Gyming Your Ass Off is a Blessing and a Curse (for Your Skin)

Getting into gyming is a blessing for anyone. Like, you’re not going to enjoy it at first, probably not after a while either. But, eventually, you start craving it like, say, a Maccas cheeseburger. The thing about gyming is that it’s the best addiction to have: a healthy one. All you want to do is obey your body’s needs and make it better. You become your body’s bitch, and it’s a great sort-of-messed-up relationship to be part of. You treat your body well by working out and suddenly you’re getting eensy beensy muscles popping up everywhere, you’re staying more hydrated, you’re making better snack decisions (knowing damn well a bowl of chips is going to kill you on the treadmill later), and your skin becomes increasingly smooth and glossy like a good-quality magazine. However, there is always going to be too much of a good thing.

With me, it’s my skin. My damn, sensitive, crybaby, ‘ooh, I don’t feel like it’ skin. Working out is a joke for skin like mine. The rest of my body absolutely adores a good ol’ workout, but my face: absolute chaos. My skin is that kid from primary school that cried during thunderstorms and faked sick to get out of Phys Ed (okay, I did that). You kind of hated them, even if it was just how they were.

Two years back, when I used to gym every day, my skin had taken it as a personal insult. From what was originally just left-over teenage acne, become full-fledged pizza-face and people coming up to me on the street asking if I ever washed my face. For the record: I did and still do. My skincare routine is so damn developed, I could host a three-hour lecture on it.

Let me recite it to you:

·       Following the resulting chaos gyming had caused my skin, I completely admonished junk food from my diet. I was as healthy as it got for someone who could barely cook. I was constantly looking up what antioxidant-rich food there was out there to save my skin. My shopping cart was loaded every time. I even tried getting rid of dairy for two months, figuring it might be secretly aiding the hormones that were causing my acne.

·       I woke up every morning with Benzac’s dermatologically-tested face wash, proceeded then by a tiny dab of skin serum (Estee’ Lauder’s skin serum), and then finished with a pea-sized amount of Benzac’s dermatologically-tested face moisturiser. This is repeated at night as well. In addition, I also exfoliated my face once a week and applied a face mask twice a week.

·       I absolutely detested people touching my face and would wash my hands immediately if I was ever to touch my own.

·       I would change my pillow-case every week.

·       I would wipe my face immediately after every meal I ate.

·       I would shower immediately after gym.

·       I would eye the shower head, nervously wondering if maybe the water was polluted.

·       I avoided makeup like the plague, only wearing it on particularly bad days when I knew I couldn’t handle people asking about my face.

Taken back in 2014. One month on Isotretinoin.
Lips are swollen and acne has
intensified into clusters from pills.

Absolutely none of this changed the way my face looked. Eventually, a miraculous change that saw my face go from millions of pimples to none was seeing a dermatologist for a shot at Isotretinoin: a hardcore pill that dried the holy berries out of my face and eventually had the skin completely change in a matter of six months. It was then I divulged myself into the world of junk food and absolutely zero gym. God, it was bliss. And my face, for the next entire two years, did not change back to its formerly dotty state at all. Not even a single zit.

Taken in 2016 after gyming (hence redness). No filter.

Moving back to the future, I start gyming again. I remember how much I loved it. The beauty of a good sweat came back, and, wouldn’t you know it, I started breaking out again. Nowhere near as bad as it had gotten before, but a few pimples did arise. Luckily, this time I was able to narrow down the causes with a simple question typed into Google:

‘Why have I started breaking out now that I work out?’

And, oh, the answers came. It wasn’t that I was dirty and not washing my face well enough afterwards. It wasn’t because I wasn’t thoroughly cleaning the equipment before use. What finally occurred to me was that my breakouts were radicalised… by heat rash.

Ah, yes, heat rash.  

For some people, gifted like me, you have been blessed with the good ol’ skin condition known as ‘heat rash’. What this basically means is that when you work out, you get so damn overheated, that you’re literally suffocating your face from air (often, your body too). The rush of heat causes the sweat to get in your pores and then clog them, making them itchy when you workout. Lovely. Dovely.

Taken immediately after working out. Evidently,
I have become a tomato.

Now, I won’t say this is the sole reason behind my previous skin problems. Really, heat rash was just aiding and abetting it. Most of my acne problems were just related to hormonal issues. This was obvious when, after finishing my Isotretinoin treatment, I never saw another breakout again — no matter how poorly I ate. And I was eating Maccas and HJs up to five times a week. Sorry, health gurus.

After one month of gyming, little dots began to show up

A week or so into changing up my routine to
combat heat rash.

For anyone else who might suffer from heat rash. Here are my tips for preventing breakouts:

1.       Bring a spray bottle filled with cold water. I felt a little dumb at first spraying myself while running at the gym, but the effects were almost immediate. They toned down the redness in my face as well as helping to even out my body temperature.

2.       Splash face with water immediately after a workout. I go to gym for about an hour every day, but I find my face only starts to itch when on the treadmill. Possibly because I get a little too competitive with myself and keep going even when my breath begins to struggle. I’m not washing my face after every workout I do, only the ones that have me going so hard that I can feel my face begin to itch and redden like a diseased tomato.

3.       Wash face towel after every use. If you sweat profusely during a workout, you don’t want to be wiping your face with yesterday’s dried-up sweat. For all I know, that could be intensifying the effects of heat rash. Get a clean towel.

4.       Don’t just wash face after coming home from the gym. Have a shower. If you get heat rash, it’s likely not just happening on your face, but on your chest area too and maybe your back. To prevent yourself from breaking out in these areas, it’s best to wash yourself immediately after. Including your hair.