4 Gym Hair Tips For Keeping Great Hair While Working Out

Gym Hair Tips So You Can Sweat It Out

It’s been awhile since I talked about hair on this blog, but on the few times I’ve been able to make it to they gym, I’m always amazed at what length black women will go to not to sweat. Not sweating…in the gym? Isn’t that the point? But god forbid they mess up their hair.

This leads me to ask the question: Is your hair really worth your health? Really?

I want to look fly like everyone else, but even when I had relaxed hair, I was in the gym sweating it our six days a week. Never was my hair going to prevent me from being healthy and in shape. And let’s be real, how fly can you look if you’re grossly overweight? There is more to your body and looking good then a hot hairdo. It’s long past time for us to get out proprieties straight where are health is concerned and realize the superficial (fly hair) is not worth our health.

Make this the year that it’s okay to sweat out the do. It can always be fixed. Here are some tips to help with the post workout hair from Nubian Fitness Goddess:

1. While working out wear a cotton sport headband. It absorbs most of the sweat while I workout and keeps my hair flat. I do not recommend tying your hair up with a scarf. I have found that my hair sweats more that way.

2. Do NOT touch your hair until it dries. When I first started working out I would try to comb my hair while it had sweat it in. This does not work; it spreads the sweat throughout your hair. I learned that my hair is much more manageable if I wait 30-45 min after working out so it can dry.

3. Learn how to care for you own hair. This past year I had to learn how to care for my own hair. Caring for my own hair gave me the opportunity to wash and deep condition it at least once a week ( as opposed to paying someone every other week). Doing this has kept my hair healthy and I work out when I want to without worrying about wasting my money at the hairdresser.

4. Hair Products that Help
*No Rinse Shampoo- if you’re on the go and you really need to get the sweat out use No Rinse Shampoo.
*Aveda Reviving Mist- this is useful if you need a refresh, you can also dry Dry Shampoo. It’s really helpful in between washes
*Aveda Anti-humectant – this little jar is worth the investment during the summer time. It helps prevent frizziness in humid weather.

So what do you think? Are these some gym hair tips that you find helpful? Do you think now you can sweat it out in the gym and keep your hair looking fly? Let us know in the comments.

Our Hair is Killing Us

Black Women Letting Hair Keep Them From Exercising

We are letting our hair kill us:

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – About a third of black women cite complications of hair care as the reason they do not exercise or exercise less than they would like, according to Amy J. McMichael, M.D., the lead investigator of a study from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
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McMichael, associate professor of dermatology, specializes in hair and scalp diseases, ethnic and pigmented skin diseases, and general dermatology and skin care. “I see a lot of African American women in our clinic and had noticed how many of them are overweight. This puts these women at risk for hypertension, diabetes and other serious problems.”
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In fact studies show that 77 percent of black women are overweight or obese, McMichael said. “I thought it would be interesting to look at what role their hair plays in their amount of exercise. Many African American women with coarser hair use either heat straighteners or chemical products to straighten their hair. Depending on how coarse or fragile their hair is, they can’t just wash their hair after exercise without having to go through the whole process again, and that can take hours. Over-washing fragile hair can make it break off easily.”
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McMichael and the team of investigators from the Department of Dermatology, the Division of Public Health Sciences, and the medical school interviewed 103 black women about how much and what types of exercise they do, and the time, expense and complications of caring for their hair. Sixty-four of the respondents had relaxed their hair by various means.
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All of the respondents believed it was important for them to exercise. And 50 percent stated that they considered changing their hair to make it easier to exercise.

I’m not unsympathetic to the hair issue. But I will readily admit I don’t understand it. When I had hair I still exercised and exercised hard. I never allowed my hair to stop me from working out, but then again I rarely went to the beauty salon either, unless it was to get a relaxer.

So, I rarely had a hairstyle I had to “protect.” I’ve talked hair on this blog before, but as the study notes there are no easy solutions. If you have straightened or relaxed hair, you’re gonna sweat it out. There’s no way around that if you’re working as hard as you should work.

To those who navigate their workouts and their hair, how do you do it?

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Is Your Natural Hairstyle Causing You To Go Bald?

Is Your Natural Hairstyle Causing Hair Loss?

This isn’t exactly a weight post but it does deal with hair and we all know that hair is one of the main reasons black women site for not working out. Seems like some natural hairstyles are not all they are cracked up to be:

Why children who braid it like Beckham risk losing hair
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Girls who plait their hair too tightly or scrape it back in braids or a ponytail may be at risk of permanent hair loss, researchers suggest.
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Hairstyles such as corn rows or braids and those that require chemical straighteners, weaves or hair extensions can damage hair and cause bald patches over time, the British Journal of Dermatology reports today.
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Related diseases of the scalp, skin and hair are thought to affect people of African descent particularly. However, dermatologists have underlined the dangers of excessive treatment or scraping back for any hair type.
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The tight bun styles favoured by ballet dancers, the corn rows once sported by David Beckham or the dramatic “Croydon facelift” look parodied by Vicky Pollard, the Little Britain character, could all potentially cause problems, they said….keep reading.

