How To Keep A Home Gym Clean

A home gym is a luxury that is hard to pass up if you have a spare room in your house. The ability to work out without the prying eyes of strangers is invaluable, but you must keep up with maintenance. You’re not alone if you wonder how to clean a home gym, especially if you’re new to it.

Soak a microfiber cloth in warm water and mild dish soap, then clean your benches, mats, handlebars, push-up bars, and dumbbells. You can also use commercial gym cleaners, such as Zogics, to clean your gym equipment. It’s also important to mop your floors with mild dish soap and warm water to remove dust, sweat, and musty odors. 

Don’t forget to replace your AC filter, or else your home gym will quickly get covered with dust. Follow along as we explore how to clean a home gym. 

How To Keep Your Home Gym Clean

1. Disinfect The Equipment

Nothing is inviting about dirty gym equipment. Not only is it unsanitary, but your gym equipment will only get dirtier with time if you don’t clean it. Zogics is a popular brand of disinfectant wipes that many people use to clean their gym equipment. 

Ideally, you should clean each piece of equipment that you use. That includes your treadmill and elliptical handlebars, dumbbells, and resistance bands. It’s also a great idea to clean anything that you put your feet on, such as yoga mats and elliptical pedals. 

Keeping your equipment clean is especially important if other people use your gym equipment. You can’t always count on others to clean your equipment, but you can count on yourself. 

2. Routinely Wash Your Towels

Home gyms are similar to commercial gyms in that they get quite sweaty. Naturally, you should always wipe down your weights, mats, and other gym gear to remove sweat. It doesn’t take long for your towels to get filthy, especially if you reuse them. 

Ideally, you should wash your towels after each use. Otherwise, your sweat and skin oils can easily build up on your towels, and you must replace them. It’s also a bad idea to leave your dirty, sweaty towels in your home gym overnight. 

Bad smells will linger in your home gym, making the space unpleasant to be in. If anything, keep a dirty towel bin in another room near your washer and dryer. Don’t wait more than a few days to wash your dirty towels if you can’t wash them right away each time. 

3. Use Microfiber Cloths

Every homeowner should keep some microfiber cloths on hand. Microfiber cloths are better than paper towels and standard rags, as they trap dirt and dust. That way, you don’t have to worry about inadvertently spreading dust throughout your home gym. 

Microfiber cloths are especially good for slick gym equipment, like iron dumbbells and barbells. Lightly soak the cloth in warm water just enough that it’s slightly damp. Add a drop or two of mild dish soap before scrubbing your gym equipment. 

Be careful when cleaning equipment that contains electronic components, like treadmills and ellipticals. Use as little water as possible to avoid damaging the electronic components. 

4. Mop The Floor

No matter how much you clean your equipment, sweat will linger in your home gym if you don’t mop the floor. The mixture of sweat and dust can make your gym floors sticky and musty if left untreated. Luckily, you don’t even need to buy expensive store-bought cleaning solutions to clean your gym floor. 

Instead, you can mop your floors with a mixture of mild dish soap and warm water. Be careful and avoid using too much dish soap, or else your floor will get covered with suds. All it takes are a few drops of mild dish soap to clean your gym floors. 

Stir it into a bucket of warm water to ensure the dish soap won’t sink to the bottom. Ideally, you should use a mop with a nylon or microfiber cloth head. Let your gym floor dry before you work out again, or else you may slip and fall. 

5. Replace The Air Filter

Does your home gym get dustier and dirtier than it should? There’s a good chance that your home's ventilation air filter is clogged if it doesn’t take long for your home gym to get covered in dust. Air filters catch dirt, dust, pet hair, and debris that would otherwise come out of your return vents. 

Once clogged, filters can’t trap such debris, and it will wind up all over your house. They get dirtier much quicker if you have pets or don’t regularly dust the surfaces in your home. Air ducts get dirty faster if your air ducts are full of dust, and you must clean them every 3 to 5 years.

You must also replace your air filter every 90 days in most houses. However, it’s important to check your air filter monthly, so you know what shape it’s in. Regularly replace your air filter to reduce the amount of dust in your home gym.

6. Run An Air Purifier

No matter how much you clean your home gym, it will eventually smell bad again. The constant sweat and heavy breathing can leave a gym smelling musty right after a workout. An air purifier can help you keep musty odors at bay between deep cleanings. 

Air purifiers won’t help to keep your gym equipment clean, but they can help reduce bad odors. They can also improve indoor air quality, which is nice, as clean air is essential when working out. That’s especially true if you have asthma and are prone to allergies caused by pollen. 

However, you can’t use your air purifier as an excuse to neglect cleaning your home gym. That said, you can enjoy a nice workout much more if you aren’t distracted by bad smells. 

7. Wear Clean Clothes

It’s no secret that workout clothes get sweaty and gross in no time at all. Some people understandably don’t want to waste a fresh outfit only for it to get gross during a workout. That’s why some people wear the same gym clothes for several workouts throughout the week. 

However, doing so is a sure way to get your gym mats and workout equipment dirty much faster. Sure, dirty gym clothes won’t affect free weights, but they can make your benches and seated workout stations smell bad. Your workout will make the clothes smell even worse, and you may taint your workout equipment. 

It’s best to put on fresh clothes before a workout, so you don’t start out smelling bad. Otherwise, the sweaty clothes will make your home gym smell musty before you even break a sweat. It’s worth getting some cheap workout clothes from Goodwill or a secondhand store. 

Summing It Up

The best way to clean a home gym is to disinfect your weights and benches with a store-bought cleaning product like Zogics. You can also dampen a microfiber cloth with mild dish soap and warm water, then wipe everything down. Regularly mop the floors and replace your air filter to reduce the amount of dust in your home gym.

Related Guides:

• How To Set Up An Outdoor Gym
• How To Set Up A Cheap Home Gym