I’ve been trying to exercise more lately. I’m now running on a machine at home for about an hour a day. I’m not really getting tired, but my big problem is that I sweat A LOT. (I’m overweight, so that probably has something to do with it.) I’ve been trying to manage it with towels to wipe off the sweat, but I would have to use an unreasonable number of towels to get through the whole thing without being drenched in sweat by the end.
So what I was wondering is: Could I cool my body down with fans, AC, drinking cold water, etc enough that I could greatly reduce the amount I sweat during exercise? I tried using a small fan I have in the house, but it wasn’t really powerful enough to make any meaningful change. If I got a big fan or more fans or whatever, could I achieve what I’m after? Or does that not remove the body heat fast enough for my body to not start sweating?
Or if anyone has any other solutions to this that would help. I think stamina-wise I could probably push my exercise longer, but I’m not really willing to do that if it means being covered in buckets of sweat for like half an hour.
Instead of trying to stop sweating, work at making it more effective, and dry faster.
A powerful highspeed fan will do the most, and if your house is humid, maybe a dehumidifier to help your sweat evaporate.
Counterintuitively, lowering your excerise temperature may make your sweat accumulation worse. You’ll sweat less, but it won’t evaporate as quickly leaving you more drenched.
Similarly, drinking cold water doesn’t cool you as much as you think it would.
Swimming? Still requires a towel, just not for sweat
You still sweat while swimming. You have to be especially careful because you can get dehydrated but you don’t realize it as much because you’re not getting hot and sweaty.
At least for now I mostly just want to exercise in the house. I have some mental health issues and I find that unless I have something to watch to distract me, I can’t really exercise for long without getting bored/stressed/mentally tired.
Perhaps when that issue is better I’ll do a wider variety of activities like swimming, but of course weight can contribute to those problems, so it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation.
Sweat mixed with water, how would you know otherwise?
You’re making heat. Don’t worry about the sweat. I get a literal puddle underneath my bike on long sets. I can wring my shirt out when I run. I’m not even a particularly sweaty person. I know some people who can make a full puddle in 5-10 min. It is what it is. Especially if you’re at home, who cares!?
I’m pretty sure that you can sweat while getting frostbite. Your fingers, toes, nose, ears, etc. all are too exposed.
That’s not really my concern. The issue is comfort and I end up getting a lot of pimples, which excessive sweat can contribute to.
Use a salicylic acid or other AHA infused serum or cream on your skin to combat the pimples.
I can totally relate. But to answer your original question (and reinforce one of the other poster’s points), there’s no getting around sweating, even if you’re cold. I was digging out from the recent storm in the dark, gusty wind, temps well below freezing, taking things slowly. Still sweat through my inner shirt and hood.
If you reduce the relative humidity by using the AC, the sweat will be more likely to evaporate and less likely to drip off of you. I think that’s about all you can do, AC or maybe buy a dehumidifier.
You could get a cooling vest. You soak it in water and then it cools you through evaporation.
Do you bathe not long after your work out? What’s your skin care routine like? Do you take hot showers?
Yeah I shower right after. Shower temp is a bit inconsistent but I try to get it to be warm but not hot. I use body wash in the shower then I do moisturize and then I’ve been using clyndamycin that I was prescribed for this issue.
Whoever prescribed you that knows way more than me.
Put a fan in front of you and wear as little as possible.
And temperature regulation is something that gets better and more efficient with exercise, too.
Especially as you’re losing weight.Wicking everything. 32 cool makes wicking underwear, there’s a wicking sweatband with a silicone band to keep it out of your eyes (and something called a gutter that is JUST the silicone band that routes it down the side.
Form fitting wicking undershirts - The more body contact, the better, since you wanted to grab every bit of moisture and wicked away from your skin. But in my case, the sweat drips from my head to the sweat band, goes from the sweat band down to the back of the sweat band, which winds up touching the back of my wicking shirt, which winds up soaking it up, and then the wicking shirt absorbs a bunch of moisture off of me, and then the underwear also soaks up a bunch of the moisture
Now, the problem you’re going to run into is everything is going to try and drip down that clothing to your shoes, and that I don’t have an answer for - but I know the stationary bikes have a fan and I wonder how much air that moves. But maybe you tuck a towel in near the shorts level and that soaks it up, and immediately afterwards it gets washed?
You have put waaaaaaaaay more thought than I thought possible into staying dry during a workout.
There isn’t really a way to accomplish this. Fans and A/C are effective at cooling us down because we sweat. Heat is being generated within your muscles when you exercise, and you won’t be able to cool yourself by drinking cold liquid because the heat just won’t move around your body quickly enough.
The most effective way to cool your entire body is by using the surface area of your skin as a heat exchange with the outside environment through sweating and vasodilation.
