How often should you wash your sports bra? Experts reveal the answer..and it’s more often than you think

Imagine the scenario: you’ve just finished a relatively low-key workout and you’re changing out of your workout clothes.

Is your sports bra going in the laundry basket? If the answer is no, you would not be alone.

According to a recent poll of 2,000 regular exercisers, only half of people wash their sports bras after a workout.

In fact, a fifth said they wore the same one up to three times before washing it. And one in 10 said they recycled up to six times.

But just how ugly is it?

Bad news for laundromats: If you fail to wash a sports bra and other underwear worn during exercise immediately after, you can risk irritated skin and nasty infections, according to experts.

“If you reuse them (gym clothes), it’s probably not only going to smell like sweat, but it’s going to trap bacteria and stuff, dirt and sebum and oils,” Dr Anthony Rossia professor of dermatology at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York, told DailyMail.com.

Bacteria love water and heat – and both get trapped under sweaty workout clothes, explained Dr. Rossi.

Hot sweat causes the bacteria, fungus and yeast on your skin to multiply, which can enter the hair follicles and cause unsightly bumps or acne.

In addition to the bacteria that live naturally on your skin, there are plenty of bugs that you can come into contact with at the gym, Rossi said.

A survey from 2020 from researchers at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center found evidence of two types of drug-resistant bacteria and the flu virus on 25 percent of all the gym surfaces they analyzed.

These researchers identified a particularly frightening drug-resistant bacteria, called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which lives on exercise equipment for hours, days or weeks, according to to CDC.

Drug-resistant bacteria can live on exercise equipment for weeks, according to the CDC

MRSA, a drug-resistant bacteria, under the microscope. Although skin infections with this bacteria are often treatable, if it enters your bloodstream it can cause septic infection and death

If MRSA gets in a cut or scrape, you can develop large, red boils on your skin that fill with pus, according to Dr. Mark Fisher, a plastic surgeon at Johns Hopkins.

Usually, these skin infections are treatable, Fisher said at a The university’s questions and answers. But in rare cases, if you don’t seek help for the condition, it’s possible for the bacteria to enter your bloodstream, causing serious illness, according to the NIH.

“If you spend time in locker rooms, schools, gyms or even prisons, take great care to avoid cuts and scrapes, and if you do get a skin injury in one of these environments, wash it thoroughly,” said Dr. Fisher.

Despite this harsh reality, only 46 percent of the people who were asked by the British company Live football tickets reported that they were concerned about the presence of bacteria when considering whether to wash their underwear after the gym.

Instead, 55 percent said they were just aware of its scent — and recycled their clothes until they were stinky.

If for some reason you’re not able to get your workout clothes thoroughly washed, Rossi has some tips.

If you’re traveling, at least run your sweaty clothes under some hot water at the hotel, wring them out, and then hang them to dry. He tells his patients that this can help because ‘at least it allows the water to evaporate’, which can at least partially slow down bacterial growth.

Rossi also said some fabrics are more susceptible to harboring bacteria than others.

For example, natural materials such as cotton can have a looser knit that allows for better ventilation than synthetic fibers.