Too Sweaty - need advise

Hi All

Just looking for a bit of advise, everytime I go to the gym I seem to get alot sweatier than everyone else despite the fact I'm not working as hard as them, by time time I'm finished my workout my top is absolutely soaking

is this a good or a bad thing?

does it mean I'm not fit?

Is there anything I can do about it?

Monday to Friday I do 45 minutes in the gym at 6.30am then another hour or a class like body combat at 6.00pm, I reckon I'm pretty fit so I don't see why I should be so sweaty.

sweating is variable between each and every person. i've done tons of team sports, when doing the same workouts with the same fitness levels, one person would sweat buckets, and another of us wouldn't even moisten there skin.

don't worry about it - just be confident that you're there working out, I know when I see people sweating vs. not sweating I affiliate it with hard work!

plus i don't feel as if i get a good workout w/o sweating.

dont worry i get the same way! It doesn't mean your not fit its just your body type. You must be working hard if you swaet a lot but on the other hand you could just sit there and sweat like a pig like me. LOL just drink lots of water.

It really varies from person to person.  I have clients that don't get as sweaty as others but they are working just as hard.  I personally get a lot sweatier than my clients do.  :)  I also get sweatier now that I eat good clean food and drink tons of water.  I never got so sweaty when I was younger and worked out a lot, but I also didn't eat so well and hardly drank any water then.

I don't believe it makes any reflection on your level of fitness.  Just be prepared for it - wear moisture wicking clothes and bring a towel to the gym. 

I sweat like a yucky pig when I work out, but I know I'm working hard! Sweat on!

Thanks folks, as long as I know I'm not doing anything wrong I'm happy. :-)

lol im one of those that don't sweat at all. I feel like am not doing anything right when i see everyone sweating buckets and i am there just looking refreshed. haha. But the more you sweat, the more electrolytes(sp) you need. I am pretty happy about that because i am not one for gatorade or any drink like that. =P

I actually used to trick myself and go in to the steamroom sweat and then workout so i look like i know what i am doing. LOL.

Not anymore, i learned.

Supposedly....most of it is genetics, gender and your fitness level.

Some people have more sweat glands than others and every body regulates it's temperature differently.

Men tend to sweat more than women...they have more sweat glands. Women tend to sweat less and start sweating at higher temperatures than men....something to do with our superior internal climate control. ; -)

In a lot of people, the more conditioned your body is to exercise and to the environment the quicker you will begin to perspire. Supposedly your body is "conditioned" to get rid of excess heat at lower body temperatures if you work out regularly. Your body will become more efficient at lowering your core temperature and you will sweat sooner and in greater amounts. At the same time overweight people tend to sweat more because the fat acts as insulation...keeping body heat in and keeping core temperature high.

I read somewhere that the better hydrated you are the less you'll sweat. 
I'm not sure how much truth there is to it but I drink plenty of water and sweat very little!  Yet another reason to drink up :)

canonelle, that makes so much more sense to me now! When i first started running, i hardly ever sweat, but now, my shirt is dretched by the time im done.

I didn't used to sweat much, then I got pregnant.  Now I sweat like a freakin' pig.  It's been 2 years, and now we are trying to have another baby.  I wonder what weirdness will come from this pregnancy.

In general, people do start sweating faster the fitter they are, for reasons explained already in reply #7.

Because women often think sweating is somehow unfeminine, I assure most women that no, they're not sweating, they're glowing :-)

I sweat like a pig, my hair is just-out-of-the-shower soaking wet, my clothes are soaked and my face is RED! I see other ladies w/their hair done pretty, and their clothes are dry and I want to slap them! just kidding! But, I drink a ton of water and am very fit. When I walk from the aerobic room where I just finished my highly intensive kickboxing through the main gym to the exit, I walk w/my sweaty head high!!

From what i studied way back in 'thermodynamics' the 'comfort temperature' of men is a degree celcius lower than women of same age. And sweat is the body's way to get to that comfort temp by evaporation of sweat using the body heat. That explains why women tend to sweat less than men, by n large.

