Proper Equipment Cleaning

Welcome everybody. Today am I guest is Kaylene can of kind of Ari and that we are going to talk about when you open up your studio, how do you keep it virus clean. And that's going to be the focus of our discussion today. Uh, we really, really wish that we knew the total answers, all of these things. We're just going to give you the best information that we have available today. Um, if you have questions, please put them in the Q and a. Uh, any other comments, please put them in the chat. And uh, we look forward to trying to help everybody in the ground of ours. Yeah.

So, um, let's just start off here with, tell us a little bit, Kevin, about where you are located. I'm in Sacramento, California. I have also, I started my business actually in Georgia. So I have spent a couple of years just outside of Atlanta and Georgia, but I'm now back where I grew up and really happy to be California girl. Cool. And how is the coronavirus impacting your community and the people you interact with?

Well I've seen, you know, I do some business in studios doing maintenance calls and so obviously since studios are no longer open around me, I've seen my in in person visits dropdown. Um, I do teach at a couple of studios nearby and both of those studios are closed, so I'm no longer teaching there, but I have actually seen an increase in my virtual consultations. So I've had some people contact me from all over the country asking, Hey, can you help me with, you know, my bumpy wheels or something. So that's been really neat. It's cool. And how do you do those online consultations? I typically do them basically, however is comfortable for the user.

I've used zoom is FaceTime. Skype, right. You try and minimize the tech barrier as much as possible. And I should mention a quick shout out to JIA. So JIA is behind the scenes and many of you know her and she has just put in the chat here, um, the URL for Caitlin's websites or fed reformer.com and uh, Oh, that's just there too to help. Okay. Uh, do you know people yourself that have the Corona virus? Um, I don't know any, anyone personally I've heard of, you know, some suspected cases that weren't able to get tests, but, um, I've been lucky so far I think.

Right. I'm just curious. I'm just going to do another quick poll here. Just ask other folks. Yeah. Do they know, do they have a [inaudible] have they call it the coronavirus? Do they have a friend with a coronavirus Oh, is it? Not firsthand for sure. But I have a couple of friends who think that they may have had it, but they've kind of recovered and it was kinda crappy, but it wasn't enough and they haven't been tested.

I don't think I have a single friend that has been tested. It's kind of hard to know. Yeah. And uh, I'm just going to share the results here. Fortunately nobody has had it themselves. That's on the call, but, uh, a quarter the fabric fit. Yeah. Nearly a quarter of a friend has got it. Another. Yeah. It's nearly half of all the folks on the call. Either a friend's had it or a friend of a friend. I'm sharing the results. So, yeah. Yeah. Because that's what the data is showing that interesting.

Are these webinars we've been asked the question of when do you think that I'll be open my studio and we're going to talk a little bit about this. And the answer really is Caitlin and I don't know, but we're gonna talk about what we kind of, what we've been reading, what we've been talking about, what we've been discussing. And uh, you know, what we, what we believe might happen and we've, I really want to stress, we don't. Oh, okay. But I, I think that the decline in the number of cases is going to happen sometime may June-ish and every part of the world is on a slightly different time curve on this. Now some people are ahead of there, some people are behind. Um, cause that's what we kind of think that that'd be decline will be gone. That begin to happen. And then the, the governments, whether they're state in the U S or you know, makes nation governments and other countries will begin to say, you know, we can begin to ease that at home policies. So I kind of have in my sort of my kind of mental model of those things that's gonna happen sometime kind of know June, July, I don't know. Do we need, depends on what's happening in your community, but I also think it's not going to be like on that day, but everything goes back to normal, straight away. And if I'm saying things here, you don't agree with Katelyn, just, just interrupt me.

I think initially what will happen is the government will begin to slowly, yeah, restrict the, remove the restrictions that we have today. I think for people who can continue to work from home, they get to encourage you to do that. They're also going to discourage you doing a lot of business trips. I don't think we're gonna see any big festivals this summer. I think if I was in the cruise ship industry, I don't think I'd be running those cruise ships in the summer.

All of those things, but I think it's going to be a sort of phased approach where certain things Mmm will be open before the things. Uh, I was reading this morning about some restaurant ideas and it could be the restaurants begin to open up. You can only sit on every other table and maybe your server is going to be wearing a face mask and maybe wearing gloves and all of those kinds of things. So kind of limited Patrick patrons in there, people wearing masks. I think there's a kind of wild card in this that if, if it turns out that you can only catch this virus once and you've had it and the immune, yeah, the immunity test is possible. Whether or not you've had it. And I think he could see yourself getting a, I don't know, some kind of digital badge on your phone.

