Most of us use water bottles at the gym so we don’t have to go back and forth to the fountain. We take them in the car on road trips or even just to have on the way to work. We also keep them at our desks. Some people leave one at work, or you take them home to wash them.
It doesn’t matter what type of bottle you have though: screw-top, pop-top, plastic, metal or glass, your water bottle is likely breeding bacteria.
A recent study for the website treadmillreviews.net revealed that the average athlete’s water bottle contained 313,499 Colony Forming Units of bacteria (CFU) per square centimetre. To give you a comparison item to help understand this number, the average Pet bowl of water or food contains around 47,000 CFU.
BUT, there are water bottles that are worse than others. The biggest offender is the Slide-Top water bottle at over 900,000 CFU. The rest break-down as follows:
Squeeze-top: 160,000 CFU
Screw-top: 159,060 CFU
Straw-top: 25.4 CFU
How were these numbers calculated? Three of each of the above types of water bottles were swabbed from athletes who used each water bottle for a week and did not wash them. That’s 12 water bottles in total.
Now, do not panic. It is relatively easy to cut down on the bacteria that are colonizing your water bottle at the gym. First, avoid touching the spout of your water bottle with your hands while you have been working out. Your hands will have picked up germs from the weights and machines that you have been using. Secondly, switch to a less bacteria-prone water bottle such as the Straw-top or stainless-steel model (naturally anti-bacterial and they do not develop cracks in the design where bacteria can grow like plastic bottles). Thirdly, wash your water bottle every day in hot, soapy water.
Just doing these three things with your water bottle can not only keep you healthier, but keep your fellow gym goers healthier too.
Most of us use water bottles at the gym so we don’t have to go back and forth to the fountain. We take them in the car on road trips or even just to have on the way to work. We also keep them at our desks. Some people leave one at work, or you take them home to wash them.
It doesn’t matter what type of bottle you have though: screw-top, pop-top, plastic, metal or glass, your water bottle is likely breeding bacteria.
A recent study for the website treadmillreviews.net revealed that the average athlete’s water bottle contained 313,499 Colony Forming Units of bacteria (CFU) per square centimetre. To give you a comparison item to help understand this number, the average Pet bowl of water or food contains around 47,000 CFU.
BUT, there are water bottles that are worse than others. The biggest offender is the Slide-Top water bottle at over 900,000 CFU. The rest break-down as follows:
Squeeze-top: 160,000 CFU
Screw-top: 159,060 CFU
Straw-top: 25.4 CFU
How were these numbers calculated? Three of each of the above types of water bottles were swabbed from athletes who used each water bottle for a week and did not wash them. That’s 12 water bottles in total.
Now, do not panic. It is relatively easy to cut down on the bacteria that are colonizing your water bottle at the gym. First, avoid touching the spout of your water bottle with your hands while you have been working out. Your hands will have picked up germs from the weights and machines that you have been using. Secondly, switch to a less bacteria-prone water bottle such as the Straw-top or stainless-steel model (naturally anti-bacterial and they do not develop cracks in the design where bacteria can grow like plastic bottles). Thirdly, wash your water bottle every day in hot, soapy water.
Just doing these three things with your water bottle can not only keep you healthier, but keep your fellow gym goers healthier too.