So just some things to keep in mind for those of you who swear you can’t sweat out that hair. Maybe you should try other types of natural hairstyles. If you’re wearing weaves, braids or other pulled hairstyles make sure they are not oo tight. Also, give your hair a chance to just be without any excessive styling involved. Ultimately, you should aim to have healthy hair and a healthy body.

Is Your Hair Keeping You From Losing Weight?

Barriers To Weight Loss: Hair

Alright ladies. Let’s talk hair. In studies that are done about what’s preventing African American women from working out, hair often comes up. From the Baylor College of Medicine:

Most of the women who participated in the study reported that managing their hair made exercising a challenge.

From: Cultural Factors Keep Some Black Women Away From The Gym

Also, to get black women to exercise and adopt healthful lifestyles, you must take hair and appearance into consideration, Railey says.
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“If a woman spends hours in a (salon) chair and spends $60, she’s out of the gym for at least two days,” Railey says.

So as you can see hair is a problem. A Big problem. My take on this is this: If it comes down between a a nice hairdo and heart disease/diabetes/cancer/hypertension and a slew of other illnesses. Which would you choose? That should be a no-brainer. But apparently it’s not.

I’m a black woman so I understand how a lot of BW’s confidence is tied up in their hair (and a myriad of other things) but at the end of the day your hairstyle shouldn’t dictate your health.

The way I see it there are only 2 options to the hair dilemma:

1. The Wrap

When I had hair (I’m currently a member of what I like to call: The Happy, Nappy, Natural and Free, Club) I used to wrap it before I went to the gym and slapped a scarf on it. Any Black woman worth her salt knows a well-executed wrap can secure salon style straightness with minimal effort.

What wrapping your hair also does is prevent a lot of the excess moisture (read sweat) from wreaking havoc on your do. I know that for many Black women the worst thing that can happen is to have their freshly relaxed hair “turn” and those edges not be a s straight as they were when they left the hairdresser.

Wraps help to cut down on the “turning” and once you’re ready to leave the gym if you have somewhere to go, comb out the wrap, apply a light bump with a curling iron or flat iron (optional) and you’re good to go. Just as fly as when you left the salon.

Now obviously if you’re working our regularly and you sweat profusely you will need to up how many times a week you wash your hair. Once a week to twice a week (three times a week is pushing it with relaxed hair ’cause it dries out so easily) should do the trick and be prepared to wrap it again.

If that sounds like it is too much work for you then there’s Option 2:

2. Go Natural

Yeah I said it. Go natural. Black women are the only women on the planet who are told that there is a problem with their hair being in its natural state. White women may dye their hair (we do it too) but the texture of their hair remains the same.

To sistahs I say:

Get out of bondage. Stop letting your hair rule you and wear (and love) the hair that God gave you.

With natural hair the issues Black women have with their hair and the gym disappear. Natural hair is wash-and-go hair. As a kid I used to envy White women and other non-black women for their wash and go/less labor intensive hair. It took me to get older to realize I had wash-and-go hair too; it’s just when you chemically alter your hair it doesn’t do what it’s naturally supposed to do.

I’ve been natural before. I had a min-afro for awhile and then at my mother’s insistence, I relaxed it. Then after a bad chemical burn that took out part of my hair and countless breakages and dryness I said, “Enough is a enough,” and chopped it all off.

So now I have a very low boys haircut. And when I say low, I mean low. There are men running around with more hair on their heads than I have.

And here’s a secret: Men LOVE it. Black men ladies. I get complimented on my natural hair ALL of the time. Young black men. Old black men. Rich, poor. Professional, blue collar. Compliments all of the time.

When I first cut it I was worried that I was completely ruining my dating life. I just KNEW brothers weren’t going to pay me any mind. Big butt aside I didn’t have any hair and all you hear (and see) is how a black man wants a woman with long flowing hair, whether it’s hers or not.

Here’s the other secret. The other thing I learned from this year of no hair: Men like women. Period. If they think you’re hot then it doesn’t really matter what’s going on with your hair as long as it’s neat and looks nice on you.

Oh and the bonus for those of you who want to date interracially: White men love it. I mean you’d think I was Halle Berry or something with the way they react.

My point is that you shouldn’t let your hair determine your health. AND whether or not a man likes your hair isn’t important, even though I know appearing attractive to the opposite sex is important to just about everybody.

While I’m trying to start a weight revolution maybe it’s time we start a hair one too. It’s time to stop ladies. Stop letting you hair rule you and time for you to rule your hair. Take back your life.