Transform Your Running: AI Coach for Race Preparation [bdd8]

Many runners like to run to lose weight, especially feeling a sense of accomplishment after sweating profusely, as if those sweat droplets are toxins being expelled and fat being burned.When you see someone drenched in sweat after a run, most people would assume that their workout was more effective than someone who didn't sweat much.

Theybelieve that the more you sweat during a run, the more effective the workout. If you don't sweat, they feel the exercise wasn't effective.However, this notion is clearly incorrect and lacks scientific basis.

Sweating is not a standard to judge whether a workout has achieved fat loss, but it can be used as an auxiliary reference along with other indicators to determine if the exercise intensity is sufficient.When the body sweats,it loses heat, water, and some electrolytes.Today,the editor will explain whether sweating more during a run is better~

Why does the body sweat?

Sweating is a way for the body to regulate temperature, simply put, it's for cooling down. When the body is at rest, it starts to sweat when the ambient temperature reaches around 30 degrees Celsius. If the air humidity is high, sweating can occur at 25 degrees Celsius. During exercise, due to the body's increased heat production and rising temperature, the amount of sweat often increases sharply to dissipate heat.

Exercise can cause the body to produce heat at several times the rate of rest, and the increase in heat production naturally requires enhanced cooling. To increase heat dissipation, blood vessels in the skin dilate, blood flow speeds up, and skin blood flow increases, leading to a significant increase in sweating.

What factors affect the amount of sweat?

Whether the body sweats easily and the amount of sweat is highly related to the body's state at the time, ambient temperature, skin blood flow, and blood flow speed. For example, it's not easy to sweat profusely outdoors in winter, but in summer, you can sweat a lot even without moving, due to the different ambient temperatures.

In addition, factors such as gender and genetics also affect the amount of sweat. The activity of sweat glands varies; women have more sweat glands than men, but men's sweat glands are more active. There are also significant individual differences within the same gender. This explains why some people don't sweat much during exercise, while others look like they've been pulled out of water after just warming up.

Some people have more body fluids, so they sweat more during exercise, while others sweat less. It also depends on personal physical fitness; those who are physically strong may sweat less even during intense exercise, while those with poor fitness may sweat profusely with just a little activity.

What does sweat contain?

Sweat is composed of 98%~99% water, with a salt content of about 3 grams per liter, and small amounts of potassium, urea, lactic acid, and ammonia. Sweat is salty because it contains salt, but its salt concentration is not high compared to the body's internal salt concentration. Most of the salt is reabsorbed back into the body after sweat is secreted, so when we sweat during exercise, we lose more water than salt.

Therefore, based on the principle of replenishing what is lost, if your running time is not long and the intensity is not high, you only need to drink plain water. If you run for more than an hour and the intensity is high with a lot of sweating, you need to replenish electrolytes appropriately.

Does sweating more mean better detoxification?

Some runners believe that sweating a lot through intense exercise can expel a lot of toxins. This claim lacks scientific evidence. Sweating mainly results in the loss of water, salt, and some electrolytes. Although it can expel small amounts of body toxins like lactic acid, urea, and ammonia, the main organs for detoxification are the kidneys and liver. Therefore, it's difficult to achieve 'significant detoxification' through sweating.

Is sweating more better for the body?

Exercise is not better just because you sweat more. Moderate sweating is sufficient, and moderate exercise is most important. Excessive sweating during exercise can reduce body fluids, and if not replenished in time, it can lead to decreased blood volume, increased heart rate, decreased sweating rate, reduced heat dissipation ability, increased body temperature, electrolyte imbalance, and acid-base imbalance. It can also easily cause dehydration and, in severe cases, heatstroke.

Excessive sweating can also lead to heatstroke

Some runners even equate sweating with fat loss and adopt unreasonable exercise methods. For example, wrapping their stomachs with plastic wrap to induce sweating or wearing non-breathable sweat suits to promote sweating.In fact, these incorrect ideas and practices can cause adverse symptoms.

There was once a girl who wore a down jacket to run in the summer to sweat more, which resulted in heatstroke. The reason is simple: the body sweats to dissipate heat and cool down, but when you wrap yourself in plastic wrap or wear sweat suits,the efficiency of heat dissipationis greatly reduced. The consequence is increased body temperature, leading to heatstroke and even life-threatening conditions.

Summary

Remind all runners not to overexert themselves to sweat more. If you feel very tired but don't seem to sweat much, don't push yourself. Sweat is meant to maintain the balance between heat production and heat dissipation in the body.

Especially in summer, if you sweat a lot and don't replenish water in time, it's easy to get dehydrated. Excessive sweating may indicate that you are over-exercising. Therefore, sweating a lot does not mean better weight loss results; it actually suggests you need to drink more water.