My gym has gone overboard in the fight against other people’s sweat. Is it so terrible? Does it spread disease? Or is it just icky?
It’s none of those. People who don’t wipe down equipment are a nuisance but otherwise it tends to go with the territory. What are you talking about.
I suspect that this will do better in IMHO than in Great Debates.
Is your gym Planet Fitness, by any chance?
Well, I find it pretty icky. Palm sweat on my mouse is particularly gross.
:shudder:
Mine is just fine; other people’s sweat is gross. That’s the issue in a nutshell.
Similar guidelines apply to saliva, especially considering they have similar exceptions, like being somewhat acceptable among our intimates. Indeed, it may help to think of the issue along those lines - would you want to use equipment someone else had slobbered on? Yeah, same for sweat.
Isn’t a build up of sweat and skin cells going to make the equipment at least pretty funky, if not slippery and dangerous?
Icky I suspect, but more to it. The ickyness factor determines the atmosphere in such a place, and thus the clientele. Letting sweat go will ick people out and they will find another place, so the people who remain will be those who sweat and don’t care.
To some degree it’s like litter, allow litter and others will feel free to do the same, place is trashed, people who don’t like litter will move on, those who don’t care will remain.
You can substitute any activity that is seen as negatively impacting others, and it goes for caring and respecting each other and mindful how they feel. Trying to attract those people.
What does that even mean?
My understanding is that sweat is, most of the time, a very unlikely disease vector.
But other people’s sweat is gross. Failing to wipe your own off of the equipment after you use it is tacky and inconsiderate.
It’s like farting in the elevator. It’s not going to kill anybody but it still makes you a jerk.
That’s why I swim - so I’ll have NO chance of coming into contact with anyone else’s bodily fluids! :eek:
(Go team chlorine!)
In middle school science class we were told that sweat is little more than diluted urine, about 90% water and 10% piss. So there’s that.
Wipe your stuff down. Since half the people in the wold seem unable to wash their hands after a trip to the bathroom, I’d really prefer to not put my hands directly on the same space your grody, unwashed, germ-covered hands were a minute before without a wipe in-between. If I can see the sweat marks, it’s not cool.
I don’t think chlorine does a damn thing to other peoples’ secretions, except maybe converting urine into chloramine. Which is actually not a good thing.
No, your salvation is the fact that everyone’s additions to the pool is a few grams mixed into several tonnes of water. Unless you’re a homeopath, in which case you’re swimming in 7X homeopathic piss. :eek:
It’s all just water with additives, anyway.
Ass and crotch sweat. Not everyone deals with this, but some people do.
Can you elaborate as to what they’re doing that you consider going overboard? Did you get a demerit for not wiping down the seat after you used it?
You’re one of those perspirers, *aren’t *you? :dubious:
And as has been said, other peoples’ sweat isn’t going to harm you but it’s just assholish not to clean up after one’s self. I go to a pretty no frills gym (the Y) but even there there are sanitary wipe dispensers everywhere and everyone seems to be pretty good about it.
Sweat can carry methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, aka MRSA. Places where people sweat in close proximity to each other, like jails, prisons, locker rooms and gyms, can be MRSA hotspots.
I consider sweat as an ultimate aphrodisiac - if it is under an hour old and on a reasonably healthy and fit person of the other gender.
On other occasions, jeez, just get a shower. Once a day (or twice in tropics) should do the trick. No one wants stale sweat anywhere. For a gym just use a towel. And one for reserve.
Thanks! Looks like I’m gonna need to find me a bigger pool… 
The other day, somebody was so eager to snipe my elliptical when I’d finished on it that she’d started climbing on before I could even get back with a sanitary wipe and paper towels. I thought it was kind of gross, not to mention rude (my phone and keys were still on the damn thing).
I’m always very thorough with my cleaning, but I’ll admit to a certain amount of passive-aggressive enjoyment watching her wait impatiently while I wiped the machine down.