It says I'm immune and uh, maybe even an underground market in people selling. But it would be, you know, kind of like, yeah those people that have immunity might be out in the community first, but also thinking that you know, older people may, may make some decisions themselves but if they feel like they are at high risk, they're going to make the decisions to stay at home longer and avoid those kinds of social area. So everybody is going to look at it from their own perspective. And I think there's going to be people that economically are kind of really driven to get back to work even though there is these various programs to support folks. I think that for economic reasons people might take greater risks. So it's going to be, if it's not going to be like everything back to normal in one day, well what do you think about those of, well I think that's a really good point that phased reopening and I think that applied that will apply, you know, in parallel to Plati studios where we might be able to open for private sessions at first and then maybe very reduced small classes and then it will be a while before it was bigger. Studios are running at full capacity.

But you know, I think it's, I think like you're saying, it's a pretty good chance that when we are able to reopen it's not going to be, Oh yes, let's break pap schedule. Everyone's like raring to go. It's, it's going to be a phased gradual thing. One of the things I'd read about is perhaps there's an opportunity for health inspection, you know, before you get to reopen your studio, but your local health inspection department may come and visit and just work through with you what your procedures are. I are you, you know, a bit like you'd see in restaurants [inaudible] you see an a, B, a C, then it will have inspections happened, may have something like that to help people understand, know, Oh have I got the right processes and procedures in place to, to mitigate cause I don't think you can eliminate those virus. You can't eliminate anything really. Um, maybe that, that's what was going to go on. I kind of see in the full [inaudible] there's a reasonable chance that there'll be wiped widespread testing for the test for the viruses. Cause I know very few people that have been able to get a virus tests today here in Los Angeles. And so maybe that test will be in place, which will help us to be able to track when you outbreaks and those kinds of things. And also, um, immunity thing may well be a lot more widespread by the fall.

So I think those things, and then I think there's some wild cards in all of those is, well the Corona is spread more rapidly in the Northern hemisphere winter. You know, are we going to see like a jump in and again and yeah, if you look at the 1918 Spanish flu epidemics, that's, that's what happened. They came back with a vengeance. Um, and then some other folks have talked about what we're going to have a vaccination here. I w what I've read about the vaccine is sort of second half of 2021 at that point. I think that's a real game changer. I think then you can really think about getting back to a more normal what kind of business.

Yup. Yup. That's a long way away. That's a lot of cashflow. If you're paying your rent for another year and a half. Yeah. A couple of wildcards that we've talked about is maybe there's a, yeah, a drug that is developed that really can curios. So if you do get it, you can take the drug and things are going to be better. Mmm. Maybe the virus is really going to die out in the warmer summer, but the fact that in the Southern hemisphere where it's the summer of the present time or kind of end of the summer, it really hasn't changed.

I'm kind of a little bit wary of this or the warm weather is going to make it all go away kind of about that. Yeah. And then they have this thing a bit like the flu is that the virus could mutate, in which case the immunity you get from this year's Corona virus doesn't help you for next year has been like the flu. No, you have to get that flu vaccination every year. So that those has some of my thoughts. Please add anything that you have on this campaign. Okay. Um, I don't really have anything else. I think you've covered it pretty well, John.

Cool. So let's just pretend for a minute that we're in this future where, um, somebody rings you up and says, you know, the governor of California says, I can open my bloody studio. It's going to be, there'll be some restrictions and some rules about that. But what should I be putting in place to keep it clean? What should I be doing to have good operating procedures? So there are a couple of things to think about. So I'm always coming from the equipment perspective.

But before we get into that, we want to talk a little bit about studio policies that might help, um, make your clients feel safer and reduce the spread of the virus and other germs that might live in any public space. So things like making sure that your clients have enough time to come in and get ready for the session and leave without really congregating or passing over clients, you know, through the door, making sure you're disinfecting surfaces that are commonly touched, like door handles, faucet handles, counters. Um, and then you can go as far as do things, you can get one of those foot pedals for your door so that you can lean into it to push it, but you can use your foot to pull it. So it really trying to make [inaudible] um, a little bit to, to mimic, right that social distancing eel and that clean feel for your clients. Because like we talked about, it's going to be a little bit stays when we are able to reopen. Now from the equipment perspective, obviously your clients are going to be really concerned about cleanliness and they're getting up close and personal with equipment that someone else has.

Um, just workout on and sweat on or maybe breathe, you know, breathe done. And so you want to make sure one that you're communicating with your clients, how you're keeping them safe. And then too, you know, following through with those procedures. So, okay, to keep your equipment clean, bare minimum you should be doing is wiping your equipment down between each client with a soap and water mixture and a microfiber towel. What was the significance of the microfiber towel? So a microfiber towel actually is a little bit more grabby than say like a Terry cloth. And so when we talk about cleaning and disinfecting, those are actually two separate things. And they're both effective at basically reducing the spread of germs.

They just work differently. So you're, our job in the studio is to remove the germs from the equipment and so the soap helps to do that. And then the microfiber, the grippiness of that fabric helps to do that. Do you think that's good? Best practices anyway? Yes. Yeah, so that's a great point because all of this stuff that I'm talking about today and that we want to implement to, um, when we reopen our studios, it's stuff that we should be doing all the time because it applies to keeping and reducing the spread of all germs, you know, the flu or Murcia, those types of things. Yup. So let's assume that I have a yeah. Studio, which has multiple reformers in it, but what do you think happens to the schedule then of, you know, I might've had, you know, that class finish at five minutes too, and my next one start on the hour.

I use suggesting make the class a little bit shorter or change this. How would you go about changing things? It's going to vary based on, you know, how you run your studio and you guys know your clients the best. But um, if you want to shorten classes so you can still keep a volume of classes, that's one way to do it. Or you can just spread them out a little bit more. But I think somewhere in the order of 15 to even 20 minutes between classes is going to go a long way cause that's going to allow your clients to clean after to get dressed to leave and then your next clients might want to come in and even wiped down their equipment before they get on it. Right. Just like you do with the shopping cart at the store.

So allowing people that time, you know, you really want to encourage your clients and facilitate hand-washing and hand sanitizing if they don't have time to wash their hands. Right. You don't want people to feel rushed and skip those important public health steps. Yeah. So maybe that will end up nothing on this hour, kind of sketch it in the future. It could be on the Iowa 90 minutes later and which obviously reduces the, the income, potentially income for the studio, but maybe that is part of this transition phase before we can go back to the old normal. Yeah. Yeah. I really liked the idea of having the cleaning supplies though as a kind of hint for people when they come in to clean their equipment as well as when they leave. Yes. Yes. I think that will, that will go a long way. I see. Behind you, you've got your squirty bottle there.

What exactly are you proposing that folks have in that? Um, so this is a mixture of dish soap and water and um, this particular bottle, it says a 24 ounce bottle, but you could use no any size that you have. Um, and so my recommendation is a ratio of 16 ounces of water for one teaspoon of dish soap. And this is like the generic dish soap. It's nothing special, nothing infused in it, right. So has, um, really powerful parts of it that breakdown the fatty layers of viruses. So basically the virus can't live anymore. It's not that kills it by disinfecting, it's that it takes away its home. Basically. It helps to grab it and remove it. So, um, on the bonus side, that's actually the only mixture that most vinyl and [inaudible] equipment manufacturers are okay with you using as well. So when, when, Oh, what should I do if my client comes in and says, I'd rather you using a bleach or disinfectant. Mmm.

Do I push back on that? Mmm. That's a tough, that's a tough call. Um, a lot of people have asked about disinfecting wipes, you know, those, the packages that you get from Costco or wherever and, and I want to say that, yeah, they're not recommended for your equipment from your longevity and appearance and performance of your equipment. I don't recommend them. However, if there needs to be a short term period where you're using them, because that is what's required for you to operate your business and for your clients to be safe, then you need to do that. That's going to happen. You just want to be aware that those types of wipes and lots of other kind of harsh chemicals, hospital grade disinfectants are eventually going to break down your vinyl, which you know, okay, you can reapply Ulster, but it's also going to eventually damage your wood finish. And I can tell you from personal experience that refinishing wood is a really lengthy and time consuming job. So you want to avoid that sort of longterm use that builds up if you're doing it seven times a day, that's rough. That's gonna, that's gonna add up really quickly.

Now the other thing to consider with using these kind of wipes and disinfectant solutions that you feel like you have to use, you want to make sure that you've read the instructions. So my Costco wipes that say kills flu virus and you know germs, you have to leave it wet on the surface for five minutes and it says if it dries before five minutes, you have to reapply. And so that is something that, you know, if you aren't doing that and you're not liking every single surface that the client touched, right? So, not just the vinyl, but bar and frame and the roll down bar, then the whole theory kind of falls apart. So just be sure to follow the instructions and make sure you're cleaning every single surface on the equipment that your client touches. [inaudible] so if, if I had, um, you know, those distant, you know, I'm going to say the brand Clorox or whatever. Yeah.

If I had that versus the soap and water in the squeegee bottle, if they're not apply, if the whites are not applied properly, it may not even be more effective than the soap because right. One is cleaning and one is disinfecting. So cleaning is removing the germs and disinfecting is killing them, but still kind of leaving the dead stuff there. So for, for the other kind of hidden instruction on those things is you want to clean the surfaces before you disinfect because if you've got dirt and dust and hair and dead skin cells on there, the virus can hide in them. And then when you try and kill it with a swipe of your disinfecting white, it's still hidden and you don't get it. So, um, yeah, you're exactly right. What, what do you think about the belts and suspenders kind of approach that, you know, use soapy water to cut everything. And then I use the Clorox beach. Mmm.

You could, you could, you can, you can go down a rabbit hole chasing the reduction of germs in your studio. So there are a couple other things I want to point out about making sure you're getting the complete picture. And this will just reemphasize the need to facilitate and encourage and enable your clients to wash their hands and not touch their face, which is like the hardest thing to do, especially now. Right? Right. So there are surfaces on your equipment that needs slightly different care than just your vinyl in your board. So your Springs, it should also be cleaned because your clients are changing their Springs.

Um, so if you have contemporary Springs, like a balanced body spring or start spring or a peach spring, basically Springs, they're kind of a shiny blue, silver. Those Springs you can wipe down with your soap and water or you're disinfecting wipes because they've got a coating on them. But more classical Springs, like the grotto or Caladrius designs by Basel or the balanced body control, Logix Springs, those need, um, 70% alcohol mixture to be cleaned. And that's very [inaudible] tricky because you should not use alcohol anywhere else on your equipment at all. But if you have uncoded Springs, you need that alcohol because it will evaporate quickly and not basically cause the Springs to rest. Mm. So the Springs are a slightly different thing than the other slightly different things. Your ropes in your loops. So the ropes and the loops, right. Hard to wipe down.

We don't really want to spray them and then have what loops for the next person. Much less. Spraying them down does not actually do anything because they're cloth. They're not a hard surface. So again, that is where you come in and you say, please wash your hands, don't touch your face before and after the session. Right. We're doing everything we can or washing the loops, you know, whenever, you know, once a week or twice a week or whatever. Um, but in the end, you ha you can go really far down a rabbit hole of trying to make sure that the vinyl is really, really clean, but you might be ignoring the push the bar or if the ropes that you choke up on for pulling straps. So Mmm, this isn't [inaudible] it's applauding studio and we want to reduce the risk of germs but we, it's going to be impossible to eliminate.

Yeah. Yeah. I wish, I wish we could make it as I was no pricing. I was talking to somebody yesterday about carpet floors that would be easier to, you know, kind of more up and bleach. Do you have any thoughts about that? Um, so the big thing is keeping them clean so that germs can't hide in dusty, hairy areas. Um, again, it comes down to washing your hands, not touching your face if you're working on the floor, right. Putting your mat down, making sure that they're, they're on a yoga mat or a applaud mat and you're, you're basically following regular crooning habits. So I think it depends on what kind of floor you have.

I don't know that one is better than the other per se, but, um, just taking basic care of cleanliness. Okay. What do you think about, um, [inaudible] some studios, they required you to wear socks to be on the equipment. What about providing the opportunity to sell straps and loops and things like that that we had to mindful? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that having straps on hand to resell to your clients or recommending where they can order their own is going to be, um, big, big, warm and fuzzy feeling for them. Um, and I think you'll see a lot of clients asking for that because when they start to clean their equipment at the end of the session, they're going to go, okay, cleaned everything except how do I clean the straps?

So, um, just like you have your little sock carousel. Yeah. Your front desk, you might start to have, Oh, loop carousel. Yeah. And I think different for things like props. So I've done a lot of research on cleaning recommendations for manufacturers about props, squishy balls, there are bands, wood dowels, that sort of stuff. And across the board, the thing that every single one recommends and um, is safe is the soap and water mixture. So that is the gold standard across basically all of those little toys that you want, that you have in your studio. You just want to make sure that stay dry, um, pretty quickly and you're not kind of like if you wipe down a TheraBand, you're not balling it back up and shoving it in a drawer so it stays wet and you want it to dry. Right. Yeah.

Do you think there's a risk in any of these okay. With the soapy water, how do you get the stickiness of them? You know, like we will use too much detergent sometimes washing the dishes afterwards and we have to really rinse. Do you have any advice about how to avoid that? So my ratio doesn't, you doesn't leave sticky residue. So if you follow that 16 ounces, one teaspoon, if you feel like you need bigger concentration or so for whatever reason, then you can consider following up with just a water [inaudible] basically. Right. Yeah, I've been using that for years. I have clients who've been using that for years with fantastic results. Yeah. Alright. I'm gonna switch this over to the Q and.

A and maybe we've covered some of these already, but that's Mmm. [inaudible]. Uh, let's see how we get on. Um, please up to your questions. It's not because we're trying to be difficult. Us come again or do a follow up. We'll do our best here. So this one is from Korea. Um, does it have to be halt? So with the soap or can it be cold? It can be cold water. Yup.

It can be cold water. That's a good question. Is it auto or not really? Mmm, maybe slightly. It would be slightly advantageous to wash your hands with hot water. Yeah. Not required to be effective. Oh, this is from Wendy. I think. I remember Wendy from before. We'll come back when they do recommend a new clean microfiber towel each time to clean the equipment. So the question is, you know, do you, can you use it more than once? You know, that sort of family of questions. That's a really good question. Um, if your towel can dry uses, that's great. Like you lay it over the edge of the head end of the word former.

Um, then I would say it's okay. But, uh, generally we are, remember we're using this mixture to remove germs from the surface of the equipment. So by using that dirty rag back on, you know, it's presumably all the Germans have come onto this rag, right? We don't want to put that rag back on the equipment. So, um, using a clean paper towel or a clean rag, every session will go a long way in helping to reduce the crossover of germs. So I just wanted to summarize that. So you would recommend that you use it for one session, that microfiber, put it in the washing machine and have a pile of those, which is maybe like a towel. The same cups? Yes. Okay. I love this question. My, uh, uh, when you spray vinyl, should you sing happy birthday twice before wiping it off? That's the best question. I've, I love it.

I hope only if it's your equipment's birthday. No, that is not necessarily correct. Applicable. So the reason that we do that with our hands is to make sure we have enough time to mechanically agitate all of the surfaces of your hands, right so that we have the biggest chance of getting the germs unattached from our skin and onto the rag or washed down the sink. So with your equipment, because it's typically a flat surface, it's a little bit easier too, mechanically agitate enough to get the dirt, the dirty stuff off. So what you're going to look for, first of all, the bare minimum is making sure that there's no sweat stains or any sort of like temporary things that if you just spent another few seconds wiping or gently scrubbing, you could get it off.

You want to make sure that that comes off right. Any visible stuff. Um, but in general, the most important thing is that mechanical agitation, physical action of scrubbing because we're trying to remove germs. So, um, there's not a good rule about happy birthday. I wish I had one, but um, you definitely don't want to just wipe once and move on. What about using a mixture of tea tree oil with water? So that is a very popular solution among Claudia's studios because we all want to try and be um, kind of organic and natural and clean and avoid harsh chemicals. But tea tree oil is not soap and the reason soap isn't, is effective is because of the chemistry of soap and tea tree oil is not, does not have that chemistry so it doesn't have that power to grab on and remove the virus and kill the fatty how's that the virus lives in.

So in that sense it's not effective. Um, as so it's also not recommended to use in high concentrations on your vinyl and on your wood because it's an oil and that oil will basically attack the parts of your vinyl that keep it soft and supple, supple and so it could cause it to crack earlier, dry out and crack earlier than normal. I have clients who've used tea tree oil diluted very heavily, right for years with no issues. But you just have to be careful because the way we use it, right. Just like following the directions on your disinfecting wipes for tea tree oil, you have to make sure that, is there any studies that say it disinfects you're following that exact ratio to get the benefits of it. Thank you. Yeah.

This question is from Robin. What do you suggest about cleaning or using sticky mats? You know the ones that you used for grip, have you keep those clean? Those are tough. Those that's tough. Um, you need to be wiping them down at least with that soap and water mixture. And if you're noticing like I see this a lot in studios that they are, they kind of get Brown [inaudible] they start, they really start to show dirt over time is to consider not using those or replacing them more often and maybe cut up some inexpensive yoga mats instead that are a little bit easier to wipe down and keep clean with your soap and water to mixture the people that are teaching mat parties, do you have a recommendation for, you know, the plotters mat or a yoga mat? How would you, so people also, again, yup. I feel like a broken record, but if you look, if the only exception to that is cork, so cork mats have are this other sort of, um, recent trend. I don't know much about them, but they're supposed to have some properties that, that don't require so much cleaning.

I don't know how true that is, but you're not supposed to use soap on them. Just water. Yeah. Okay. This is asked this question, just explaining again, the mechanics of why soapy water works better than disinfect until bleach.

So it doesn't necessarily work better. It works better in my opinion, for our application because we as instructors and studio owners don't want to damage our really expensive and beautiful [inaudible] equipment. So when you're talking about cleaning and disinfecting, it's two different things. Remember, cleaning with, so is removing germs from a surface or from an item doesn't necessarily kill them. Right. That's why we are using a new rag. Every time we wipe the soapy part of the water, the soap actually at its chemical level has this thing and I'm horrible. I hate chemistry, but it basically, it works in that the virus lives inside of a lipid house and without that house surrounding it, it dies because it doesn't have its home anymore.

And so breaks down that fatty house so that it is no longer there because it's got this hydrophobic and, and all that stuff. So it's [inaudible] anyway, sorry if you're a chemist. But the soap actually breaks down the house, which causes the virus to die. Disinfectants kill the virus outright, but they don't necessarily remove the dead virus or remove any other dirt or, or whatever from your equipment. So it's a different process for achieving the same thing, which is reducing see amount of live virus cells or reducing the spread of germs in your studio.

Thank you guys. And we will, uh, cause a few other articles that I've read that we will put in the description to this video when we publish it in a couple of days and hopefully, you know, you can kind of, for those that are the chemistry folks can kind of see a bit more of the sciences out there. Mmm. This question is from Courtney. Uh, the virus can be trimmed, it's transmitted by aerosol transmission, you know, like by sneezing it and doing that, the likelihood of transmission by aerosols increases with speaking loudly. Fortunately, I'm just speaking at you loudly. Kaylene here in front of the computer. Um, how can a small classy studio decrease the likelihood of virus transmission by aerosols in the air, uh, with clients breathing heavily during a workout? That's a good question because I know as a plebes instructor, I am always telling my clients, I can't hear you breathing and then I breathe.

Right. So, um, it may be, and we'll have to see what, you know, public health officials recommend when things are [inaudible] allowed to be opened back up. But it may be that we need to wear masks and you know, I wear a mask as an instructor and I ask that my client wears a mask. You could also try and maintain your social distance, right? So maintaining that two meters or six feet from your clients or from each client to one another. Um, but at this point in time, I don't have a good answer because we need to see what our public health officials are going to recommend when that becomes an option for us to reopen. On a Friday I was talking to Nike tech, a Hashi who is in Tokyo and what has become her new normal there is that she wears a face mask and she asks the clients to wear a face mask and she only lets one client in at a time.

She has a small studio and so one of the time, and she has broken up a schedule so she has much longer between to clean everything. And so she is trying to protect herself, trying to protect her clients, trying to keep things clean. Um, much, much more labor intensive way of doing things is, you know, she's had to reduce her client load because of all those things. Um, I hope that helps. Courtenay and uh, let's move on to Michelle here. I've purchased the new balance body vinyl covers. Oh, they just wipe and soap and water and ready to use again quickly. Yes. So same principle applies. You want to make sure that you have enough time with that soap and water mixture to agitate the surface to remove the germs because that is not a flat surface.

It's going to take a little bit more effort to make sure you get into the nooks and crannies or the the full per se of the vinyl. So they're a great option because you can use that soap and water mixture on them, but you just have to be a little bit more mindful that you are taking the time to gently scrub all of the crevices of it. Yeah, I haven't seen them yet. I've seen them on that website. It looks like a, it could be part of the solution. Yeah. This is from Janice to clean the Springs. Are you recommending spraying the cloth or spraying the Springs?

Where are you applying this? The the soapy water? That's a great question. Um, I prefer to spray big surfaces directly. So like vinyl or if I'm cleaning the rails of your, my reformer, where I know the water isn't going to get into places that I can't see, then I'll just spray it directly on there. But for things like Springs or the headrest area that might have, you know, hair and nastiness in it, I'm definitely going to spray the rag because I want to control where the moisture is applied to my equipment because what I don't want is to spray the Springs, wipe the Springs. But there's over-spray on other metal parts of the equipment.

And so at the end of the day you might have had seven, you know, seven cleaning sessions of moisture sitting on metal parts of your equipment that were never dried. Totally. And so that's really what you want to avoid. That's a great question. So on the rag then to the Springs, uh, this is from Karen. All those microfiber towels is a lot of laundry. Yeah, it's a lot of microfiber towels. Can it be as effective to use paper towels, paper towels, and dispose of them. So paper towels can work. Um, they aren't as grippy as a microfiber towel.

Like we talked a little bit about in the beginning of the microfiber versus like a Terry cloth bath towel. It actually has been shown to grab more microscopic things then a regular bath towel and that has something to do with how it's Weldon. Um, so a paper towel can work. Mmm. But you just want to make sure he might need to do a couple of paper towels because you don't want to because they're smaller and they're center. Um, and then you want to make sure that you spend enough time gently scrubbing. So maybe do a little bit more scrubbing with the paper towel than you would with a rag because you want to make sure that you're agitating enough to lift things and then remove them. [inaudible] yeah. Do you have a recommendation of any particular products, microfiber towel products? I'm talking about here?

Did you particularly like or I get mine from, I, I have them from two sources. So Costco, however, those are typically big towels, right? Or you can get on Amazon, the store of everything. You can get smaller microfiber towels like this. Um, and those work out really well cause you don't need a big 18 inch by 18 inch towel if you're amazing at once. And then that can help cut down on cost and laundry. You have a bunch of small ones. So I go Amazon.

What gets good reviews? What is cheap and gets here on time. Yeah, Eric just asked the question, how do we clean the trapeze, upright and slide bars that may be lubricated. So, um, I'm assuming you're talking about the tubes on the, the Cadillac that are vertical and your slider that made you, holds your roll down bar goes up and down on them for the ones over the top right. The trapeze goes on. And I do recommend people clean. They, yeah, they can lubricate those tubes with silicone and erratic, um, to help the sliders move smoothly. But keeping those tubes clean with the soap and water mixture after every client because your clients may be touched, those poles is fantastic and it shouldn't really affect how well lubricated those tubes are. Because at the end of the day, if they're too lubricated, you can't hold on to them. Right.

So the biggest important, the most important thing for those is that they're clean. There's no dust, right? Mmm. And I would not worry about maybe having to use silicone spray a little bit more often then, um, then avoiding cleaning them all together. Okay. Our next follow up question is what about the foam handles? Foam handles are tough. Uh, they have to be hand washed and you might try soaking them. Um, again, this comes down to Mmm.

Encouraging your clients to wash their hands and not touch their face. So Mmm. Foam handles, ropes, all those things. Um, there's not much you can do for them on a per session, quick basis. That is very effective. So yeah, that hand washing thing really important. There's a question from Lisa here and I love it. She's saying, is it worth shaking that bottle each time before you spray? Do, does the water and the soap separate? I've never seen it separate. No. No. Once it, when you first mix the solution, shake it right, then it gets all dissolved. But Mmm, Nope. It doesn't separate. Karen has a question here.

Could we ask our clients to wear workout gloves with grip ease to try and we choose the risks here. That's a good idea. That's a really good idea. Um, if you think your clients are going to be up for that, I think that's a great idea. I personally love gloves for shopping, not necessarily because I know how to maintain the sterile field, but because it also reminds me not to touch my face having something weird on my hands. I don't want to touch my face with that weirdness. So, you know, there could be a couple of benefits to that. Yeah, I've seen some wonderful cartoons with the humans, with the dog collar stuff, but it's so hard. I do it all the time and I'm looking at myself here and when I re watched these videos, Oh my not have touched my face a hundred times during that video, so I know it's hard, huh?

Yeah. I have a question here from Vanessa. What about non-slip towers that clients bring to place on their reformers? Uh, do you have in the pros and cons of that? Yeah. Um, pros are your clients feel good. Mmm. Pros are maybe if they sweat a lot, they're not going to get a huge amount of sweat on the vinyl. Um, the cons are it only covers a percentage of the surfaces that your client does touch during the session. So it's not the end all be all solution, but um, it can make them feel good and help make cleaning a tiny bit easier at the end. Um, Vanessa has followup was do you know any brands that you'd like for that?

Okay. The only one I've seen is salt and honey. Um, and I held it but I have not used it. Oh, their CG is posting that link. Yeah. Um, I have seen a lot of people cut up yoga mats and I think that's a wonderful option if that's something you are interested in. Okay. So we've had a request here for you to do a demonstration. So this is from Jodi. Thank you. [inaudible] is a great one.

Do you spray the soapy water on the vinyl, then wipe it down with a microfiber or would you spray the soapy water on the microfiber directly and then wipe down the equipment? Can you demonstrate on the equipment behind you? Yes, I'd be happy to. Thank you for that question. I love it. Okay, so there we go. Can you see if I'm over here? Great. All right, so we'll go on my soapy water. I'm going to spray directly on this vinyl surface because I know I've got a lot of area to cover and the risk of spray is not overstretched, is pretty low, so you can see that I'm really trying to get into orders.

I've using gentle force, not just wiping once and then for these shoulder rest areas, right? If I sprayed right here, I would get over-spray on other surfaces that I'm not prepared to white, so I'm going to go ahead my cloth pretty damn and then white can shoot arrests just like with our hands, right? The reason you sing that happy birthday song is to make sure that you're touching. You're getting scrubs all over, all these surfaces of your hands that are not just your poems. So I take that theory and use it for where you're wiping your shoulder rests. Now there's still a little bit of moisture on the top of this and that's great. I can see it sort of drawing with my bare eyes.

So that is the appropriate amount now for Springs for sprain and then why being this end? You don't have to wipe the whole spring, which is counterintuitive because I always tell people, you know when you're cleaning your spring, when you're inspecting your Springs, you need to make sure that you inspect the whole thing. But when you're cleaning, you're only touching. Let's see here, you're only touching one end of the spring. So I'm coming under here and wiping these Springs. Now you want to make sure that the Springs are dry when you're done. Um, those particular Springs that you saw, there are contempt, contemporary Springs, so they have a plating on them. So, um, a little bit of moisture won't cause them to rust. But if you are, if you have a classical machine grots plot these designs, control algae by balance body, then you would apply your alcohol to the rag and use alcohol to wipe them.

So, and that is a disinfectant, not a cleaner, FYI. That's good. All right. First time we've done a demo on this and that was not rehearsed and that was not as set up. But thank you so much for doing that. Right. A couple of questions here. Follow up.

Should you be wearing gloves if you're doing the cleaning? Um, I'm assuming that it's the client who's cleaning and so I don't think so. Um, you're going to be touching the rag. You're going to be wiping and then you're going to wash your hands, right? So if you're following all of those good recommendations throughout your experience at the studio, washing your hands before avoiding touching your face during the session, wiping equipment, washing your hands after, then you should be good.