There is no 'superior internal climate control' mechanisn inside women. Just that they are naturally made to sustain a degree celcius higher than men. This also explains that u wud find women shivering when the men set the thermostat at their comfort temperatures (sometimes 65-68, while women tend towards 70-73) . On a dancefloor u wud find men sweating than women. This is not a rule of thumb so if u are a woman who sweats more then please do not think u r abnormal.

The more fat more sweat theory is true. As fat acts as insulation and hence for the same amout of heat transfer across the skin with fatty layer underneath the body needs to sweat more n starts sweating even after a tiny physical activity.

I dont agree with fitter=sweat more theory. If you are fit, you are conditioned to high temp build up during workouts/cardio/any physical activity. The body is used to it and it shouldnt sweat more. Those who do enormous physical activity in daily life tend to get used to it and dont sweat. Have u seen the movers who lift ur sofas n beds sweat? Or the army men sweat while carrying 30-40 lbs over their shoulders? Or those who load ur check in luggage in plane sweat while they toss up ur bags into the cargo?

As ur fitness goes up, u shud see decline in sweating. a 5K runner wud sweat more than a regular marathon runner if both run marathon assuming the 5K runner doesnt fatigue n drop out. Cos the marathon runner is exposed to higher distance n his body is used to the internal temperature build up over a large period than the 5K runner.

In fact 'conditioned' means more exposure. e.g. someone brought up in a desert wud sweat less than a person who has never seen temp beyond 90F in his life for the simple reason that his body is conditioned to elongated exposures to high temperatures. It wud adjust or adapt to the climate. His comfort temp wud be definitely higher than the one brought up in controlled AC'ed house, never trained.

Also if u r fit means u hv very little fat under ur skin. That means very efficient heat transfer across the skin n very little time required to move back to ur comfort temp. This also explains why skinny ppl hardly ever sweat. The heat transfer is just so fast they dont need to produce sweat !

canonelle/tgpish - can u pls explain how the coin flips back when u get fitter?

Again there are exceptions and 'every person is diff' rule holds good.

I guess im the exception :-S bmi around  17-18, so im skinny, and i go for 5mile runs.. but yet.. i sweat like a crazy. When i started running, i never sweat, but now it seems like i sweat sooner, and heavier then ever!

For example, initially only my lower back would get sweaty. Then it progressed to my arm pits & boobs later. This week, now im starting to get a sweat outline of my bra (top part) and front neck region as well.

I figure at this rate, :D ill be a human sprinkler by the end of the month!

bluegirl, you're normal :-)

inci_vinci, "all else being equal", and it's not a deduction from the laws of thermodynamics ;-), it's a matter of observing many people who increase their aerobic capacity through exercise (which is the unstated definition of "fitter" I was implicitly using).  If they don't lose fat during this, sweating starts earlier the fitter they get.  If they gain fat during this (something I've rarely seen), even more so.  If they lose fat (most common), it varies -- it's complicated then, since, as you say, reducing fat does reduce the need for sweating.

Another confounding factor (but this one working against you ;-)) is that as people get fitter, they often increase the intensity of their chosen exercise.  More intensity means more power generation (in the physics sense:  work/time), means more heat generation, means more need to cool down, means more sweat.

In addition, research shows that sweat glands increase in size as capacity for work (again in the physics sense) increases, and that the body "learns" to start sweating at a lower initial internal temperature.  The former acts to increase the amount of sweat, and the latter to start sweating sooner.

Spend some quality time with Google on this question.  You'll find very little real controversy.  I had to laugh out loud when I stumbled into this "dissenting view":

I just wanted to say that no it's not true. Sweating is just a way for your body to cool itself down. Maybe you are working out harder so your body is heating up more. I have a medical condition where I can't sweat. I have been working out for years (see a trainer) and am in pretty good shape. Yet, I don't sweat.

Yup, it doesn't apply to all people -- sheesh ;-)

Hey don't "sweat it" ha ha

yeah- so anyway...

Your sweat is a good thing!  when you burn calories it leaves your body in 2 forms.  1 being in your exhalation.  the calorie is broke down and you actually breath out a bi-product of it (gross)

the 2nd is sweat!  Don't go jumping into steam boxes or aything like that 'cause it doesn't work that way, but working up a legitamate sweat is a good sign.  So bring a towel with you and wipe down the eqipment when your done and you are golden!

tgpish: So when a person increases his aerobic capacity 'without' getting rid of body fat, they wud start sweating more. And that is quite logical. You increase ur workouts, get into high heart rate zones but u still hv a fat layer preventing effective cool down. So body has to adapt by increasing sweat gland size or even producing more sweat glands so it can dissipate heat quickly. This is kind of negative effect of increasing aerobic capacity w/o getting rid of fat and again it goes back to the same theory of fat layer under the skin = more sweating.

If fitter people tend to increase intensity, naturally they wud sweat more, but it wud be lesser and later than an unfit person doing the same intensity workout (assuming no failure occurs).

But if you get rid of the body fat, u shudnt be sweating more with increased fitness. If the research that shows "sweat glands increase in size as capacity for work (again in the physics sense) increases," i don't know whether they took care of the body fat % fact. Why wud the body need to increase sweat glands if the skin is highly efficient in disposing of the increased heat. In fact the more u r used to high temperature build up, your body should take it as steady state n elevate ur internal temp so u dont have to cool down. The people exposed to furnace (forging or the old steam engines) wud sweat less compared to a layman getting one day exposure during science trip. This is similar to 'Have you seen people who doing greater physical activity in day-to-day life sweat buckets?'

Why should the body "learn" to start sweating at a lower initial internal temperature" if it has to sustain much higher temp quite regularly. If the body is not used to even a little temp rise, then it wud start sweating at a marginal increase in temp cos it doesnt know if it wud be able to get rid of the heat quickly.

I didn't do google on this one yet. May be later in the day.

I don't care the science behind my sweating personally (lol) all I know is I (as my mom puts it) sweat like a champ!  I like that better than saying I sweat like a pig...too negative.  That said, I also turn beet red when I exert myself.  My skinny sister is the same way.  Sweats like a champ (I do sweat more though and am about 100 pounds heavier) and she turns beet red.  My brother too, my daughter, my nephews, my mom....

I guess what I'm saying is I think for me it is a family trait.  I read in another thread about the turning beet red and drinking lots of water while exercising and it helps bring down the redness levels.  I started doing that and it does help.  I don't turn as red.  Either way, I sweat when exercising.  I chalk it up to "I worked up a sweat!"  which makes me feel more accomplished. 

Grab your towel and work up your sweat and be proud!  Some people out there probably envy us sweaters!  :D

Bring a towel and drink more water... sweating is good for you!

I actually read that people who sweat quicker are more acclimated to working out in the heat which is a great thing for the summer!

inci_vinci, you're putting the cart before the horse.  Science works by framing a hypothesis and then testing it.  As Richard Feyman (the great physicist) said,

It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

I don't really care "why" things work the way they do here, and anything can be rationalized away after the fact.  I'm not sure anyone really knows "why" -- the complexity of the human body is simply staggering.

But the results of research match the results of my own observations over the decades, and I'm content to leave it at that.  Here's a link to one directly relevant study:

    Predictors of sweat loss in man during prolonged exercise
    Greenhaff & Clough
    Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1989;58(4):348-52

They measured both absolute and relative sweat loss across 19 male subjects with varying levels of fitness.  "Absolute" was simply total sweat weight lost, and "relative" was that expressed as a percentage of total pre-exercise body weight.

Unsurprisingly to either of us ;-), both measures of sweat loss were correlated with total power output (more power, more sweat) across subjects, but power output wasn't the best predictor of sweat loss.  Instead,

... absolute sweat loss was related to VO2max .... absolute exercise workload ... body surface area ... weight ... and height.  Relative sweat loss was related to VO2max ... and absolute exercise workload.  There was no relationship between sweat loss (absolute or relative) and heart rate, skin temperature or rectal temperature.  In addition, there was no relationship between rectal temperature or absolute exercise workload or VO2max.  Stepwise multiple linear regression indicated VO2max to be the most important predictor of absolute ... and relative ... sweat loss in man during prolonged exercise.

IOW, if you want to predict how much someone is going to sweat during prolonged aerobic exercise, knowing their VO2max (the standard measure of aerobic fitness) was the best predictor among all those they considered.  The correlation coefficient was positive, or, IOW, "the fitter they were, the more they sweated".