How To Make A Home Gym Not Smell? | All You Need To Know

Infections caused by a dirty home gym floor and used equipment include conjunctivitis, athletes’ feet, plantar warts, and others. Hence, you must clean used equipment, wash your gym clothes, ensure sufficient ventilation, and use natural air purifiers to maintain the indoor air quality of your home gym.

The most significant downside of constructing the best all-in-one home gym is that you’ll be liable for keeping it clean and sanitary. 

If you don’t, your home gym will begin to smell and become a breeding ground for mold and mildew. This issue is more noticeable during summer, but maintaining your home gym is just as vital in the winter, even if it isn’t already smelling. 

So, continue reading to learn how to stop a home gym from stinking.

Why Do Home Gyms Smell?

You’ve probably guessed the answer – our sweat particles evaporating in the air cause a home gym to stink.

The biggest problem is the sweat drop that slides down your spine and lands on your mat. Furthermore, increased temperature, high humidity levels, and poor ventilation (architecture) can worsen any odor.

I have discovered another intriguing fact – our fresh sweat has no odor. While exercising, neither we nor our workout clothes stink. We stink after that. 

When bacteria on our skin break down the proteins in our perspiration, our body odor changes. We sweat while exercising and leave that all over the ground, the treadmill handles, kettlebell handles, etc.

When we’re through, we close our gym door and depart. The sweat smell does not have a chance to escape due to poor ventilation. And, before you know it, your home gym will start sinking. 

If you don’t want it to happen, ensure you don’t leave your sweat anywhere else in the gym. You must also provide appropriate air circulation.

There are a few other things to consider, but one of the most essential is that most houses are not built to be used as gyms. Ventilation, temperature management, and surrounding surfaces such as walls and furniture are not appropriate for fluctuating temperatures and moisture content as a result of a training program.

To prevent the odors at first, you should concentrate on making your home gym more suited for exercising. But if you need a quick fix, keep reading for some simple ways to freshen up a stinky home gym.

How To Prevent Your Home Gym From Smelling Bad?

1. Before Placing Your Gym Mats, Let Them Air Out

All rubber items smell, and you can only air them out for a couple of days until they’re fully off-gassed.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Health Plan Management System (HPMS), sun-drying the mats and rotating them regularly might speed up the off-gassing process. This further helps remove VOCs from rubber. 

You should also know how to clean gym mats at home. You can clean them with a water-and-vinegar solution and peppermint oil, among other things. Alternatively, you can simply expose them to direct sunshine for a couple of days. But if you own horse stall carpets, you should clean them daily because they have a stronger, more terrible stench than EVA mats. 

2. Never Leave Your Exercise Attire At The Gym

If you’ve been to a gym, you’ve probably seen people who wear the same clothing for over a week. They sweat, hang their dirty clothes in their locker to dry, and then wear the same clothes the next day. 

This makes everything stink, including the gym bench, kettlebell handle, and yoga mat. Furthermore, anything they touch or use begins to stink like them! So, never do this at home. 

Always wear clean workout clothing and discard your worn gym clothing into your laundry basket when you’re done. Maintain various sets so that you always have something clean to wear.

3. Clean The Floor Of Your Home Gym Every Week

The surface of your gym is the second thing that absorbs most of your sweat. It is also difficult to clean. So, to clean the surface, I suggest scrubbing away the sticky residues and vacuuming the floor, including the spaces between the mats. Then wash it thoroughly, ensuring no water seeps through the spaces or into the surface of the mat.

If water gets to the wood or the flooring beneath the mats, mold can grow all over, damaging the carpet and making your gym stink.

4. Continue To Inspect The Ground Beneath For Mold

Even if you have done everything possible to keep water from seeping through the rubber matting, you may still fail. When combined with high moisture molecules, a tiny amount of water is enough to produce major mold problems.

Toxic substances are released into the fresh air by molds. These substances, if breathed, may cause respiratory difficulties, including asthma. So, don’t take a risk.

Inspect the walls and the floor under the matting at least twice in the summertime and once a month in the winter. This should take little time unless you’ve covered the entire area with mats.

5. Ensure That Your Home Gym Is Sufficiently Ventilated

That’s the simplest approach to keeping your home gym odor-free. Mold development may be prevented with proper ventilation. Furthermore, the stink of your sweat will have a chance to exit rather than stay in the room for days.

If you have a basement gym, you should keep the door lifted at least 1-2 feet above the ground throughout the day. You may even keep a floor fan running to help with ventilation. Don’t overdo it since it may increase your power bill.

6. Use Natural Air Fresheners

Despite doing everything we’ve discussed, your home gym may still smell, which is expected given that you’re sweating buckets in there. As a result, many individuals utilize fragrances, essential oils, scented candles, and other products to cover the stench. 

However, I recommend using natural air fresheners. Simply place a pot of coffee grinds, baking soda, or a scented house plant in your home gym, and you’re good to go.

7. Always Use Clean Towels

If you’re exercising correctly, you’ll be sweating a lot after completion, which calls for a pristinely clean towel that you should use and then throw in the laundry. If this appears to be a nuisance, get additional towels so you can cycle them properly and only need to launder an “exercise batch” once a week.

8. Air Fresheners That Disappear Over Time

Air fresheners do help. However, some bottles may contain chemical substances, and breathing may become excruciating while attempting to concentrate on your training. An excellent approach to prevent this is to employ all-natural citrus air fresheners, which you can plug into a convenient outlet and have them discharge a few times a day.

Instead of the strange, unnatural, and artificial fragrances in most fresheners, these fragrances use concentrated citrus juice. Consequently, your training space will smell like you have a dish of fresh oranges or lemons placed nearby, offering a refreshing and pleasant mood.

9. Change Your Gym Clothes And Shoes Frequently 

Many novices make the mistake of only having one piece of gym clothing and using the same sneakers all the time. Your gym shoes may smell bad quite quickly, and those odors will stay in the entire room.

You’ll sweat a lot after a hard workout, and germs grow rapidly in this humidity. If you train in the same clothes two or three times, you’re not just dirtier than you realize, but you’re also spreading that bacteria and scent to your equipment.

So, purchase a pair of exercise shoes and store them outside of the gym. Invest in good quality workout clothes, so you can always wear clean clothes. Plus, you’ll be one step closer to having that spotless home gym you’ve always wanted.

10. Purchase A Dehumidifier

Germs and molds flourish in humid conditions, so a dehumidifier is essential to remove moisture from the air and swap it out for drier air. As an extra benefit, it will make your home gym a little cooler because dry air is easier to cool than hot, humid air. 

11. Use Clean Equipment

If you buy new rubber weights or dumbbells, you will most likely be met with a very strong stench when you take them out of the package. This also applies to any natural rubber matting you may install for a home workout floor. So, you must start by airing them before use.

Second, you should clean the equipment regularly. There’s only so much air fresheners can do if you don’t maintain proper cleanliness and hygiene. Plus, cleaning your dumbbells, weights, etc., will also prevent rusting.

12. Using An Air Conditioner

Air conditioning has two purposes: it reduces temperatures and high humidity, both of which give comfort. Lowering humidity also aids in the prevention of odors and mold growth.

Finally, operating an air conditioning unit in a home gym can keep it fresh for a long time. The sole limitation is that residential air conditioners do not filter the air. Although they can filter larger dust particles, they are ineffective against tiny particles and hazardous gasses and cannot penetrate weak spores.

13. Stop The Odors Before They Begin

Remember, an ounce of caution is equivalent to a pound of treatment. In this situation, it means that it’s far more difficult to remove the odor of sweat from anything than it is to prevent things from being stinky, to begin with.

In my experience, the best way to ensure your gym does not stink is sometimes to skip exercising in it. Take your workout outside if the weather is nice and you have accessibility to a lawn or a park nearby. After all, you don’t need to clean the grass after a grueling workout sesh!

How To Make A Home Gym Not Smell Final Words

Home gyms are excellent, but they can become a nuisance when they begin to stink! When it pertains to home gym odors, a typical cleaning program that includes sweeping, swabbing surfaces, and mopping will only assist with a portion of the problem.

Additional issues must be addressed to decrease odors in your home gym, including sweat, germs, dampness, and poor circulation in most home gyms. So, I suggest monitoring for mold, keeping the gym space free of used exercise equipment or towels, and utilizing air purifiers or natural air fresheners.

For long-term odor control, you should invest in a dehumidifier or a filtration machine for ventilation. Also, I suggest installing some fans to promote airflow and circulation.