Sweat and workouts

Katmary71

OK, I Googled this and can't find a good answer, I'm embarrassed to ask this question so be nice! Usually I do the stair master or exercise bike for a good hour and am a dripping mess afterward. This last week I've been doing You Tube cardio and weight videos and I get sweaty but not sweating-through-my-clothes sweaty. I'm still working out hard, my Fitbit heart rate isn't reliable as it said it was 86 in the middle of doing Body Combat and that was tough! Anyhow, I know sweating doesn't mean you're getting a good workout but am I getting as hard of a workout sweating less doing videos as my usual cardio? I'm still pushing myself just as hard doing HIIT ones. The exercise bike is also in my house and for that I turn on the ceiling fan, no fan with workout videos. Any thoughts?

sijomial

Sweat means you are getting hot - very little to do with how effective your workouts are.

Plus some people just simply sweat more than others - again very little to do with how hard different people are working.

Different workouts produce different stress on the body and give different benefits - a "good workout" doesn't relate to how sweaty you are or for many exercises how fast your heart is beating.

Thoughts:
Define "hard"? Just feels hard or working at a high percentage of your capability?

How do you compare a hard weights session to a hard cardio session?

Do workouts even have to feel hard to be effective?

Cycling in still air (exercise bike) will make you much hotter than same effort outside with movement through the air or indeed indoors with a fan. Which would you say was harder - producing 150 watts while staying cool or producing 120 watts and getting hot and sweaty?

Onedaywriter

I sweat when I workout a lot so it’s easy for me to judge. I don’t think the amount of sweat and the intensity of the workout go hand in hand.
For instance, I rode my bike hard into the wind today and because bike riding naturally keeps body temperature down, along with the heavy wind I was dry the entire time. But in a closed gym there will be a puddle under me sometimes just from a warmup. I also find I sweat less when using an assault bike (big fan in front) than I do when say jumping rope.
Definitely a factor of heat, hydration, salt consumption prior and air movement. Don’t sweat it (sorry couldn’t resist). In my opinion if you feel like it’s a hard workout, it’s a hard workout!!

MidlifeCrisisFitness

I don't sweat much when I'm swimming.

https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/does-more-sweat-equal-a-better-workout

AnnPT77

Katmary71 wrote: »

OK, I Googled this and can't find a good answer, I'm embarrassed to ask this question so be nice! Usually I do the stair master or exercise bike for a good hour and am a dripping mess afterward. This last week I've been doing You Tube cardio and weight videos and I get sweaty but not sweating-through-my-clothes sweaty. I'm still working out hard, my Fitbit heart rate isn't reliable as it said it was 86 in the middle of doing Body Combat and that was tough! Anyhow, I know sweating doesn't mean you're getting a good workout but am I getting as hard of a workout sweating less doing videos as my usual cardio? I'm still pushing myself just as hard doing HIIT ones. The exercise bike is also in my house and for that I turn on the ceiling fan, no fan with workout videos. Any thoughts?

Weeeelllll, it seems like you're mixing together quite a few factors there, pretty much none of which march hand in hand:

* How much you sweat
* How "hard" it feels ("hard" can have various meanings - It's "hard" for me to push my max weight on a leg press machine, and "hard" to go to max effort in a rowing shell or on my bike, for example, but those are all quite different)
* Heart rate

And what does a "hard workout" (when you ask "am I getting as hard of a workout") mean to you? Calorie burn per minute? Calorie burn per session? Effect on cardiovascular endurance? CV peak capacity? Muscular strength? Muscular endurance? Etc.

What's your objective?

For sure, something "feeling hard" (for most any of the "hard" variants) isn't a good indicator of total calorie burn, or even as good an indicator of calorie burn per minute as many people might think. Heart rate (even if accurate) is only a moderately good estimator of calorie burn for steady state work, and mostly in the moderate range +/-. Sweat is pretty darned near totally meaningless as a measure of anything calorie or fitness related. And HIIT is more hyped than effective for most people, in most circumstances, along any of those dimensions.

We could probably give you better feedback if we knew whether you were targeting total calories, calories per minute, or some specific fitness dimension(s).

Apologies, for now. :flowerforyou:

AnnPT77

Katmary71 wrote: »

OK, I Googled this and can't find a good answer, I'm embarrassed to ask this question so be nice! Usually I do the stair master or exercise bike for a good hour and am a dripping mess afterward. This last week I've been doing You Tube cardio and weight videos and I get sweaty but not sweating-through-my-clothes sweaty. I'm still working out hard, my Fitbit heart rate isn't reliable as it said it was 86 in the middle of doing Body Combat and that was tough! Anyhow, I know sweating doesn't mean you're getting a good workout but am I getting as hard of a workout sweating less doing videos as my usual cardio? I'm still pushing myself just as hard doing HIIT ones. The exercise bike is also in my house and for that I turn on the ceiling fan, no fan with workout videos. Any thoughts?

I've been thinking about this. I think I gave you dumb advice.

In the big picture, if you're enjoying your workout, challenging yourself a little bit, but not making yourself exhausted for the rest of the day or miserable during the workout, your workout is a good workout, and hard enough.

Different workouts feel different, and benefit us in different ways. It's good to mix things up a bit. Don't worry too much about the differences in feelings.

Work hard, challenge yourself, do something you enjoy**, feel energized and accomplished: That's a good workout.

Best wishes!

**P.S. "Enjoy" is a flexible word. "Enjoy" can be "the activity itself was fun", or it can be "I worked hard so I feel like I accomplished a good thing", or . . . lots of things. You know whether your workout was positive for you, in ways important to you. That - the subjective evaluation you make yourself - is the measure of "enjoy". :flowerforyou: