6 Ways To Stay Fresh During And After Your Workout

Don’t let your workout odours make you self-conscious. Here’s how to make sure you’re always smelling fresh during and after your sweat sessions.

1. Keep your sweat patch

Gone are the days when sweating was thought of as unladylike. In fact, if you’re not sweating then you’re not only doing your training intensity a disservice, you could also be making yourself smell worse. A study in the Archives of Dermatological Research found that antiperspirants actually increase the number of odorous bacteria in your armpits, creating a mutant and even more unpleasant underarm odour. Yuck!

OK, so the sample size was small, just nine people, but it’s an important notion. Rather, steer clear of foods that are known to increase bad body odour, like junk food and excessive red meat. Also, check what fabric your gym kit is made of because polyester clothes smell more after exercise than cotton, found research in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Might be time to go shopping, ladies.

2. Smell of success

Training to get leaner? Scent your workout gear with a touch of eucalyptus. This smell helps stop cravings for high-calorie foods like chocolate, found researcher at Flinders University, Australia. When you’re working up an appetite on the treadmill it’s easy for your mind to drift towards deliciously energy-rich foods as post-workout refueling options, but this smell will help you fight the battle against these impure thoughts.

If you can’t find eucalyptus-smelling laundry detergent then simply add a few drops of eucalyptus essential oil to your washing cycle. You’ll sweat the smell of leanness.

3. Fresh breath 

Forget the stale sweat smell because minty freshness is the real scent of power. Research in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition found that when exercisers spiked a 500ml bottle of water with 0.05ml (a drop, basically) of peppermint essential oil for 10 days, they were able to run a quarter mile further than they could without it, improving their exercise intensity by 51%.

If you like your H2O straight up then consider chewing peppermint gum to enjoy the same benefits from your fresh- breath fragrance.

4. Hands on 

Even if you wear gym gloves, make sure you don’t forget to wash your hands thoroughly, especially if you have an important meeting after a lunchtime gym session.

Research at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, found that one of the reasons behind the ancient custom of handshaking was to communicate via the sense of smell, because people sniff their hands twice as much after a handshake. Wash up and slap on some hand cream to make the best first impression.

5. Towel off 

You can tell if you’re consuming too much protein simply by the whiff of your sweat. If your workout shirt has the scent of ammonia – think strong household cleaners like Mr Muscle – then you may be overestimating your protein needs. All protein is eventually processed by your liver and excreted by the kidneys.

When your body deals with amino acids, it produces ammonia, then it changes the toxin to urea and mixes it with water. So if your odour smells similar to a bottle of household bleach, drink more water and scale back your protein slightly and that should fix the problem.

6. Putting a sock in it 

The stink in your trainers stems from a cocktail of ammonia, fatty acids and lactic acid. Catch a whiff of them while you’re training and you risk feeling self-conscious for the rest of your session.

Researchers at Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea, found that slivers of silver solve the smelly sock conundrum by creating an antibacterial effect. If this affects you then you can use socks that have built-in nano silver particles. It’ll go a long way toward stopping your running shoes from stinking up your gym bag.

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