It's a widely known fact that, on average, male athletes tend to sweat more than female athletes. In this article, we quantify the difference by leveraging Nix Solo cycling-specific data and diving deeper into the physiological differences between men and women to help explain why.
Based on the data collected in the Nix Solo app over the past year, male cyclists lost 35% more fluids than their female counterparts. Additionally, males lost 51% more electrolytes than female cyclists doing similar training workouts. These averages are based on cycling data collected for both indoor and outdoor workouts of 45 minutes or longer.
Published papers have well documented that the difference in sweat production is influenced by a host of factors including body size and composition, metabolic rate, and hormonal differences.
Body Size: Compared to women, men typically have a larger body size than women. On average men are 5.5 inches (or 8.7%) taller and weigh nearly 30 pounds (or 17%) more than their female counterparts. However, this factor alone does not account for the 35% sweat differential seen between the genders.
Body Composition: In addition to being taller, males also typically have more muscle mass than females. According to the Journal of Applied Physiology males have, on average, 72.8 lbs of skeletal muscle vs. 46.3 lbs found on women. Because heat is produced within the muscles of the body and men have more muscle on average, it means that if all other factors are equal then they are producing more heat. When men produce more heat, either in a resting state or during physical activity, their bodies will sweat more to dissipate this energy in an effort to bring the body’s core temperature back to 98.6°F.
Metabolic Rate: Men generally have a higher resting metabolic rate which generates more internal heat and thus, more sweat occurs to maintain body temperature. Since the metabolism process largely takes place within the muscles, it reasons that metabolic rate is closely connected to the impact muscle mass has on these gender differences.
Hormonal Differences: Lastly, there are significant hormonal differences between genders. At a young age testosterone levels are similar between males and females. However, this changes after puberty and men produce 30x more testosterone than in adolescent years. Multiple studies point to testosterone’s role in stimulating muscle protein synthesis and the accrual muscle mass. Testosterone, which is more prevalent in men, can increase the act of sweating. While estradiol, the most potent estrogen in the human body, can inhibit the sweating response. It isn’t particularly clear yet if increased perspiration is driven by hormones alone, or if it is a more complicated and interwoven relationship involving muscle mass too. Regardless, further hormonal fluctuations in women, such as those occurring during menstrual cycles, pregnancy, and menopause, can also affect sweating patterns.
On average, men are nearly 9% taller, weigh 17% more, and have 25% more skeletal muscle mass than women. When comparing this to the 35% difference in sweat rate, it reasons that the muscle mass factor is likely the largest contribution to the sweat rate differential.
It should be noted that all individuals can experience a variation in sweat and electrolyte loss rates. Gathering datapoints from a variety of different workouts and scenarios is crucial to understanding, interpreting, and preparing personal hydration strategies.
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Data for this article was compiled based on gender and activity type (cycling) for workouts from September 2023 through end of July 2024. This data range was selected to ensure all workouts included the respiratory model which was introduced in August 2023. Only workouts of at least 45 minutes in length are included within the dataset.