AC does not require sweat to cool you down. It reduces the air temperature. If you exercise in a sufficiently cold room, which was cooled with AC, you would not sweat. You would also be extremely cold.
You’ve gotten some good advice, but a really powerful fan can make a big difference here. Doesn’t need to be cold so much as move as much air as possible to help the sweat evaporate.
I used to play live music. Stage lights and dive bars can be very hot. I also sweat a lot. A squirrel cage fan blasting me full power in the face and upper body made a huge difference. It was the kind people dry flooded carpets with.
Fans work well for me, but if it is humid in your house you it may not be as effective. Moving dry air can carry off a lot of sweat.
https://www.asics.com/ie/en-ie/running-advice/how-to-manage-sweat-while-running/ Hopefully at least some of this is helpful.
Thanks. I think I’ll at least try the running shirts. At the moment I just use whatever t-shirt I happen to be wearing that day. I guess if the sweat evaporates faster that is sort of a solution.
Wicking sportswear will reduce sweat compared to cotton shorts significantly, although itbis an improvement and not a perfect solution. Sometimes better than going shirtless because it wicks and evaporates, so you end up with a sweaty shirt but not big dripping puddles.
A warning is that those shirts can get pretty funky if you don’t properly clean them soon after use and in most cases fabric softener clogs the wicking property. Follow the cleaning directions and they are fantastic!
Sweat is not a bad thing. It means your heart is pumping; what you want for weight loss.
That being said, I love exercising in cold weather, if you’re somewhere where you get any. Warm up a little inside, go out, and it just feels fantastic.
And that doesn’t just mean running a marathon. It can be calisthenics in a back yard, or garage, or even just walking out to a spot where you can jog.
While I’m here, let me glaze bodyweight exercises, like push ups, squats, kicks, core stuff, and all the variants. Do them in sets, one “group” a day.
It’s amazingly efficient. It gets you out of breath like running, but gets muscles sore like a weight machine, all in less time. And it’s waaay less stressful on your body than running or big weights.
Sweat means your body is trying to cool down, not that your heart is pumping.
Come on, you know what I mean. It’s an indicator exerting yourself. Your blood vessels dilate when you’re hot to try and dump the heat, just like they constrict in parts when cold to save it.
When you say do sets and groups, do you mean to do each of the exercises one time a day or only one part of the body rotating each day?
Also should I still pair this with the running? How much could I reduce my running if I started doing these? I’m currently doing an hour. I start seriously sweating after like 15 mins maybe and by around 40 mins I’m usually out of towels.
Also perhaps this is a silly question: But do you know a good set of workouts that I could do while watching anime? That’s what I do while running to keep my brain occupied and part of the reason I stopped going to the gym a while ago was because I couldn’t really do more than listen to podcasts, which isn’t really enough of a distraction. In other words, exercises I could do while facing towards a stationary screen like a tablet or maybe I could do some in front of the TV.
Depends how much you have to pay attention.
First off, I am not a fitness expert. YMMV.
But sometimes I do variations of bodyweight exercises in front of a TV, yes.
One day, for example, might be arm day. I sit and do leg curls for biceps. I straight pushups or tricep dips, use a pull-up bar if I have one; even just hanging is great.
Another day might be push up variation day; wide, narrow, inclined different ways, push up and “reach to the sky with one arm,” knee pushups at the end.
Yet another is leg day. Squats, jumping squats, lunges, butt kicks, heel lifts, other positions to get different muscles. Another day may be core, another day is more shoulder/back, and so on. And all this is without weights, or with at most like a dumbbell or a pull up bar, and some kind of chair or bed for certain positions.
Your eyes will drift away from the TV, and you get exhausted doing this stuff, but you can keep up with a show if you want.
The above poster may have a good idea… but I don’t think they have a lot of good knowledge of making body comp changes.
I know what reps, sets, supersets, circuits, and training sessions are. I’ve never heard of a “group” of movements, other than maybe as an informal term, which is how the above poster seems to be using it.
Their enthusiasm for calisthenics is admirable. But they aren’t any better or worse for you than any other form of exercise - whatever exercise doesn’t hurt, and that you enjoy doing, is good exercise.
Also should I still pair this with the running? How much could I reduce my running if I started doing these? I’m currently doing an hour.
You can 100% pair calisthenics with running, and it can be a wonderful combo for general fitness. However, I doubt it would really work to achieve your stated goal, which I assume is to burn a certain number of calories in a particular time frame without sweating. Problem being - to burn calories, you need to exercise. To burn calories faster, you need extra intensity - you need your muscles to work harder, faster. The chemical process that allows your muscles to contract creates heat as a byproduct, and when you work your muscles hard and fast, heat builds up. And when heat builds up and you aren’t in a cool environment, your body sheds that heat by sweating. If you want to sweat less, you either need to move to a cooler (or breezier) environment or else exercise for longer at a lower intensity. The type of exercise you do doesn’t matter.
