{"id":41506,"date":"2015-07-20T11:15:49","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T15:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/?p=41506"},"modified":"2016-07-14T16:03:42","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T20:03:42","slug":"sweat-during-exercise-workout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/fitness\/sweat-during-exercise-workout\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Have to Sweat to Get a Good Workout?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sweat
Photo: Pond5<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Your recent workout left you sweating buckets \u2014 that means it was great, right? Not necessarily. \u201cSweat is not always a great indicator of how good your workout was,\u201d says Jessica Matthews, the\u00a0American Council on Exercise<\/a>‘s Senior Adviser on Health and Fitness. Then there\u2019s the common misconception that how much you sweat determines the amount of calories you\u2019ve burned \u2014 which is not always the case.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong>\u00a0Is It Better to Do Cardio or Strength Training First?<\/a><\/p>\n

First, a lesson on why you\u2019re dripping (or staying pretty dry): \u201cSweating<\/a> is one way your body prevents itself from overheating,\u201d explains Matthews. When you exercise, your body literally heats up, stimulating your sweat response. Then, as sweat evaporates off your skin into the air, you cool yourself down.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s important to remember that each person is unique. \u201cSome people can be really sweaty even if they\u2019re not being very physically active, [whereas] someone else can go to the gym for 60 minutes and look like they barely stepped out of the house,\u201d explains Matthews.<\/p>\n

And how much you sweat, or what\u2019s referred to as your rate of sweat, is determined by a slew of factors including temperature, humidity, and even how fit you are. Generally, more physically fit people sweat sooner because their bodies\u2019 thermoregulation \u2014 aka air conditioning \u2014 system turns on faster. But that\u2019s not always the case: So don\u2019t sweat not sweating just <\/em>yet.<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0<\/strong>7 No-Crunch Exercises for Six-Pack Abs<\/a><\/p>\n

Does Sweating More Help You Burn More Calories?<\/h3>\n

Because we often associate sweat with exercise, it\u2019s easy to assume the two are related. \u201cThe truth is, no matter how much or little you sweat, it doesn\u2019t always correlate to calories burned or how hard you\u2019re working,\u201d Matthews says.<\/p>\n

Take a hot yoga class<\/a> or an outdoor run<\/a> on a scorching day, for example. Odds are, after you\u2019ve finished, if you step on the scale you\u2019ll notice you\u2019re a few pounds down. Keep in mind that\u2019s water weight \u2014 not fat \u2014 and is only a temporary loss. Once you rehydrate, you\u2019ll gain it all back.<\/p>\n

In one study<\/a>, Colorado State University researchers found that in a 90-minute Bikram class, men burned around 460 calories, while women averaged 330. Far fewer than you\u2019d think, right? That\u2019s because heated classes are designed to improve muscle flexibility, not increase calorie burn. So while you may be sweating a lot more than you would in your typical power yoga class, you are likely burning less cals, since it\u2019s a less rigorous form of yoga.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> The 5 Biggest Myths About Metabolism<\/a><\/p>\n

What Really<\/em> Matters With Calorie Burn <\/strong><\/h3>\n

Matthews cites that duration and intensity are the two most important factors for boosting (or measuring) caloric burn. For aerobic exercise<\/a>, the American College of Sports Medicine generally recommends 150 minutes of moderate intensity per week. But they note that you need more time on top of that (150 to 250+ minutes) if you\u2019re looking to lose weight.<\/p>\n

For resistance workouts<\/a>, Matthews says weight load is a good measure. Generally, to build muscle, you want to lift a heavy enough weight you can do eight to 15 reps \u2014 it should feel hard, but not entirely impossible.<\/p>\n

But all this doesn\u2019t mean you should forgo all workouts that don\u2019t make you sweat. Take restorative yoga<\/a>, for instance. You\u2019re barely breaking a sweat, but you\u2019re reaping quality, calming mind-body benefits. Plus, one study found<\/a> restorative yoga can help you burn fat, too.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Burn More Calories With DailyBurn\u2019s Inferno HR Workout<\/a><\/p>\n

So forget stressing about your sweat. Just keep moving. Remember: If you\u2019re trying to lose weight, it\u2019s more often about upping the intensity, not doing everything you can to sweat more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sweating during a workout is a good thing \u2014 but is it indicative of how hard you worked? We found out whether more sweat means more calories burned \u2014 or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":41511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,24,6,14,19],"tags":[289,273,341,343,100],"class_list":["post-41506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardio","category-exercise","category-fitness","category-strength-training","category-yoga","tag-exercise","tag-sweat","tag-tax1living-well","tag-tax2exercise","tag-workout"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}