7 Ways to Keep Your Fitness Center Clean and Safe

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that it is imperative that fitness amenity owners and managers must now maintain a more stringent sanitation and disinfection protocol in order to protect the health and well-being of your fitness clients as well as protect the future of your business in this post COVID-19 world of uncertainty. The experts here at Premier Fitness Service have come up with the following to help you focus on cleanliness at all times to ensure your fitness facility is safe from germs all year-round.

  • Electrostatic Disinfectant Sprayers 
  • 90 Day and Wipes
  • Signage /  Instruction / Graphics / Art
  • Regular Daily Cleaning
  • Communication
  • Training
  • Inspection

 

ELECTROSTATIC SANITIZERS

Electrostatic sprayers are unique disinfecting devices that deliver a small electrical charge to your disnfectant spray. This results in the disinfectant clinging and wrapping to surfaces giving you full disinfecting capability, killing bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens.

Premier Fitness Service has an exclusive partnership with Clorox and their Clorox Total 360 Electrostatic Sprayer system. Where other sanitation products offer limited coverage or entirely miss hard to reach spaces, the Clorox 360 system provides full coverage and kills bacteria 400x more efficiently than the best disinfecting sprays and materials. This system is perfect for large fitness spaces, treating up to 300 sq. feet minute.

We also offer a lightweight Professional Cordless Electrostatic Backpack Sprayer from Victory that is designed to allow the professional to cover up to 23,000 square feet on a single tank of fluid. This saves time and labor, sprays less liquid, and covers more surfaces. Victory Sprayers’ patented technology provides a similar electrical charge to solutions, allowing them to wrap surfaces with an effective and even coverage. Double-charged particles envelope all conductive surfaces – shadowed, vertical and underneath.

Our electrostatic sprayers work with the finest disinfectant solutions from CloroxⓇ. This includes the Clorox Total 360 Disinfectant Cleaner, and the Clorox Anywhere Hard Surface Sanitizing Spray. Both are designed to kill 99.9% of bacteria within a RAPID sanitation timeframe. They both control the growth of odor-causing bacteria and sanitizes select surfaces.

What this means is both systems are designed to be your FULL-COVERAGE solution to sanitize your fitness amenity. If you can water your plants with your garden hose, you can operate these sprayers with a greater degree of control and accuracy. You’ll spray your disinfectant just where you need it to go – and nowhere else – to protect your facility with the disinfecting coverage it needs.

90 DAY AND WIPES

Even though you can disinfect a large portion of your facility with an electrostatic sprayer, there is often detailed work that is necessary to thoroughly clean equipment and facilities. That means a top flight cleaning and protecting solution and a cleansing wipe. Oh, and a little ‘elbow grease.’ It’s important that you clean surfaces and those nooks and crannies that can build up in out of the way places. REMEMBER: You are not cleaning just what is visible – you are cleaning ALL OF IT thoroughly. You don’t want something to come back and hurt your fitness amenity.

We are especially proud of our Premier 90x Durable Antimicrobial Finish. Our long lasting and invisible non-toxic surface protectant is for use on virtually any surface of your facility. Specifically formulated to stand alone as your diverse routine surface cleaner, one simple application will last up to 90 days. It’s hydrophilic water-shedding prevents the accumulation of soap scum, salts, and water spotting. Perfect for heavy-duty cleaning yet streak free on glass, tiles, and stainless steel. Combined with a wipe, it is the perfect product to ensure you are cleaning everything in your facility with a dedication that says “professional.”

SIGNAGE / INSTRUCTION / GRAPHICS / ART

While you and your staff will be handling the bulk of your sanitation and disinfecting duties, (we will go into further detail below) it is important to gently remind clients and visitors to your facility of their role in keeping their fitness amenity clean and safe for everyone. One way to do this is through signage that helps your clients understand what you expect from them, what to expect from you, and what they should expect from their fellow users of the facility. There are many creative ways to do this that fit within your fitness amenity’s brand, and speak directly to your clients. Whether it is actual signage with detailed instruction, wall graphics, or wall art (all of which are available from Premier Fitness Service), your communication within the facility should be clear:

  • You are in this together. 
  • Everyone’s health and safety is the number one priority.

