Avoid Gym Germs Using Free Weights

Video Transcript

"Hi, welcome back. My name is Megan Moe and today I'm giving you some tips about how you can stay safe from germs when you're working out in the gym. Now I'm going to talk a little bit about free weights. They make for a great workout but want to be sure that you're careful when you choose to use them. Now some people prefer, when they use free weights to use a pair of disposable gloves. These are cheap, you can buy them anywhere. And you may look a little bit silly, but trust me you're not going to be the only person who's done it. So a lot of the people in the gym that I work at use these. And it is a really effective way to create a barrier between your skin and the object you're going to be touching. Now there's several different kinds of free weights that you might find. Some of them are like this red one right here. They're coated in a rubber. And you know you can treat these exactly the same as the metal ones. Ethanol or an antibacterial wipe isn't going to hurt this. So you can take an antibacterial wipe and wipe it down or you can take some ethanol and spray it if you like. So you want to give it a spray. And again you want to wait about sixty seconds before wiping this off. That way it has a chance to really work it's magic and clean all the bacteria. So after about sixty seconds you want to wipe this off. And we also have your standard metal dumbbell. You can treat this the exact same way as the other one. You just take the ethanol, give it a spray. Even if you wipe those I would still recommend disinfecting these just to be extra sure. And just wipe it off after about sixty seconds and you should be good to go. And you want to make sure that after you're done you wipe it off again. That way it's ready for the next person to use. And also something you're going to find are weight plates like this. You can either, some people use them as weights or for resistance when doing situps or on a barbell for lifting weights. And you are going to be touching them so again you want to be sure that they are sanitized. So again wearing gloves is important or ever handy ethanol spray. Also good. Give it a spray let it sit for about sixty seconds and then clean that off. And that's what makes sure you have an effective workout when you're working with free weights. So next I'm going to give you a little bit more information about how else you can protect yourself when you're in the gym."