that environment is to increase cleaning frequencies and effectiveness.

 

Cleaning Matters for Member Retention

While January may account for 12% of new gym member signups, most of those members will be gone before the end of February.

For gyms with additional revenue streams outside of membership sales, such as personal training, event hosting, and product sales, catering to the more lucrative needs of long-term members will require an investment in enhanced cleaning products and processes.

According to the IHRSA;

[...] a March 2021 study by global consultant Simon-Kucher & Partners reveals that restaurant customers are likely to spend more than two times as much money at establishments they feel meet their cleanliness standards, making a sanitary facility truly “table stakes.”

In fact, notes the study, lower menu pricing is not receiving the same attention as food safety post-COVID-19. Sanitation standards have become among the top purchase criteria for consumers.

Those standards extend beyond the restaurant business into general retail expectations on the part of consumers.

Customer experience management software and services company Intouch Insight recently produced its spring consumer habits study, which explored changes in in-store customer expectations due to COVID-19.

Topping the list were ensuring that customers wear masks or face coverings and improved cleanliness.

Other key findings in the Intouch study included higher customer expectations that retailers would provide cleaning materials for customer use; 82% of respondents said they feel more comfortable entering a store when hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes are made available for their use.

The 'New Normal' Makes Next-Level Cleanliness Crucial for Clubs

 

How Germs Spread in Gyms

It's not sweat.

Sweat contains natural antibiotics and is known to kill pathogens and bacteria.

Unless the sweat travels over an open wound before falling off of you, it is highly unlikely to carry any disease.

According to Insider;

Sweat can [...] kill pathogens, which is a scientific term for microbes that cause disease.

For example, dermcidin, produced when we sweat, is a type of antimicrobial peptide that can puncture the outer membranes of bacteria or viruses.

Scientists believe that sweat produces 1,700 types of natural antibiotics that can "rapidly and efficiently kill invaders" after an injury.

These natural substances may also be more effective long-term than prescribed antibiotics, since bacteria and viruses can't quickly develop an immunity to them.

Though some types of viruses can spread through bodily fluids like mucus or saliva, these viruses — including ebola or hepatitis B virus (HBV) — are also unlikely to be spread through sweat.

Overall, sweat won't carry germs unless it passes over an open cut or infection, as the sweat could pick up the germs from the wound.

Does sweat carry germs? It's unlikely to transmit viruses

Germs are brought into the gym by the staff and members.

Sometimes they're on their hands, but more commonly are on the bottom of everyone's shoes.

Most often, they are brought in by people who are sick and contagious and are spread by coughing and sneezing onto all of the high-touch surfaces found throughout a public gym--everything from exercise equipment and door handles to water fountains and vending machine buttons.

Once the germs are on a surface, they can pass to multiple occupants, who can spread them even further--contaminating the entire gym at an exponential pace.

All from a sneeze.

 

Tips for Optimal Cleaning in Fitness Facilities

Gyms should be cleaned daily with a commercial-grade soap-based detergent applied with microfiber, then disinfected, preferably with an electrostatic sprayer.

That includes restrooms, locker rooms, and showers.

However, waiting until the end of the day when everyone is gone to clean the equipment will result in poor facility hygiene during the day when it is occupied.

To keep germ levels manageable, protect the staff and members, and increase the likelihood of improved membership and retention numbers:

  • Employ a day porter cleaning service to roam around the gym and clean up after guests and replenish soap, sanitizer, wipes, and paper towels.
  • Encourage members to clean up workstations and wash their hands before and after working out by placing sanitation stations that include hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes at key points in the gym, next to entrances, and adjacent to restrooms.
  • Use gym-safe, one-step cleaner/disinfectant solutions to improve efficiency and;
  • Put up signs around the gym encouraging members to wash their hands with soap and water often and to clean up their workstations before and after use with the provided disinfectant wipes.

 

References & Resources

 

Takeaway

Staying on top of fitness facility hygiene is paramount for the success of gyms across the country, post-COVID.

Gym members are far more educated now than in the past regarding the importance of high-quality cleaning practices and products and how that affects their health and safety.

However, onboarding and managing the requisite labor and material resources necessary to ensure the highest standards of cleanliness are achieved and maintained may prove cost-prohibitive for many organizations.

Outsourcing is a proven method for onboarding highly in-demand cleaning and disinfection services and experience for a fraction of the price of maintaining a similar service in-house.

If you would like more information regarding the effectiveness of high-performance infection prevention and control measures, or if you would like to schedule a free, no-obligation on-site assessment of your facility's custodial needs, contact us today for a free quote!

In Bakersfield, CA, call (661) 437-3253

In Fresno, CA, call (559) 206-1059

In Valencia, CA, or Santa Clarita, CA, call (661) 437-3253

In Palmdale, CA, or Lancaster, CA, call (661) 371-4756


Vanguard Cleaning Systems of the Southern Valley

Vanguard Cleaning Systems of the Southern Valley