You’re likely in a rush to rehearsal or to your next class after finishing ballet, but you might want to think twice about doing anything before heading to the bathroom and washing your hands. You and your barre mates share more than the pain of a long adagio together: bacteria. Yuck!
Think about it. How many dancers share your ballet barre on any given day? From sneezing to sweating to crying, the ballet barre sees it all. How often does your barre get cleaned?
EllipticalReviews.com took swabs from equipment used in the four most popular group fitness classes: barre, CrossFit, spin, and hot yoga. The bacterial tests revealed the total number of microbes that appear on various workout tools, and which classes attract the most harmful germ varieties:
“The study revealed that weight-based classes had by far the most germ-heavy equipment of all the classes, with 153,410 CFU detected on the barbell compared to a toilet seat's 3,200. That's a disgusting 48 times more bacteria than you'd find on the loo.”
Unfortunately, we don’t have the numbers to compare CFU’s on ballet barres but it’s safe to say they’re not squeaky clean...and might be covered in more bacteria than the toilet seat too!
How Do Germs Spread?
- touching dirty hands
- through contaminated water and food
- through droplets in the air released during a cough or sneeze
- on contaminated surfaces
What's the Best Way to Wash Hands?
Thank you to the World Health Organization:
