What piece of equipment is more crucial to your BJJ training than your gi? You need to be ready to move and it offers the range of motion you need while paying respects to the traditions of BJJ and the generations of practitioners that have come before you. However, like all gym gear, it can get pretty ripe over time, so you need to make sure that you’re taking good care of it. But, how often, exactly, should you be washing your BJJ gi?
The importance of rolling around clean
The cleanliness of the gym, including when you’re getting down and tussling with someone on the mats, is essential. Not only is important to hygiene, but it’s also a way of respecting the gym or academy, not to mention your partner. No-one wants to spend all day rolling with someone who’s difficult to be around because of how smelly their Gi is.
Wash as often as you train?
How often you should wash your BJJ Gi should depend largely on how often you train, as well as how hard those training sessions are. If you’re one of those people who can’t get out of the gym, working up to twice a day, then it might be pretty hard to make sure you always arrive with a fresh gi. However, if you’re going twice or three times a week, it should be relatively easy to make sure you’re fresh and smelling at least okay.
Ideally, you would want to have multiple gis so that you have a clean one ready for each session. But we know that isn’t possible. If you enjoy a light session, you might not necessarily need to wash your gi after. However, if your session has been hard enough to leave the kimono wet from sweat, then you should be washing it.
We would recommend, at the very least, washing it after every two sessions if you can’t do it more often. Wearing it for a third is when it starts to get into the realms of seriously unhygienic. Remember, a clean gi with each training session is best, but at most, you shouldn’t let it go more than two sessions without a wash. Having multiple gis to rotate between can help you keep up with this if you can’t do the laundry as often as some.
How should you keep your BJJ gi clean?
First of all, make sure to separate white gis from color clothing, and colored gis from white clothing. Wash them together and you might end up with some new and unwanted blends. Cold water, liquid detergent, and fabric softener are all that you’re going to need. Lay it out to dry, as machine drying can cause it to shrink some. You should avoid chlorine as it can damage the cotton that the vast majority of gis are made out of.
There you have it, our take on how often you should be washing your BJJ gi, and a few tips to make sure you keep it in good contusion.
