OT Tips For Vacuuming The Gym?

[Aussiekat]

Specifically:
1. How to do it quickly.
2. How to get hair up easily. I find it tends to stick to the mats and not get sucked up. I usually have to pause, manually pull the hair out of the mat and then suck it up. I'm about to mandate swimming caps for all girls (and boys with wild locks)
3. How to mitigate the effect of static! I get so charged up my hair goes nuts and I'm constantly getting zapped
4. How often does your floor get vacuumed?

 

[MissBee]

Buy one of these....expensive, but worth it:
http://www.powr-flite.com/product/pf2004+-+24+wide+area+sweeper+vacuum.do

 

[kkinsley]

our floor gets vacuumed every other monday, it used to be every monday morning but since it is our gym manager who is the OCD cleaning freak of the gym but she wasn't actually having to vacuum the full floor we told her it would be done every 2 weeks instead.
Generally we have to people start at either end and both do it panel at a time till they meet in the middle. We leave the brushes up on the bottom so its like vacuuming a wooden floor and this picks most of the hair up, it does mean you have to clean hair out of the brushes. If it needs done in a hurry one person goes along with a brush lifting up most of the hair and someone follows behind with a vacuum.
Our full floor is in a room of its own and the flooring around it is done every day as it only takes 10 mins and all the floor mats and tumble runs in the other area are done every day as well. We pay the trainee coaches to come in at 8.30 to clean the place before classes start

 

[Eyes On The Prize]

As for the static problem, maybe setting up humidifiers might reduce static since it seems to thrive during the dry seasons. I'm wondering if cleaning the mats more often will reduce it as well. You could also have parents looking for ways to fund-raise for their child clean the floors. Assign a floor per family and there's at least 7 families who are working on paying off their bills and your floors are clean. You'd just have to make sure people are doing a good job. But since you seem to be at max capacity for the year, you might not have to worry about finding some people who are willing to do this

 

[Eyes On The Prize]

You could also place some "anti-static mats" around the gym in high traffic areas (break room, between floors, where coaches sit or bring the team in, etc) to also reduce the static as well!

 

[Aussiekat]

I'm not the owner, so I can't buy a fancy-pants vacuum I like the families idea, or the assistant coaches. We have a lot of open stunt sessions for college kids so maybe we can encourage them to do two panels for a free session! I tried vacuuming with the brushes down but it was too much arm effort lol! I ended up sweeping up hair into balls with my cheer shoes on and just picking it up (sounds waaay grosser than it was). It's the height of Australian summer so it's pretty dry down here, I'm hoping it will settle when the weather changes.

Has anyone tried the vacuum robots? It would be cool to just let them run wild all night…

 

[CGAcheer]

I'm not the owner, so I can't buy a fancy-pants vacuum I like the families idea, or the assistant coaches. We have a lot of open stunt sessions for college kids so maybe we can encourage them to do two panels for a free session! I tried vacuuming with the brushes down but it was too much arm effort lol! I ended up sweeping up hair into balls with my cheer shoes on and just picking it up (sounds waaay grosser than it was). It's the height of Australian summer so it's pretty dry down here, I'm hoping it will settle when the weather changes.

Has anyone tried the vacuum robots? It would be cool to just let them run wild all night…

roomba didn't work well for us

 

[KB_Legend]

Our gym used to get vacuumed twice a week, now it's done pretty much every day but in sections rather than the entire gym. We just have a regular old vacuum cleaner and it never has a problem getting up the hair or anything, but we do have to get into the brush with a knife or scissors or something about once a month or so because the brush gets tied up with hair... As far as the static goes, i wish I knew!! It's always worse here in the winter time, which is dryer than the summer, the best solution I have is to touch the metal wall or I-beam or something with my elbow to discharge it before I plug anything in or touch a radio or anything... I wouldn't feel good about using a humidifier because all that foam and everything is so porous and can definitely get mold in them, not sure how likely that would be but it's something I would worry about.... I also find a lot of physical contact (spotting, hands on corrections, high fives, fist bumps, pat on the head etc) will help you constantly discharge those small amounts of static electricity so you never get that big shock from the major build up

 

[Mamarazzi]

This is, without a doubt, the wierdest, completely legit, thread I've ever read.

 

[Aussiekat]

Yeah, I wouldn't fancy having to vacuum the largest spring floor in the world every day. People don't come near me when I vacuum for fear of zappage, I usually go sit in a corner by myself until the charge wears off. It's as sad as it sounds

Just out of interest, KB_Legend, do you put anything like silica under your floor to keep our mould? Or anything to keep bugs and rodents away? We're getting a new Ross floor in a few weeks (whoop!) and we're wondering what protective measures we should take. Melbourne (Australia) has fairly mild weather but crazy summer bugs, and can get flash floods. We have a large roller door we have to close in the evenings because the bugs get attracted to the lights, but the warehouse is also kinda old so there's little cracks in the floor and walls. It's part of an urban industrial estate so fumigation is kinda pointless. Any helpful tips?

 

[KB_Legend]

Honestly, our floors are all directly on top of the concrete... We never really have a major issue with bugs, we have six (I think) large loading dock type garage doors that are open during business hours for a large portion of the year, and even when they are closed we have the same issue with the fact that it's a warehouse so there are lots of gaps and spaces for insects or small rodents to get in. I'm not sure why the bugs are never an issue really, I suppose we are just lucky. There are some from time to time but actually less than you would expect now that I'm thinking about it... When I lived in Cincinnati I remember the year when the locusts came back and those things were EVERYWHERE we built a simple wooden frame and attached a sheet of mosquito net so we could have the door open but the bugs couldn't get in, it worked pretty well, but any kind of fine mesh cloth like that can be fragile so you have to make sure the kids keep their hands off of it. We don't have a problem with any rodents either, a while back there was an issue with some mice getting in and they were chewing into boxes of powerade and stuff in our storage closet, I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure a regular exterminator came and took care of it and I'm assuming set up some preventative measures since they haven't come back... I can find out for sure though if you would like

 

[Aussiekat]

Haven't seen any rodents, only bugs so far. I think it's just a bit of first time gym owner paranoia and sinking a couple of tens of thousands of dollars into equipment and hoping it doesn't get eaten. I'm sure they'll settle once it all arrives and the kids start showing up, then they can fret about the little terrors and their filthy shoes instead. Thanks so much for the advice. It means a lot that one of the biggest gyms in the world has the time to help out one of the smallest start ups in another hemisphere :rays:

 

[KB_Legend]

No problem! Never forget that every big gym was once a small gym

Just focus on the kids and making them great and the rest will all take care of itself. I promise you, other than its size, there is NOTHING special about or gym, some spring floors, tumbling equipment, a few mirrors, and one poster, that's really about it, no bells and whistles at all. The coaches and kids you put inside the gym are what really matters. I wish you the best of luck with your new program!

:rays:

 

[MissBee]

I promise you, other than its size, there is NOTHING special about or gym, some spring floors, tumbling equipment, a few mirrors, and one poster, that's really about it, no bells and whistles at all.

:rays:

And THIS is really important too. If you're teaching proper skill progression and technique, you don't need loose foam pits, trampolines and tumble tracks. All you need is a floor, some inclines (wedges, cheese mats) a couple panel mats, a few trapezoids and some PVC pipes and you're set for tumbling, flexibility and conditioning/strength.