So . . . Just How Clean Is Your Health Club, Anyway?

Primed for a great workout, you head to Exercise Bike Row at your health club, planning to pedal to China.

Then you feel the sweat.

And realize it is not your own.

There’s nothing like someone else’s sweat beads--or worse--on exercise equipment at the gym to send you back into the arms of your couch.

Along with reasonable monthly fees, state-of-the-art equipment and a helpful staff, a clean environment ranks right up there on the must-have list, say health club operators. But stories from the front lines suggest not every health club measures up:

* Fleas infested the carpet of an aerobics class.

* Cockroaches were the insect of choice on another club’s carpeted aerobics floor.

* At another gym a member worked up a good sweat, then dove into the pool without first taking a shower--as staff quietly looked on.

* Then there was the woman who carefully soaped up and shaved her legs--in the Jacuzzi.

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Whether a health club will be routinely inspected, and how often, depends on the type of facility and its location. The rule of thumb: If your health club has food service facilities or pool, spa or sauna facilities, in Los Angeles and Orange counties it is subject to inspection at least once a year by the county health departments. Otherwise, inspections are driven by consumer complaints.

If violations are not corrected, the case could go to court. But that rarely happens, says Carl Charles, director of district environmental health services for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

More likely, a club complies with the county’s orders to correct violations. After all, with such heavy competition for gym members, a club can’t afford a dirty reputation.

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If kept reasonably clean, health club environments pose few serious health risks, physicians say. At the top of the no-sweat list: perspiration.

Aesthetically, it might be disgusting, says Dr. Melvin Scheer, an infectious-disease specialist at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and UCLA clinical assistant professor of medicine. But from a health viewpoint, sweat is harmless. “I’ve never seen anybody pick up anything from it,” he says.

“Sweat has a lot of salt, which probably reduces what can live in it,” agrees Dr. Kathleen MacLeod, an infectious-disease specialist at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

When it comes to disease transmission at the gym, MacLeod says, “It’s the people you have to be most concerned about, more than the inanimate environment. What they leave behind tends to be not nearly as contagious as the people themselves.”

What about tinea pedis, the scourge better known as athlete’s foot said to afflict barefoot shower-takers?

There’s more risk of picking it up, Scheer says, from inadequate drying of the feet than from walking across a dirty or moist floor. Shower thongs are often recommended as a way to prevent contact with the athlete’s foot fungus, but Scheer says the best preventive measure is a good toweling off of the feet followed by a sprinkling of cornstarch.

“Be sure the spaces between the toes are dry,” he says. When you cover damp toes with socks and shoes, you’re providing a great environment for the fungus.

Pools and spas that are not well-maintained are two of the riskiest areas for disease transmission, says Richard Kebabjian, chief of Los Angeles County’s recreational health program for the environmental health division, who reported on the problem recently in the Journal of Environmental Health.

Most common are infections of the skin, ears, nose and throat and diarrheal illnesses, he says.

“If the water is frothy, cloudy, turning milky white or green or has a lack of circulation,” avoid it, Kebabjian advises.

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Keeping a health club clean requires an arsenal of industrial-strength cleaning supplies, as Jerome Rudy, a chemist and president of ChemSpa Industries Inc. in East Hanover, N.J., can attest. For 25 years, he has formulated and marketed maintenance supplies to health clubs.

Among the necessities, he says, are heavy-duty cleaners such as an antibacterial formula for showers; lighter-duty cleaners for glass, mirrors, chrome and stainless steel; germicides for floors, behind toilets and other moist areas.

“If a place smells bad, it doesn’t project that it’s clean,” Rudy says.

The other necessity: a maintenance crew with elbow grease. “We have 15 people here all night cleaning from 11 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.,” says Daniel Miller of Sports Club/LA, a 100,000-square-foot facility in which about 1,500 people a day work out. Another crew of 15 works the daytime housekeeping shift.

At the Los Angeles Athletic Club in downtown Los Angeles, a staff of eight cleans the health club, says Steve Hathaway, general manager, who estimates that 200 to 800 members work out daily.

At smaller clubs, such as the 6,200-square-foot Bulldog Gym of Hollywood, night-shift employees pitch in to clean, says Brian David Zola, general manager.

There are no specific maintenance schedules supplied to health clubs by organizations such as the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Assn., says Cathy McNeil, a spokeswoman for the Boston trade group, which has 2,800 health clubs as members. “For cleanliness, the wet areas are what you have to focus on,” she says.

Indeed, a prospective health club member who peeks at showers, pools and saunas will learn a lot about a health club’s maintenance habits, says Jim Smith, president of Peak Performance, a Seattle-based management consulting firm for health clubs. “If a club is not doing a good job cleaning, you can tell,” he says.

But even the most diligent maintenance crew can’t guarantee a gym will always sparkle. “The men’s locker room could be immaculately clean at 11:30 a.m,” says Smith, a former health club owner. “By 1:30 p.m., there would be lint all over the carpet from the lunch-time crowd changing their socks and it would look like no one had vacuumed for a week.”

The staff can’t do it all. “Members are encouraged to wipe down equipment, especially those people who are heavy sweaters,” says Hathaway of the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

“We require all members to bring a towel,” says Zola of Bulldog Gym. “If you don’t, you are required to rent one for 50 cents.”

Members of Pro-Robics Conditioning Clubs in Seattle take a more hands-on approach. They are asked to spray and wipe equipment when they are finished, using bottles of disinfectant kept throughout the club, says spokeswoman Laura Papritz.

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Who You Gonna Call?

The price is right at your health club and the people are friendly. But lately, the floor mats look grimy, the showers, grody, and there’s that disgusting odor in the weight room.

What to do?

* Start by complaining to the manager or owner.

* If the problem persists, call the appropriate county office; officials say the number of monthly complaints is few.

In Los Angeles County, call (213) 881-4160 for pool- and sauna-related complaints. For food-related or other complaints, call (213) 881-4015.

In Orange County, call (714) 667-3600 for food-related or pool- and sauna-related complaints only.

* Shop around. Southern California has 740 health clubs, says a representative for American Business Information, an Omaha-based marketing company.