Gym Bag Essentials

The goal of every gym bag should be to weigh less than whatever it is you’re lifting during your workout. While we won’t tell you how to manage your gym bag’s laundry situation (you should have that one covered by now), we can tell you how to pull together a post-training regimen that will have you looking as good as you feel afterwards.

Jumping in a hot shower immediately after completing your workout (and thus losing moisture through sweating) will result in skin that needs a drink as badly as you do. If you want to make sure your post-workout moisturiser is better absorbed, keep the shower cool so whatever you apply afterwards isn’t instantly wicked away again through perspiration.

You don’t want something with too strong a scent. Dryness is the aim here, after all.

Exercise isn’t the most fragrant of endeavours, making a post-workout fragrance an obvious inclusion. You won’t want to schlep around a full-size fragrance every day, so opt instead for a travel-size variety that still packs a punch. Better yet, try one of the new ‘solid’ fragrances for a better travelling companion.

Unless you’re up for using a communal hair dryer, your hair product is most likely going onto damp hair. What’s more, you probably don’t have the time to faff around in front of the mirror, because you’ve got places to be that aren’t the gym. Opt for a formulation that spreads easily through the hair and offers a mid-range degree of hold. Muss it through the hair from roots to tips, rake back and check for any residual product in the mirror.