8 Essential Stuff To Have In Your Gym Bag

You may have heard this famous quote by the great Mother Teresa, “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies”.

That saying even applies to you when you are going to the gym. Many people often ignore the importance of the stuff that they carry in their gym bag.

Remember the day when you forgot to bring some important gym gear like a towel, or shoes resulting in you taking a day off at the gym? I am sure your whole day you felt annoying because it messed up your daily gym schedule.

Well, that was just one small example of why you should never overlook the stuff that you should carry in your gym bag. Your gym bag reflects your gym goals.

So, make sure you have all the essential stuff in your gym bag to hit your fitness goals.

Now, if you don’t know what that essential stuff would be that you need to carry before you hit the gym then no need to sweat out because we have got you covered!

1. Workout Wear

Although this one is quite obvious many people tend to overlook the obvious stuff. Your workout won’t be much effective if your gym wear isn’t exactly a ‘gym wear’.

You must avoid wearing your everyday casual clothes like cargo pants or jeans to the gym. You may think who would come to the gym dressed up like that.

But, trust me, lack of ignorance makes people do weird stuff.

It’s important to choose clothes that make you feel confident because that’s when you are going to perform much better.

But, don’t forget to put fitness over fashion. Gym wear that you choose must be flexible enough for you to move any part of your body easily or else it would hamper your workout.

The dressing tips for men and women are almost the same. Both need sweat-wicking shorts or pants, sweat-wicking tops or tees, sweatbands and sweatshirts.

In addition, women need to pay attention to the type of bra that they choose. The gym wear for women should include a comfortable sports bra too.

2. Shoes

Buying good quality shoes is extremely important. Most of the exercise that you are going to do in the gym, your feet are going to be the one that will absorb the most pressure.

Whether it’s running, skipping, jumping, stepping, or lifting your feet are taking a lot of impacts. They are also helping you to keep your balance all time while you are continuously putting the pressure on them.

So, don’t you think you should treat them nicely with a pair of good quality shoes? Today there are different shoes available for every kind of sports.

Whether it’s basketball, running, cross-fit, aerobics there are specific shoes available for every activity.

If you are going to spend more time on the running exercises then running shoes would be fine for you. Running shoes comes with the additional cushion which absorbs the shock when your foot hits the ground.

This gives your feet extra comfort and saves your feet from blisters.

If you are more of a Crossfit person then running shoes would be of no use to you. They are designed for forwarding movement so they will not support you when you are doing multi-directional movements.

For cross training, go for Crossfit shoes.

This might be expensive but trust me for your feet it’s worth every penny. As 25 % of the total bones are in your feet, damage to any single one of them could impact your whole body.

You certainly wouldn’t want that so, don’t cheap out on them.

3. Shaker bottles

Shaker bottles are used to fulfill all of your refreshment needs. Your gym bag would be incomplete without it. Shaker bottle can hold your pre or post-workout supplements, antioxidants drink, and water as well.

Shaker bottles are used to shake the post-workout protein and cab combo.

You may wonder why to buy a shaker as we can store the supplements even in a single use bottle. So why spend some money on a quality shaker? Well, the reason behind that is your supplements.

Some of you may not know this that you can’t just take your supplements without any measurements.

For example, to gain muscles or weight you use protein powder. Now you don’t want to take it in the excess amount otherwise you could suffer from its side effects. You don’t even want to have it in low amount else, you won’t feel much difference. So, to utilize your protein powder up to its potential you should take it in the prescribed amount. Now that’s where shakers come in.

You can use the shaker bottle to measure your prescribed protein powder. It also comes in handy when you want to shake the protein mixture to make sure it dissolves easily and doesn’t leave the lumps.

If you shake it with normal water bottle it won’t dissolve easily. No matter how hard you stir the mixture with a spoon you will always find lumps sitting at the bottom of the bottle.

4. Weight Lifting gloves with wrist straps

Weightlifting gloves increase the capacity of the pressure of your hand by increasing the grip on weights. Your hands get sweaty during the workout due to which your hands can slip.

That could cause you slipping off the bar while doing pull-ups or while lifting weights. You won’t be able to give your 100 % when you can’t even hold the bar properly because of sweaty hands.

The problem doesn’t end here. Lifting weights with the bare hands over a long period of time could cause blisters and calluses on your hands.

Even a single blister will prevent you from lifting the weights. That would mess up your whole gym schedule.

That’s why weight lifting gloves are important while lifting weights. They will prevent your hands from suffering from these issues.

Straps on the gloves wrap around your wrists to provide more support allowing you to lift more weights. They also prevent wrist injuries.

5. Gym towel

A gym is a place where every single thing will be full of bacteria and germs. People here come to burn out calories and sweat out.

While doing so they spread a lot of bacteria. You will find sweat on every equipment in the gym. That means even more germs. But, you can’t use that as an excuse to stop going to the gym.

You can’t keep stopping those germs from spreading around but what you can do is to take some extra measurements to wipe off those germs. When you sit on the bench put down your towel on it first and then sit on it.

You don’t want other people to sit on your sweat, do you? So, whenever you are using shared equipment, try to use a towel.

That way you could stop germs and bacteria from prevailing.

6. Hand sanitizers

As discussed earlier, a gym is a disgusting place. Every equipment you touch in the gym you invite more bacteria in your body.

Most of the bacteria get accumulated on your hand. So, hand sanitizer is a must to prevent those bacteria from spreading out further.

Some people often eat eggs or bananas immediately after the workout as their post workout meal to boost the protein level and recover energy.

That’s actually a good thing but eating it without washing your hands first is certainly a bad thing.

Before you eat anything after your workout, always wash your hands or use a hand sanitizer. Otherwise, you might end up spreading those germs inside your body.

7. Moisturizer

It’s really important to wash off your skin after working out as your skin will be accumulated with bacteria, oil, and sweat. When you exercise your skin gets dehydrated because your skin loses water due to evaporation.

Dehydrated skin increases surface lines on your skin and cause your skin’s cells to die. This would increase the aging process of your skin prematurely.

So, always use the moisturizer post-workout. Moisturizer helps to retain water in your skin. If you workout at a place where sunlight is more then use the moisturizer along with a sunscreen.

You must first, remove your sweaty clothes, wash your face with face wash, apply toner, and then use a moisturizer to re-hydrate the skin.

8. Bluetooth headphones

Listening to music while working out is a great way to improve your performance. Music often causes distraction and that distraction could be your way to hit the more reps.

Don’t listen to any slow-paced music while working out. Instead of motivating you to hit more reps, it will lower your performance.

Listen to any upbeat music and I assure you will start hitting more reps than your usual reps.

Remember, music shouldn’t be too fast either. According to WebMD study, listening to music which has 120-140 beats per minute have the maximum effect.

The reason why people tend to perform much better when they are listening to music is the effect of music on the brain.

Music has a direct effect on your brain’s motor functions and it alleviates your mood.

Avoid using wired headphones as it will cause you trouble every few minutes and disrupt your workout.

Good quality pair of wireless sweat-free headphones is recommended.

Now that you know all the essential stuff for your gym bag, you are more than ready to hit the gym, burn those calories and smash those fitness goals.