Gym Equipment Is More Gross Than You Imagined
Wash your hands, lunks.
Hitting the gym is a worthy time investment. Isolating muscles and pushing them to their max is the best way to get a lean, cut body. It’s also apparently a sure-fire way to catch a cold.
Research from FitRated.com revealed some alarming data about just how many germs live on standard gym equipment. The study looked at 27 different pieces of equipment at three separate gyms, and what they found ain’t pretty.
The average exercise bike has 1,333,418 colony-forming units (CFUs), which is 39 times more than a plastic reusable cafeteria tray. A treadmill has around the same amount: 1,333,432 CFUs. Most alarmingly, free weights harbor 362 times more germs than a toilet seat, 1,158,381 compared to 3,200 CFUs.
You might as well be lunging with a toilet bowl.
The worst part: 70 percent of those bacteria were reported to be potentially harmful to humans (that includes seemingly invincible lunkheads).
We still think joining a gym is worth catching a cold every now and then (it happens). Just make sure that gym has army of janitors regularly wiping down the equipment.
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