towel smells funky

This is normal. It is coming out of your muscles (and your skin, breath, sweat). Once you cool down from the effort you won't smell it anymore.

Someone here could provide the physiological reasoning (and chemistry) but it is lost on me!

A little more water during the workout and a toilet break before training may help. 😄

vio765 said:

when i am working out on the stationary, i wipe my face with a clean towel (pretty typical), but after a little while, ill go to wipe my face and i notice that my towel smells like ammonia! not strong, but very mild. i use fabric softener, so when the towel is clean, it smells like some forest in new zealand or wherever. but when im done with it a couple hours later, the ammonia is very noticable. this cant be normal. so am i sweating ammonia or is there something in my sweat that is acting as a precursor that turns to ammonia when it meets with air? help

Cut down on your visits to the watering hole! 😄

Spunout said:

Someone here could provide the physiological reasoning (and chemistry) but it is lost on me!

cyclingforums.comt108121.htmlOpen ↗

Thanks for that. VO2Max workouts to exhaustion (combined with glycogen depletion) seem to bring it on for most. They do for me. We don't notice it outdoors because of the wind.

I have been led to believe this is due to excessive protein in your diet. It could also be caued by a certain bacteria but this is less likely.

I get it a lot when I run.