We just completed a post on cardio exercise and how important it is to really focus on this often overlooked and dreaded part of working out. Well, one of the things we notoriously do during a good cardio session is we sweat. A lot of people, including myself, don’t like to sweat a whole lot unless it is because we are working out, because it shows us that we’re working hard, and we usually correlate that with “melting fat” off, or burning fat off.

Well, is it really important that you sweat when you’re working out? Does it really make a difference in how intense your workout is, and whether you are burning off excess calories, and hence fat? Some people even crank up the heat on purpose because they think sweating will help them burn off more.

While it is true that when our bodies temperature gets higher, we burn more calories, working out at higher temperatures can actually be dangerous. We put ourselve at risk for heat stroke and passing out, and some people may even be putting their hearts at danger if they have pre existing conditions. Fitness specialists insist that everyone sweats at different rates.

Some people may sweat just from walking up the stairs, while some may not sweat until they are a half hour into an intense cardio workout. So, they say, the level of sweat does not really serve as a good measure for how effective a workout is. They say that what really determines it is your heart rate, and how far above the normal heart rate you are.

You may want to look into what your target heart rate is by approaching someone at your gym at the front desk so they can calculate it for you, since this is the measure by which you would figure out how effective some form of exercise is for you.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 5:52 am and is filed under Random Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.