Do you sometimes look over at another person at the gym and they are sweating profusely? Does it ever make you feel like you aren’t working out hard enough? Or in the locker room do you look at a fellow gym goer and wonder why they even come because they don’t look like they have worked out at all? Well, what if I told you that the one dripping buckets, the one still looking like a million bucks, and yourself all just completed the same workout. I bet you wouldn’t believe me. Sometimes it isn’t because you need to step your workouts ten more notches, it could just mean that each of you sweats differently than the other person.
Let’s first take a moment a look at what exactly sweat it. Sweating is a necessary process that cools down the body. When your body starts to overheat, the nervous system stimulates your sweat glands to release perspiration aka what you think of as sweat. As the droplets evaporate off of your skin, they take some of your body heat into the atmosphere. You want to sweat, even as gross as you may think it is sometimes. Sweating is good, but what about the amount?
A lot of different factors come into play when it comes to how people sweat and how they all sweat differently, so what gives? In fact, a lot of people and studies just figured it had to do with how much body fat you had on your body and one’s aerobic fitness level. However, a recent study in the Journal of Applied Physiology suggests otherwise and looks at many more factors.
The problem when saying that people with more body fat sweat more could merely mean that the idea on if they have more body fat just means they carry around more weight which would cause them to sweat more. Sure, but this can’t be conclusive for all.
The study tested 28 volunteers with widely varying fitness and body sizes and put them through a series of 60-minute cycling tests at different intensities while measuring sweat rates and changes in body temperature. It was concluded that sweat doesn’t solely rely on how much body fat you have but about how much weight you are in general due to how your body heats its core. Suggesting that two people–who weigh the same and pedal at the same pace–should heat up at the same rate, even if one of them is short with higher body fat than the other, who is taller with less body fat.
So if body fat percentages don’t necessarily matter, here are some other factors that definitely matter. Your gender, how your body detoxes, If you have hyperhidrosis, if you’re going through menopause, if you’re on medications, did you drink coffee, are you enjoying spicy food, or do you have hyperthyroidism to name a few.
If you have ruled out all of the above and still think you sweat a whole heck of a lot, well you are in luck! It may simply be a sign that you’re in shape. Frickin’ virtual high five to you! Boom!
More and more studies show that trained endurance athletes sweat sooner AND produce more perspiration compared to their counterparts that are considered untrained. Sweating is good. I cannot emphasize enough, how good sweating is for your body, even if you may think it is gross or certainly not welcomed in certain situations. Sweating helps cool you down and literally is what enables you to keep lifting, run faster, or cycle harder for longer.
Just don’t forget to keep hydrated. Keeping hydrated is even more important when you are losing a lot of your body’s water through sweat. It is recommended to drink 16 ounces one hour before working out, 20 ounces of water during activities under 60 minutes, and to sip seven to 10 ounces of water every 10 to 20 minutes over an hour to keep properly hydrated.
And if you think water is super boring to drink, may we suggest adding our SUPER POWDER to your water. It comes in four delicious flavors while providing many vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes that your body needs that it lost during your workout!
