Is there any correlation between the amount one sweats or the duration into the workout when one starts sweating and fitness levels? I heard somewhere that the earlier you start sweating (profusely), the fitter you are. Is this true?
I don’t have a scientific answer to your question, but would venture to see sweat and fitness have nothing in common. While working out I have seen super heavyset people sweating up a storm while those who were super fit (so it seemed by appearance) not sweating at all. And I have seen the situation reversed.
I have been actively working out for the past 12 years and sometimes I sweat, sometimes I don’t. Sweat is your bodies way of cooling itself off. So the hotter it is in the area I am working out, the more I tend to sweat.
I believe weather conditions, how extreme the workout is compared to your physical condition, and hydration are key factors to the amount of sweat produced.
I’ve never heard that and it doesn’t make sense to me. Sweating is an indication of your level of exertion. If walking from the sofa to the kitchen makes you sweat, I’d tend to believe your level of fitness was poor. It is also variable among individuals. I’ve trained with a friend while we were both wearing heart monitors so we know we were exerting ourselves the same amount and I was sweating noticeably more. We’re both very fit.
I read that also, I think it was in Fit or Fat, by Covert Bailey. This is from memory. I believe the idea was that if you started sweating quickly, it showed that your body was more efficient at getting rid of heat. Compared to someone else who wasn’t sweating, since you wouldn’t be overheating as much, you would be able to do more work, and were thus more fit in some sense.
I think it was meant more in terms of an individual person though – comparing person A in “fit” mode to person A in “fat” mode, not to compare you to Michael Jordan.
(Although I must say, I’ve always been amazed at how profusely NBA players are sweating after 1 minute. Frequently sweat is pouring off their scalps even on that first trip to the free throw line.)
OK, so Covert Bailey has passed the torch to his associate Ronda Gates whose website looks like it was made in 1995 by someone with serious neurological issues. Anyhow, here’s her take.
“Your ability to sweat is not a measure of your fitness. Sweating is nothing more than the most efficient factor in your body’s temperature regulation ability. Some people sweat more than others.”
As a person who has gone from being IN shape, to out of shape, to back in shape. . .one thing that happens to me is that when I’m IN shape, my heart rate and breathing rate go up quicker from less exertion.
But, that’s mainly because I have trained my heart and lungs to respond quickly (and recover quickly) from stress.
When I’m out of shape, my cardio-vascular system feels like it has more inertia. I neither respond or recover as quickly. It’s like the difference between a motorcycle and a dump truck going from 0 to 60 to 0.
I’ll echo what others have said in this thread. Different people sweat completely differently than each other, but when restricted to the individual, I suspect the fitter self would sweat quicker.
Must agree with those that say it’s individual. While I have always been very active and fit, I have never sweated very much compared to others around me who were in or out of shape.
However, in the last few years I have been working out less regularly and I sweat much more than in the past.
Not sure what it all means.