Sweating in bodybuilding

We've all heard the expression "wetting your bikini" when you're giving it your all during a sporting event. This expression illustrates the fact of sweating profusely when an intense effort is made.

Sweating is a natural process that regulates body temperature by eliminating water from the body. During exercise, the heat produced by muscular activity raises body temperature to 37°2, so to return to this temperature, the body must evacuate water.

Sweatmechanism

Sweat is excreted by the sweat glands under the skin during hot weather, sport or stress. This mechanism is triggered by the hypothalamus, which detects a rise in blood temperature. The latter activates the sympathetic system, responsible for controlling certain unconscious activities, including perspiration.

Composition of sweat

Sweat is mainly composed of water, minerals and waste products such as lactates (derived from lactic acid) and urea.

Sweat and weight loss

Now that you're familiar with the components of sweat and the role of perspiration, I'm going to dispel the myth that sweating is synonymous with weight loss.

When we talk about weight loss, we think of fat loss.

Fat loss is achieved by activating lipolysis (fat burning) as an energy source. Sweat contains no trace of lipids and is a thermoregulatory mechanism.

When we sweat, as mentioned above, we lose body water, so weight loss is linked to this loss of water.

This loss is also synonymous with dehydration

1L of sweat is equivalent to 1kg, so if an athlete sweats the equivalent of one liter of sweat, he or she will have lost 1kg. However, drinking to compensate for this loss of water means that, in the end, no weight is lost.

In conclusion, sweating is not accompanied by weight loss as we understand it, because there is no fat loss linked to sweating.

Sweating causes you to temporarily lose weight, which will be regained as soon as you rehydrate.

Author Alexandre CARPENTIER

Bodybuilding Champion N.A.C 2012

Alexandre shares his experience of bodybuilding with MegaGear blog readers