stinky sports clothes

Imagine you wear a cotton uniform when training in martial arts. Imagine you work up such a sweat that said cotton suit becomes wet through. Imagine then that within minutes of getting wet with sweat said suit becomes stinky, despite having been washed before use.

It's definitely the suit that stinks and not me. Sure it's me that does the sweat, but as I keep myself clean, the sweat on my skin doesn't stink, but my suit does get stinky. It never used to, which makes me think there's some sweat activated bacteria embedded in it that's surviving the wash.

Any ideas how to rectify the situation?

 

Turn up the temp in the washing machine and geta better detergent. Maybe the machine itself needs a good 90c wash to clean it out?

 

@clueless1 in my younger days I was a karate star! My mum always said my suit stank! She used to give it a good wash & put it on the line to dry! Not too sure about putting it in a hot wash but you could try Dettol washing liquid,my friend uses that for her children's football kit & trainers! She says that takes away the stench!

 

What style did you practice @Beckie76 ?

And I have no idea about your 'younger days' but if the 76 in your username is a clue, then you're younger than me

Have you ever thought about returning to training? I practiced wado kai years ago, then a variation of shaolin kung fu for a while. Then nothing for years and years until cl1.1 came along and got old enough to start, and now it's tang soo do.

 

Does sweat reacted with the Washing powder? some of them washing powders have a very strong smell so are they masking the smell of the sweat then when it get so sweaty it make it worse

 

@clueless1, yeah I'm a 1976 baby.
I did Taishindo, I loved it for years & did reasonably well (I was one belt off black belt) then for some reason I just grew out of love with it & gave up! It was silly I should have stayed to get my black belt.
My instructor was a really nice man & still speaks to me when I see him.
I doubt I'd ever go back to it now.

 

A mate of mine also got to one grade below black belt when we were teenagers. He gave it up too. He eventually went back just a few years ago and now he's second dan, and has given up again.

I don't think it leaves you. Sure you might get rusty and out of practice, but it soon comes back. When I returned to training after more than 15 years off, I found that my muscles still remembered what order they had to fire in to execute a particular move, just they couldn't do it as well because they'd gone a bit soft soon starts coming back though.

 

a good long soak in Baking Soda and laundry soap. Many times with my husbands work clothes, I just put them all in the washer, throw Baking Soda and Laundry soap in, let the washer fill and agitate for a bit then turn it off, letting it all soak over night, then in the morning turn on the washer and let it continue.

 

Do you use a biological washing powder?
I know many families turn to non-bio when they have babies and then never change back but a biological laundry powder/pod/liquid/capsule/tablet/thingy should help.

 

We use non-bio. To be honest I've never known the difference. I thinkwe just succumbed to marketing.

 

my guess is that the clothes haven't been washed properly, although what you say there tends to occur with synthetic fibres rather than cotton. The suggestion above about Baking Soda and laundry soap seems to be the best.