Working out seems to be the healthy norm that everybody is trying to follow and be consistent with these days. And while working out if there is one thing that is common amongst all of us it is sweating. Whether we lose an inch or not, whether we lose a kilo or not, we will definitely sweat while we are working out. Why do you look at sweat as a way that our body is feeling the heat, there are quite a number of health factors attached to the amount of sweat that a body produces and how healthy it is. Whether you are on the treadmill running or something that I want or even brisk walking/cycling, sweating is a very inevitable natural phenomena. While majority of people look at the amount of sweating as a criteria to how hard successful their working out routines at the gym are or how effective their workout routine is, people think that the more one sweats, the more calories get burnt. But remember dear readers this is not always the case.
Sweating depends on a number of factors such as – how hard you are working out, the weather conditions around you, your genetics, your health conditions, your fitness levels, and when you are exercising. So if you are someone who has been wondering why you sweat and what are the benefits of it, we got you covered, read on and get all the information about this.
Why Do We Sweat?
For those who do not know, sweating is considered to be a very natural process where your body is trying to cool itself down. Sweat gets released from our skins glands and it then gets evaporated into thin air which gives that cooling effect to ask him and therefore to our body as well. There are two types of glands in our skin that are responsible for producing sweat:
- The eccrine sweat glands: these are located all over her body and they are heavily concentrated on the souls of our feet, on our forehead, and our palms. Function of these glands is to help regulate the body temperature and this process is known as thermoregulation. They directly open up on the surface of your skin and produce odorless sweat.
- The apocrine sweat glands: these are found either on the hand or on the hair follicles that lead to the surface of your skin. They are usually found in areas of the body where there is a lot of hair accumulated such as scalp, groin region, armpits. These sweat glands produce highly concentrated odor which is mostly associated with the body odor.
How Do We Benefit From Sweating?
The prime advantage of sweating when you are working out is that the sweating process helps to cool your body down and prevents your body from getting overheated. The exercises that you do creates high-temperature inside your body and it can lead to a heat up of the body. And it is very vital for a body to regulate its temperature while exercising. This holds true especially if you are performing those activities in heated rooms or in the outdoors during warm weather.
Some of the primary effects of sweating are: it filters out toxins from the body — like for example lead mercury, cadmium, and arsenic. It also provides anti-ageing effects to the body and also kills bacteria that are harmful on the skin surface.
If You Are Sweating A Lot During Workouts – What Does That Mean?
To put it in simple words, sweating means your body is getting hot and this happens when you exercise your muscles and the heat is generated within the body. However, sweating a lot means that you are probably exercising harder than you are supposed to or maybe you are exercising in a severe hot environment which is not advisable for the body. Of course, sweating can also be influenced by the kind of fabric that you are wearing and the temperature of whether it’s an indoor exercise or an outdoor exercise. The condition of excessive sweating is called hyperhidrosis. This condition is said to occur in 3 to 6 percent of the entire population where you are sweating more than an average person in areas such as armpits, feet, and hands.
If You Are Barely Sweating During Workouts – What Does That Mean?
The simple answer to this would be that you are not working out hard enough in order to induce sweat. For you to sweat the intensity of your exercise depends on your body conditioning as well. If you are an average gym goer,, then you are not really likely to get your heart rate up to a manner at which sweating is caused. However if you are an advanced athlete you might have to work really hard in order to sweat a lot.
Another important factor to consider here is dehydration. You need to ensure that you’re drinking enough water before you’re working out during your working out and after you’re working out so that your body is capable of producing sweat.
How Much You Sweat Depends On These Factors
Apart from the environment that you are working out, there are some factors that affect how little or how much a person will sweat:
- Age — our sweat glands begin to shrink as we get older, therefore producing lesser sweat.
- Fitness level — a fitness obsessed person will sweat more easily when compared to a person who is trying to be fit.
- Sex – it is said that if you are a female you tend to produce lesser sweat than men.
- Genetics — your genetics have a direct impact on how much you sweat especially if you have any underlying health conditions.
If you are someone who produces most by turning back up then you could consider the following treatments — antiperspirants, proper clothing, powders, ambit shields, drysol, powders, drying medicines, prescription wipes.