Sweat: Its Role in Fitness

For sure you hate sweating. Who loves to sweat anyway? It makes you look dirty, it makes your skin nasty to the touch and it often leads to body odor. But you have to know that there’s a reason why we have to sweat.

How important water is to the body?
Much of our weight is composed of water. Water is important for a number of bodily functions to be carried out efficiently. Our cells and tissues need water to function. It is also the vehicle for important elements and other substances like sodium and sugar.

Water is also a major constituent of the blood. It serves as a lubricant for joints and other movable body parts. Water also plays a major role in the thermoregulation of our body — it helps normalize our temperature.

The temperature of our body needs to be regulated at all times. It’s a part of a bodily process known as homeostasis: keeping different body processes in balance. Temperature that’s too high results in fever and heat stroke. Temperature that’s too low results in chilling and hypothermia. Either way, it’s not normal and the body has to find a way to regulate its temperature.

We all know that chemical reactions are constantly taking place within the several systems of our body. Metabolism is one example. Healing of injuries is another. There are many other processes in the body that have to be done at a certain time period. And one way to let the body do its several processes at a desirable rate is to achieve a desirable temperature.

Where does sweating come in?
The body also needs to regulate the amount of water it has. Most of the unwanted fluids in the body are excreted through urination and respiration. Sweating also contributes to regulating water, although minimally.

The major role of sweating is to regulate the body’s temperature. When you workout, the chemical reactions taking place within the body speeds up, thus raising body temperature.

Since the body always attempts to achieve a balance — homeostasis — in its several processes, the need to correct the temperature is a part of it. This is where sweating comes in. When you sweat the evaporation of it on your skin helps in dissipating excess heat coming from within your body.

A warm object loses heat to a cool object. This means that heat has the tendency to be transferred to anything cooler. So the beads of sweat on your skin help dissipate heat when they get in contact with air.

The heat inside your body is taken externally by means of sweating. Once the heat is outside your body — on your skin — the air around you picks up this excessive heat. So now you get your internal temperature normalized.

While respiration also helps in regulating body temperature, sweating does most of the job. This is because water can carry more heat than air.

Now that you know the vital role of sweating, the next time you workout and sweat out a lot, be thankful because your body is doing its job to keep your temperature as normal as possible. While you are here, why not check out one of the top rated abs program from Michael Gear. If you are looking for great abs, click here to get started…

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