Can You Work Out With Athlete's Foot?

Reviewed by Evan Lewis, PhD. Last updated 11 August 2026.

Can you work out with athlete's foot? Yes, in shoes and socks, on your own equipment. What you should skip is anything barefoot on a shared surface: mat sports, studio yoga, the pool, and the changing room floor. The training is fine. The floor is the problem.

That distinction is the whole answer, and it works in both directions. It keeps you training, and it keeps you from handing the infection to everyone else who uses the room.

What can you keep doing?

Almost everything, as long as your feet stay covered and dry.

• Weights, machines and cardio. Shoes and clean socks. No issue.
• Running. Fine, though a long sweaty run makes the skin worse for a few hours. Change socks straight after.
• Cycling and spin. Fine. Dry the shoes out properly afterwards.
• Home workouts. Your own floor, your own mat, no restriction at all.
• Swimming. Fine in the water. It is the deck, the changing room and the shower that carry the risk, so wear flip-flops from the door to the poolside.

What should you skip?

Anything where your bare skin touches a surface other people's bare skin touches.

• BJJ, wrestling, judo, MMA. Skin-to-skin and skin-to-mat for an hour is the highest-risk activity there is. Most gyms have a rule about visible skin infections, and it exists for good reason.
• Barefoot yoga and pilates in a studio. Shared mats and shared floor.
• Barefoot lifting. Common in strength training, and it puts your soles on a platform everyone else uses.
• Communal showers without footwear. The single most likely place it spread to you in the first place.
• Sauna, steam room and hot tub surrounds. Warm, wet and barefoot.

If you train combat sports, the fungus problem on the mats goes into what gyms should be doing and what you can control yourself.

Why does training make it worse?

Because it produces exactly the conditions dermatophytes want. The StatPearls chapter on tinea pedis lists the contributing factors plainly: a hot and humid environment, prolonged use of tightly fitting footwear, excessive sweating and prolonged exposure to water.

A training shoe delivers all four at once. That is why athlete's foot is common in people who are otherwise in good health, and why it tends to flare in the weeks you train hardest rather than the weeks you rest.

Is it contagious to training partners?

Yes, and household data gives a sense of the scale. Jazdarehee et al. (2022) reviewed transmission of dermatophytes between household members and found rates in the range of 44 to 47%. A training room where twenty people share a mat surface is not a gentler environment than a family bathroom.

This is the part worth taking seriously even when your own symptoms are mild. Mild for you can be a six-month problem for a training partner with a suppressed immune system or diabetes.

What should you do after every session?

1. Flip-flops from the mat to the shower and back. Not optional, and the single highest-value habit.
2. Dry between every toe. Deliberately, with a towel, including the gap between the fourth and fifth toes where it usually starts.
3. Clean socks immediately. Not the pair you drove there in.
4. Rotate shoes. Each pair needs a full day to dry out, so two pairs beats one good pair.
5. Wash kit hot. This one has a number attached, below.

What temperature kills it in the wash?

Sixty degrees. Akhoundi et al. (2022) tested household laundering against dermatophyte spores directly and found they survive a 40 °C wash while 60 °C removes them. Heat drying and freezing both failed on their own.

So the cool cycle most people use for gym kit is doing nothing to the thing they are trying to remove. Socks, towels and anything that touches bare feet need the hot cycle.

Can you have it without visible symptoms?

Yes, and this is how it travels through a gym unnoticed. The moccasin pattern gives dry, fine scaling across the sole and heel with little or no itch, and it gets read as ordinary hard skin for years. You can be shedding spores onto a shared floor while being convinced you have dry feet.

If you are not sure what you are looking at, what athlete's foot looks like walks through the three patterns and where each one sits on the foot.

Does it hurt to walk?

Usually not, and pain is a signal to stop self-managing. Ordinary athlete's foot itches, stings where the skin has split, and feels raw between the toes. It does not typically make walking painful.

Pain, heat, swelling or spreading redness suggests a bacterial infection has taken hold in the cracks, which is a different problem on a different timeline. StatPearls notes that untreated tinea pedis can lead to significant morbidity including cellulitis. That is an appointment, not a session.

What if it has been there for years?

Then something is reinfecting you, and it is usually the shoes or the toenails. Fungal skin and fungal nails travel together, and a thickened nail is a reservoir that reseeds the skin every time the skin clears.

The other common answer is that the routine stopped as soon as the itch did. The skin looking normal is not the same as the fungus being gone, which is why athlete's foot keeps coming back in the same spot.

Where does a daily routine fit?

In the ninety seconds after training, which is when your feet are cleanest and your shoes are emptiest. Sole Shield is the daily iodine spray we make for feet and shoes, and the reason it goes inside the shoes as well as on the skin is that shoes are the part of the routine almost everyone skips. Feet get washed every day. Trainers do not get washed at all.

The full version is in the complete guide to athlete's foot, and what to put on your feet after the gym covers the post-session version specifically.

Common questions

Can you go to the gym with athlete's foot?

Yes, in shoes and socks. Wear flip-flops in the changing room and shower, do not train barefoot on shared floors or mats, and dry your feet properly before putting socks back on.

Can you do BJJ or wrestling with athlete's foot?

You should sit out until it has cleared. Mat sports involve prolonged bare skin contact with a shared surface and with training partners, and most gyms have a policy on visible skin infections for exactly this reason.

Can you swim with athlete's foot?

The water is not the issue. The pool deck, the changing room and the shower are, so wear flip-flops the whole time you are out of the water and dry your feet thoroughly afterwards.

Does sweating make athlete's foot worse?

Yes. StatPearls lists excessive sweating and prolonged use of tightly fitting footwear among the factors that contribute to dermatophyte growth, and a training shoe produces both at once.

What temperature should I wash gym socks at?

Sixty degrees. Akhoundi and colleagues found dermatophyte spores survive a 40 °C wash and are removed at 60 °C, with heat drying and freezing both failing on their own.

Can you have athlete's foot with no symptoms?

Yes. The moccasin pattern often produces dry scaling across the sole with no itch at all, which is why it gets mistaken for hard skin and left for years.

Does zinc help athlete's foot?

Zinc oxide is used mainly to protect and dry irritated skin rather than to act on the fungus itself, so it can make a sore, macerated toe cleft more comfortable without addressing the cause.

Is athlete's foot the same as dry skin?

No, though the moccasin form looks very like it. Dry skin is usually symmetrical, improves with moisturiser and spares the toe clefts. Athlete's foot is often worse on one foot, has a defined edge, and tends to involve the gaps between the outer toes.

How do you treat athlete's foot in a toddler?

Have it looked at rather than treating it blind. A shiny, glazed, cracked forefoot that spares the toe webs in a small child is more often juvenile plantar dermatosis than athlete's foot, and the two need different things.

The bottom line

Train in shoes, skip anything barefoot on a shared surface, and treat the changing room floor as the actual risk rather than the workout. Wash socks and towels at 60 °C, rotate your shoes, dry between the toes every time, and sit out mat sports until it has cleared. If it hurts to walk or the redness is spreading, stop and get it seen.

References

1. Nigam PK, Syed HA, Saleh D. Tinea Pedis. StatPearls, NBK470421.
2. Jazdarehee A et al. Transmission of Onychomycosis and Dermatophytosis between Household Members: A Scoping Review. J Fungi, 2022. PMID 35050000.
3. Akhoundi M et al. Effect of Household Laundering, Heat Drying, and Freezing on the Survival of Dermatophyte Conidia. J Fungi, 2022. PMID 35628801.
4. DermNet. Tinea pedis.
5. NHS. Athlete's foot.