How to keep your training gear clean

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a full body contact sport. At Eastside Grapplers where we teach Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with Gi and Submission Grappling with no-gi, it’s important to understand how to keep our gear clean and hygienic. This ensures that bacteria can’t grow and irritate your skin, forming a staph infection on yourself or others. It also means that you don’t stink!

Gi’s

Gi’s are made with cotton and are hard wearing. For many, a gi is an investment, so it’s a no- brainer to put in the extra effort to make sure that it stays in good shape for longer. 

Gi’s should be washed after every wear. It’s better for the gi, better for you and better for the person you’re rolling with. 

Once you get home, make sure you take your gi out of your gym bag - even if you’re not going to wash it straight away. Gym bags are an ideal environment for bacteria so make sure you take your gi out of it as soon as you can. 

To wash, make sure that you use cold wash with standard detergent. You can use fabric softener if you like. Do not use bleach. 

You must air dry your gi - do not put it into the dryer or it may shrink. Note. after the first wash the gi should shrink slightly, so keep that in mind when you purchase a gi.

There are lots of people that train more than once a week, so if you can afford it, having a couple of gi’s is a good idea. If not, don’t worry, a good gi will be able to withstand multiple washes per week.

Rash shirts and tights

Rash shirts and tights sit directly on the skin and absorb lots of sweat. Without proper cleaning rash shirts and tights can harbour bacteria that can cause skin infections and at the very least they can smell pretty bad!

As with gi’s, get them out of your gym bag as soon as you can.

There are a couple of ways that you can keep rash gear clean. You can wash in cold water, and add a few tablespoons of white vinegar to your wash. Or you can use the hot wash setting on your washing machine every second or third wear. This second option is a bit controversial as some people say not to do it. All we can say is that we do this and it really helps keep the gear clean and hygienic and smell clean. A hot wash can mean the gear has a shorter lifespan, but it’s clean and it keeps the smell away. 

If you’re washing your rash gear with training shorts that have velcro, you could use one of those lingerie net bags to make sure that the velcro doesn’t catch on the rash gear. 

Unlike gi’s, you can dry rash gear in the dryer.

The Gym Bag

The good old gym bag takes clean gear to the gym and dirty gear home. It makes sense that you’d need to look after it as well. Once a week take some disinfectant spray like tea-tree oil spray, spray liberally, and then air it out to dry.

Showering

It goes without saying that showering regularly is important. It’s doubly important if you’re training. Yes, some people think you can train and then spray some deodorant on and go on with life, but it’s a hard no from us. Just do us all a favour and have a quick shower.

So, long story short, you have to keep yourself and your gear clean. There’s no way around it. It’s only fair to your training partners (and let’s be honest, your other partners too). No-one wants to inhale a stinky gi, or catch staph.