Gym flooring is a valuable and important investment that facilities must make if they want to provide a safe and comfortable environment for their customers. The right type of surface can drastically reduce the wear and tear someone experiences when working out, open the doors for different types of classes and programs and so much more. As important as these surfaces are, maintaining them is just as important.
If you have recently purchased gym flooring, you need to be aware of the most important ways to maintain it. Always discuss maintenance tips with the installation team as they will be able to recommend the best methods based on the type of surface you have purchased. Here are some basic maintenance tips that have proven to be effective with multiple types of surfaces.
- Make sure you have a sealer: Some brands may require a sealer which is always a good idea because it will add an extra layer of protection to the rubber and make it easier to maintain. These tiles will experience a variety of wear and tear over the years and sealing the tiles can help minimize the damage from overuse.
- Don’t go overboard on chemicals: Sometimes we think that the best way to clean something is to go crazy with the cleaners. When it comes to gym flooring, the opposite is true. While the floors are getting used, they are not usually seeing any type of traffic or spillage that would require aggressive chemicals. Basic cleaning chemicals, diluted in water, should be more than enough to get the job done. This will also minimize the effectiveness of the chemicals as far as causing corrosion and other issues down the road.
- Shoes and sweat: Remember that you want to get the areas where people are walking just as much as the areas where they are sweating. Gym flooring maintenance issues usually begin when people focus more on the workout areas rather than the paths for walking and getting from machine to machine. The bottom of shoes can be filthy, and you should never skip these areas just because people are not using them for working out.
- Look for imperfections developing: Over the years, continuous wear and tear can start to show in a variety of ways. If you have time, walk around the room either in socks or barefoot to see if you notice anything in the flooring including bumps or tears. It doesn’t matter if it’s small, finding it early can help you prevent major damage.
- Hand strength over machines: Cleaning machines are great because they do a great job and save us time. However, just as with the cleaners, you do not have to be overly aggressive. If you can mop the area instead, that will be better because it will not be as hard on the surface as a machine would be.
Remember to talk to the team selling and installing the gym flooring about specific chemicals you can use and cleaning methods they would recommend. Try and commit to this as often as possible and make sure that you stress the importance of maintaining the surfaces to your employees and customers.