If you, as the studio owner are white, everyone else's equipment, you might consider I'm wearing gloves. Yeah. Look after your own body as part of this whole thing. I'm a bit like you Kaylene if I'm wearing gloves, I tend to not touch my face so much. Cause the guts. Yeah. Yeah. We are feeding to them.

[inaudible] we have a few more questions here. Mmm. Some of Courtney's saying those that operate a studio out of their homes, do you have any advice of how to keep the clients and the instructors safe with a home studio? Um, that's going to depend on the setup, so, and who else lives in your home? Mmm. You're obviously, like John just said, you want to take care of that.

You're not endangering yourself. Um, and making sure that all the surfaces, your clients touch, including your front door if that, that's where they come in or your communal bathroom. That's, you know, maybe that bathroom becomes only for clients and not for you. And you, you know, have very, um, really good cleaning habits for it. It's going to depend. So, um, case by case basis, but much of the same principles, all the same principles basically apply from studio to home. Okay. Okay. Mmm. Okay.

[inaudible] talking about the kneeling pads that people use, you recommending soap and water for those? Yup. Okay. Mmm. And how do you clean the non-slip towels? You know, we were talking about kind of chopping up things, so they straightened the washing machine. Is that how you'd clean those in between? Well you have to check because the manufacturer if using like a salt and honey towel, they should have cleaning recommendations and typically you can put them in a washing machine. So I know some, like especially the very generic brands of you have a mats so you can put in a washing machine. Mmm. You wouldn't want to do it every day, but you can definitely do it once a week, once a month, that sort of thing.

But wiping by hand is going to the [inaudible] [inaudible] the best thing for that rubber surface. Um, I should probably check out Salton honeys website and see what they have to say. That'd be my recommendation. Okay. As question from Susan, is there a way to clean the ropes? Yeah, you can take them off just like you do with your straps. I'm in Washington once a week. Yeah. Those are again, surfaces that are going to be touched. Um, if you're doing choking up during polling straps or you're changing out, whoops.

That really just [inaudible] emphasize the need to wash your hands and beak. Be careful. Okay. Oh, the material on the balance, body, bows and ox is dense flow soap and water still good for those? Yes. Okay. These are good questions. I'm impressed. Okay.

Um, so this one is from Robert and this is a little bit, um, we're going to and is gonna try and answer this one. I hope that we're also gonna have a session with Maria Leoni about how to substitute verbal cues and physical cues and what it's going to be like, um, teaching in a Corona virus. Well, I'm gonna ask you [inaudible], but we're going to cover this one again about how teaching might be different posts. Corona. Um, when you mentioned having clients clean their own equipment, it brought up another question. What are your thoughts about cues where we touch our clients? Obviously we will not know anything until guidelines are released. Also, I clean the equipment for my private clients, which is the bulk of my business. She suggested that I transitioned to having all of my clients clean for my own safety.

I think that it's smart to have your clients clean their own equipment. You might follow up with another cleaning, but I think it's very smart to have them try and clean their equipment after their session, which I know is not policy all the everywhere for private clients. Um, but I think that's a smart thing as far as teaching. It sounded like you guys have a [inaudible] anytime has a great webinar coming up, so I'll have to watch that one as well. I'm looking forward to it as well. Artemis, I'm asked this question.

Can you speak to air movement through the studio? Okay. That is probably out of my area of expertise. I don't have any good info and I haven't really read any good information on that. What we will do, VGA will be able to remind me here. Um, but there's a very good New York times article that came out in the last few weeks of them talking about the airborne transmission of the virus.

And really the conclusion I got from it is we don't know much. So I'm really, I wish I could answer that one better. [inaudible] I don't think anybody really kind of knows the answer to that. So I hope that we've answered nearly all of the questions that would come out and they were fabulous questions. So first of all, big love to everybody that sign up today. Thank you so much. I'm going to close with Kaylene one last question. What is your last closing piece of advice for everybody?

So I want to say that, um, I sympathize with you guys a lot and I really want to try and help you keep yourself safe and your clients safe. I don't want you to forget about your own safety. Mmm. But at the end of the day, these are all things we can do, but they're not gonna make your studio an operating room level of sterile. And that's not realistic. And so we want to do the best we can do. That doesn't harm our equipment, that it's been shown in literature too.

Basically help remove or disinfect germs and we want our clients to feel safe so they come and will pay us and we can keep our businesses open. So that is our perspective here and I really hope that it's been helpful. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to me. And if I don't know, we'll figure it out because you know, I don't own a studio. And so basically I figure out what everyone wants to know because they asked me and I love that. So thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you everybody. And uh, our next webinar is tomorrow with Katie Santos and we're going to be talking about the payroll protection program. So see you then and Kaitlin, thank you. You're amazing. Okay. Thank you. Bye everybody. Bye.