It seems like common sense: if you leave a fitness class looking as though you\u2019ve just ridden a log flume, you\u2019ve probably worked harder than if you\u2019re barely glistening. But that\u2019s not always the case, says Adam Collins, a researcher from the Centre for Nutrition, Exercise and Metabolism at the University of Bath.<\/p>\n
Sweating, he says, is part of the thermoregulation process. When your body temperature rises, it signals to your brain to sweat in order to cool you down. As the sweat evaporates, it helps regulate your core temperature.<\/p>\n
One reason temperature rises is exercise. \u201cWhen we exercise, the energy we produce to fuel that activity creates heat as a byproduct,\u201d says Collins. The more intense the workout, the more heat is generated \u2013 and usually, the more you sweat. But sweat levels can be misleading.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n If you went on an easy run on a\u00a0hot, humid day, you\u2019d probably sweat a lot. But on a cold day, you might barely sweat at all<\/p>\n \u201cThere are many other factors that influence how much you sweat,\u201d he adds. These include the temperature of the environment, your clothing and humidity. In humid conditions, sweat evaporates less efficiently, making you feel sweatier than usual, whether or not you\u2019re working hard.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you went on an easy run on a hot, humid day, you\u2019d probably sweat a lot,\u201d he says. \u201cBut on a cold day, you might run at a much higher intensity and barely sweat at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Sweat also varies from person to person. Your fitness level, age, sex, body size and even whether you\u2019re acclimatised to the climate you\u2019re in all play a role.<\/p>\n So, no, sweat isn\u2019t a reliable measure of how hard you\u2019ve worked out. Better indicators of exertion include how hard you\u2019re breathing, your perceived effort, and your heart rate, which you can track with a chest strap monitor or smart watch. That said, \u201csweat is a good marker of dehydration\u201d, says Collins. So if you come out of a workout dripping, you\u2019ll need to grab a drink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It seems like common sense: if you leave a fitness class looking as though you\u2019ve just ridden a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[589,163,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-130605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}