A REGULAR DAILY CLEANING ROUTINE

Whether you have a cleaning staff that comes in at night, or if cleaning duties are part of your fitness staff’s, it’s important to reinforce the rule that cleaning and cleanliness is a regular daily routine.  It’s not a special event that only happens once a week, but it’s as routine as brushing your teeth every day.  This includes everything from taking out the trash cans,  washing towels, vacuuming, dusting cleaning restrooms – you name it.   Your staff needs to know and embrace the concept that cleanliness is important. 

To reinforce the daily routine of cleaning your facility to both your staff and your clients, you should: 

  • Certain parts of the cleaning process should be done in front of clients.  This reinforces the ideas that cleanliness is important to you and your staff, and that your clients are safe.

  • Have a checklist of items to review and sign off on. This ensures consistency of work, and responsibility for activities that are and are not accomplished.  
  • It may be important that you have your staff wear face masks while assisting clients and cleaning near their fitness activities.  The point is to always, always foster an atmosphere of support, care, appreciation  and protection for your fitness clients. 

COMMUNICATION

Part of keeping your fitness center clean and safe, is to communicate to your clientele your activities on their behalf.  This opens the door to their returning as soon as possible (just to get out of the house!) and demonstrating your proactive nature.  Before your clients return you could send them email announcements,  newsletters, and so on outlining your progress. It’s a way to manage their expectations, build enthusiasm, and solicit feedback.

When clients do return to your facility you will want to have postings at sign-in welcoming them back to their NEW fitness center.  This will prepare them for the new policies and protocols you will have instituted for their safety.  Maybe you can have a video playing on the screens demonstrating all of the new things the center has done – spraying,  disinfecting, new products, procedures, etc… reinforcing their safe feelings.  You can also let them know that you want to hear from them so that you can immediately address any issue asap. Especially thank clients for understanding and participating in your efforts to protect their health.

While you’re communicating with your fitness clientele you will also need to be communicating with your staff.  Let them know what you expect of them during this transition. Let them know that their safety and health is also a concern.  Let them know their new responsibilities.  Good communication is good team-building and it allows you to immediately course-correct any problems you may have.

The important point is to always communicate.  Your staff can be the conduit between clients and management understanding everyone’s needs, and that takes… 

TRAINING

You can’t expect people on your staff to know what to do unless they’ve been trained properly. Fortunately, Premier Fitness Service offers you and your staff training in the use of any and all equipment that it provides your fitness amenity.

Your staff is going to need to know what the new procedures are, when they are to be done, and how they are to be done. That requires education, training and repetition. The military used to call them ‘technical orders’
But we can use the term checklists for now.

Checklists and other documentation allows your fitness amenity to help limit any of its culpability if someone should become sick in your fitness center. Demonstrating a regular routine of cleaning and sanitation goes a long way toward quashing any culpability claims. Your fitness center should have documentation on file for all training, and all cleaning activities. Consult with your governing body and legal counsel on documentation you may require.

INSPECTION

An inspection of work is crucial to maintaining standards of cleanliness and care. Managers are required to inspect all cleaning activities and sign off on the status of the same. Any discrepancies or other unusual matters should be noted, and the responsible party.

Inspections also assess the status of your staff and facility, and allow management to course-correct as necessary. Inspections respond to poor performance, and reward superior performance.

While it’s important for managers to conduct inspections, we also recommend outside 3rd parties to come in and assess your fitness amenity to ensure it meets industry standards for cleanliness, sanitation, health and communication. Remember that always we are setting a new standard for cleanliness in order to protect ourselves and our fitness clients.

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