Can you Really Train Sweating?

In hot, maybe even sultry areas, we Central Europeans don’t always have it easy with the climate. Shortly after arrival, the sweat flows in streams.

Sweaty acclimatization

Although this actually serves to cool the body, this excess of the salty excretion is not necessarily helpful. A large part of the sweat drips off and cannot evaporate.

But don’t worry: the body adapts to a new climate after some time: After about 3 weeks, it has acclimatized and then also forms less sweat.

But can you really train sweating?

To a certain extent, sweating can also be trained. In doing so, the sweat glands “learn” to release exactly as much water as can also evaporate. Our body is in fact an economically working system: unevaporated, dripping sweat is unnecessary water loss, which must be avoided.

It is interesting to note that “acclimatized” sweat contains less salt. Here, too, the body saves. By the way, a good workout for the sweat glands is sauna bathing.

Thoroughly trained people sweat more?

The body must also first get used to an athletic activity and adjust its cooling system to it.

Result: endurance-trained athletes sweat more effectively. Athletes start sweating earlier and sweat more than non-athletes. Because their body temperature rises more slowly due to sweating, they are better protected from overheating. They also lose fewer salts with their sweat.

Sweat stinks?

Sweat in itself is odorless. Only when it meets bacteria on the skin and is decomposed, it begins to smell. How it smells depends on the type of bacteria:

Heavy, acidic body odor is caused primarily by micrococci, which are found in large quantities in all healthy people. This type of odor is found especially in women.

The more pungent odor, on the other hand, is more common in men and is caused by the so-called lipophilic diphtheroids. These bacteria are found to a greater extent in men.

Overall, however, the intensity of the odor depends on the number of bacteria on the skin.