A new study looked at how filthy the equipment is at your gym. Spoiler alert: It’s like 400 times more disgusting than a toilet seat. The average exercise bike and treadmill in the study had 1.3 million potentially bad bacteria on it. That’s 417 times more than the average toilet seat. Free weights had 362 times more bacteria than a toilet seat.
But that doesn’t mean free weights are necessarily safer. Half of their bacteria are something called gram-negative rods, and almost ALL of those can make you sick. Treadmills and bikes are mostly covered in gram-positive cocci, which are more likely to cause skin infections.
The main reason the stuff at the gym is so covered in germs is that no one gives it a REAL cleaning during the day. So everyone’s filth keeps piling up.
