Fittness Question

On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 08:43:23 +1000, "Whykickamoocow" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I am riding my bike for fittness, and to lose some weight. My question is, when I go for a bike
ride on a hot day, I come back with my clothes drenched in sweat, however now that its a little
cooler, I am coming back after the same level of riding, but with bugger all sweat. Am I still
acheiving the same results even though I am not sweating as much

As you get fitter, and your body gets more efficient, you WILL sweat less for the same amount
of effort.

The indicator of whether a workout is doing you good (fitness wise) is supposed to be how long you
spend above a certain percentage of your maximum heart rate. That percentage figure will vary
depending on the expert, but I think it's somewhere around the 75% mark.

What I found, as far as sweating goes, was that as I got fitter I started sweating earlier, but
sweated less overall.

Make sure, though, that the reason you're not sweating as much isn't because you're dehydrated.

---
Cheers

PeterC

[Rushing headlong: out of control - and there ain't no stopping]
[and there's nothing you can do about it at all]

Whykickamoocow said:

I am riding my bike for fittness, and to lose some weight. My question is, when I go for a bike
ride on a hot day, I come back with my clothes drenched in sweat, however now that its a little
cooler, I am coming back after the same level of riding, but with bugger all sweat. Am I still
acheiving the same results even though I am not sweating as much ? Thanks

A confounding factor is that as you ride faster, the sweat evaporates faster due to increased
airflow, so I don't think perceived sweating is a good workrate measure. If you're serious about
riding for fitness, buy a heart rate monitor (HRM) - it doesn't have to be a fancy-shmancy one with
zones, PC interface, etc., just something that tells you your current heart rate. If it doesn't come
with a little booklet that gives you a clue about what HR to train at, go to your local library or
search the Web for articles.

Other methods (not as reliable) of measuring workrate include:
- which gear you're in on a known stretch of road (this is only a relative measure, and the "norm"
will change as you get stronger and lighter)
- perceived workrate, i.e. how hard you think you're going, which is accurate most of the time,
but as my HRM tells me, not *all* the time (sometimes 150 feels like hard work, sometimes 165
feels cruisey).

If you can afford ~$150, I'd suggest you get an HRM.

P.S. Peter is right, your body gets better at dissipating heat as you get fitter. On your first
few rides, you may have come back red-faced, but on later rides over the same route and in
the same conditions, your skin colour would be much more normal.

HTH,

&roo

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Whykickamoocow
I am riding my bike for fittness, and to lose some weight. My question is, when I go for a bike ride
on a hot day, I come back with my clothes drenched in sweat, however now that its a little cooler, I
am coming back after the same level of riding, but with bugger all sweat. Am I still acheiving the
same results even though I am not sweating as much ? Thanks

Your body doesn't need to sweat as much at cooler temperatures. I also ride to an from work. I find that in the morning I'm not sweating much at all. If it's a warm/hot day on the ride home, I can barely get my jersey off it's so wet. So in my experience, the weather plays a huge part in how much you sweat (and hence how much you need to drink).

I got caught out badly in this year's Alpine Classic

virtually all my longer rides (100k+) are in the morning and rarely approach midday.
The alpine classic had me finishing after 9:16 hours at 3 in the afternoon and I realised there was a huge flaw in all my training and that was not getting used to riding at the hottest part of the day. Really suffered on buffalo

Perspiration rate/amount can be affected by several physiological and environmental factors. In addition, there is no feasible means to measure perspiration rate/amount quantitatively.

A meaningful way to monitor your fitness is perhaps watching your average speed against your HR. Even this has to be done over large sample size, as the speed can be greatly affected by wind, heat, humidity, state of the bike, the state of body etc. So, I'm afraid that monitoring fitness is going to require some tools. Something that allows you track your performance and gives you numbers to crunch.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Whykickamoocow
I am riding my bike for fittness, and to lose some weight. My question is, when I go for a bike ride
on a hot day, I come back with my clothes drenched in sweat, however now that its a little cooler, I
am coming back after the same level of riding, but with bugger all sweat. Am I still acheiving the
same results even though I am not sweating as much ? Thanks

As an aside to this...are you riding in a t-shirt? They certainly keep you sweatier (more sweaty?)
than perhaps some of the cycling or running tops that I have tried.

Cheers, Rob

"Whykickamoocow" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I am riding my bike for fittness, and to lose some weight. My question is, when I go for a bike
ride on a hot day, I come back with my clothes drenched in sweat, however now that its a little
cooler, I am coming back after the same level of riding, but with bugger all sweat. Am I still
acheiving the same results even though I am not sweating as much ? Thanks

"Peter Cremasco" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

As you get fitter, and your body gets more efficient, you WILL sweat less for the same amount
of effort.

<snip>

Quoted message said:

What I found, as far as sweating goes, was that as I got fitter I started sweating earlier, but
sweated less overall.

Someone with a stronger biology/physiology background may be able to verify this, but I seem to
recall that as you get fitter you actually sweat more.

The key is that, yes you do sweat earlier. Your body perspires freely while you are exercising, it
cools you down as it dries, and you arrive feeling cooler, not red, dripping and done in. Because
you are sweating more, a fit person will need to drink as much or more than an unfit person. So suck
on that bidon.

Cheers Peter