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Characteristics of sweating responses and peripheral sweat gland function during passive heating in sprinters

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare sweating function in sprinters who have trained for several years with untrained subjects and trained endurance runners. Two separate experiments were conducted. Nine sprinters, eight untrained men, and nine distance runners (\(\dot{V}{\text{o}}_{{ 2 {\text{max}}}}\) 50.9 ± 1.4, 38.2 ± 1.8, and 59.1 ± 1.2 mL/kg/min, respectively; P < 0.05) were passively heated for 50 min (Experiment 1), and ten sprinters, 11 untrained men and nine distance runners (similar \(\dot{V}{\text{o}}_{{ 2 {\text{max}}}}\) levels compared with Experiment 1 in each group) had their sweat gland capacity assessed based on acetylcholine-induced sweating rate (SR) (Experiment 2). The slope of the mean non-glabrous SR plotted against change in mean body temperature during passive heating did not differ significantly between sprinters and untrained men (1.21 ± 0.10 and 0.97 ± 0.12 mg cm−2/min/°C, respectively); in contrast, compared with untrained men, distance runners exhibited a significantly greater slope (1.42 ± 0.11 mg cm−2/min/°C, P < 0.05). The mean body temperature threshold for SR was not significantly different among the groups. Acetylcholine-induced SR did not differ significantly between sprinters and untrained men, whereas distance runners showed a significantly higher induced SR compared with untrained men. The sweating function was not improved in sprinters who have trained 2–3 h/day, 5 days/week, for at least 3 years compared with untrained men, although the \(\dot{V}{\text{o}}_{{ 2 {\text{max}}}}\) was markedly greater in sprinters. Thus, there is a case that daily training was not sufficient to improve sweating function in sprinters relative to those in distance runners.

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Acknowledgments

We thank our volunteer subjects for participating in this study. This study was partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (no. 19300221, 23300231) and a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship (no. 244185) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Applied Human Physiology, Graduate School of Human Development and Environment, Kobe University, 3-11 Tsurukabuto, Nada-ku, Kobe, 657-8501, Japan

    Tatsuro Amano & Narihiko Kondo

  2. Kobe Design University, Kobe, Japan

    Shunsaku Koga

  3. Osaka International University, Osaka, Japan

    Yoshimitsu Inoue

  4. Institute of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

    Takeshi Nishiyasu

Authors
  1. Tatsuro Amano
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  2. Shunsaku Koga
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  3. Yoshimitsu Inoue
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  4. Takeshi Nishiyasu
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  5. Narihiko Kondo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Narihiko Kondo.

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Communicated by George Havenith.

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Amano, T., Koga, S., Inoue, Y. et al. Characteristics of sweating responses and peripheral sweat gland function during passive heating in sprinters. Eur J Appl Physiol 113, 2067–2075 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-013-2641-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-013-2641-8

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