Why do we stop sweating after exercise?
It's normal to sweat more after you finish exercising than you
do while you exercise. Your body temperature varies throughout the
day, going from around 97 degrees in the early morning to about 99
degrees in the early evening. Exercise raises body temperature
considerably. When you exercise, more than 70 percent of the energy
that powers your muscles is lost as heat. Less than 30 percent
drives your muscles. Athletic competition can drive temperatures as
high as 105 degrees without harming the athletes.
To keep your body temperature from rising too high, your heart
pumps large amounts of heat in the blood from your hot muscles to
your skin and you sweat. The sweat evaporates and cools your body.
The amount of sweat that your body produces depends on the
temperature of the blood that flows through your brain. When the
temperature of the blood rises, you sweat more. During exercise,
your heart beats rapidly to pump blood to bring oxygen to your
muscles and to pump the hot blood from the muscles to the skin
where the heat can be dissipated. When you stop exercising, your
heart slows down also, pumping less blood to the skin. The heat
accumulates in your muscles, causing blood temperature to rise
higher, so you sweat more right after you finish exercising than
during exercise.