The solution to your problem is (1) wear technical fabrics, or less clothing in general, (2) crank the AC as much as possible, (3) blast as many fans as possible at your body, but most importantly (4) just get used to being sweaty, it’s normal.
Yeah I was being casual, and I’m not an expert by any means.
I bring it up because, for me, sets of specific bodyweight exercises (like legs one day, shoulders/back another, and so on) is just more time efficient. It gives enough resistance to get sore, and gets me exhausted, all in one setting, instead of running separately. It’s easier on my knees, with no risk of shin splints and less risk of injury than heavy weights.
I’m confused, and I am wondering if we are using terms differently.
To me, a set is a group of continuous repetitions. For example, if I do 20 bicep curls in a row, I did one set of 20 curls. But if I do 2 curls, then walk away and drink some water, and then come back and do another 2 curls, and repeat this 10 times, then I have done 10 sets of 2 reps of curls.
So when you say the following, I am honestly quite bewildered at what you might mean -
for me, sets of specific bodyweight exercises (like legs one day, shoulders/back another, and so on) is just more time efficient. It gives enough resistance to get sore, and gets me exhausted, all in one setting, instead of running separately
I think the nomenclature I am familiar with would be a “split” - a way of structuring your workout routine so you do, say legs one day and arms another. Or pushing motions one day and pulling motions another. Which is great - lots of people do various kinds of splits and enjoy them and see the results they want from them.
Also, if what you are doing works for you, I think that’s great and you should keep doing it. But I also want to gently push back on a few of your statements for anyone else who may be reading and interested.
One thing you say is that it gets you sore. But I think it is worth noting that soreness itself doesn’t really indicate anything beneficial. You can hit your quad with a hammer and you will be sore in the morning. Soreness can be useful as a rule of thumb, since it typically indicates that you tried hard, which is a good proxy for stimulating muscle growth. But consistently being sore doesn’t, on its own, guarentee hypertrophy - and if pursued excessively, can actually work against potential gains, as soreness can inhibit one’s ability to perform optimally in their next workout. Instead, if you are pursuing strength or hypertrophy goals, the appropriate metric is progression in lifts over time. If you bench 135 for 5 reps today, and then in a month you bench 145 for 5 reps, or you bench 135 for 10 reps, or even if you just feel like benching 135 for 5 is easier, then we have an excellent indication that muscle growth is going to be stimulated.
In the same vein, you talk about being exhausted. And if you like feeling exhausted after your workouts because it helps you sleep better or it elevates your mood, by all means continue. But exhaustion doesn’t necessarily correlate with improved strength, hypertrophy, or fitness. After all, I can exhaust you by telling you to walk across the Sahara desert. But if your goal is to win the 100m sprint, that isn’t going to help much. Some of the best training programs I’ve run into are actually quite short, and are designed to leave the trainee with plenty of energy in the tank after their workout so they can come back as fresh as possible for the next workout.
Finally, I take issue with saying that running causes shin splints, or that lifting weights is dangerous. All physical activity carries the risk of injury, of course, but the biggest reason people develop overuse injuries is simply going too hard, too fast, and overdoing it. Or using poor form in their chosen activity. Or simply bad luck in the genetic lottery and dealing with the accumulated damage on the body over the course of a human lifetime. There is nothing special about calisthenics that make them some sort of injury-proof exercise - plenty of people note that push ups hurt their shoulders, pull ups hurt their elbows, or pistols hurt their knees. That doesn’t mean that push ups, pull ups, or pistols are bad exercises - it just means that if you try them and they hurt, you might need to make some adjustments, or else try a different exercise to reach your goal. Similarly, sure, some people get shin splints running, or hurt their backs deadlifting. But running and deadlifting are not bad or especially dangerous either - just some people may need to adjust their routines, or their form, or choose some different kind of exercise if they can’t resolve the issue they are facing. The human body is a wonderful thing, and in my view we should be encouraging people to use it in any way they can, in every way they might want to try - and if there is a problem for some person in particular, then we can deal with it when it comes up, rather than warning them off something before they’ve even tried it.
Come to my gym. It’s like 10 degrees in there. I’ve never sweat.
Shower as soon as you can afterwards
Sweat is a good thing
More fans and/or a portable A/C certainly seem to help. If there is air moving over you while you sweat it will evaporate faster and cool you down as intended, making you more comfortable. You can’t really stop sweat altogether, only manage it.
Just wondering, are you on an SSRI? They make you sweat way more than you would normally, especially your head
huh. I actually did start one somewhat recently (a few months now) and that somewhat coincided with when I increased my run from 30->60 mins. I do end up sweating a lot on my head, although also on the chest, back, and armpits. Probably not a reason to swap off the meds, but good to know I guess.
