I even love seeing those I train sweat. When I am training others, I watch for that moment when their hearts are pumping and their body starts to react. Their hair starts to get wet, their shirt gets darker, and I know that have found it, (they also might be cussing me out, so that’s also a good indicator too), but there’s this thing about sweating that releases something that matters.
I have done a bit of research on sweat. (yup, yes I have).
Some camps say, it’s a great releaser of unwanted toxins, some camps say, your kidneys and liver do that, and sweating doesn’t do anything but be your body’s built in air conditioner.
Physically our bodies are made to sweat when we get overheated. Not sure exactly what it releases, since each doc has their own findings, but for me: it, mentally starts to free me from the junk that is built up inside. My own junk.
Sometimes things are pent up deep inside that needs to be out. My body is reacting to the changes I am putting it through, and I love that external sign. I love being in charge of that.
However, as much as I love dripping wet after a hard workout, I hate the part right before I start really sweating, you know that feeling. It’s the uncomfortable part. The icky, sticky part. The yucky half-sweat, like when you bare arm touch someone at a hot baseball game, and your arms stick together. This the time usually in my workout that I can either quit and stay dry, OR the part I can push on and ring my shirt out a little later.
My mind always says two things;
STOP, stop the uncomfortable ick or
STEP UP YOUR GAME
Run a bit faster, lift a bit more, settle in to the discomfort and get through it, the buckets are waiting.
I have to train myself that the sweat will never be automatic. I have to really work for it. Unless you live in STL in the dead of summer, then you sweat when you walk out the door. But I am talking about the sweat that is self-induced. The one I can control. I have to know the beginning will suck and be uncomfortable. I don’t just automatically get to feel the release of my body doing hard work, I actually have to do the work, and many times that is the part we don’t want to do. But the actual part I get to shed off: the ick of the morning, the stress of something painful, that’s worth it to me, and might be for you too.
For goodness sake stop reading and go get your sweat on…