It’s football season y’all, and after a weekend of college football, tailgate food, late nights, and plenty of time spent cheering from the stands, Monday is the perfect time to get back into a fitness routine. That’s where a HOTWORX infrared workout can provide a powerful reset. During a HOTWORX session, infrared energy is absorbed by the body and contributes to warming the skin and tissues, while the heated environment and physical exercise add additional heat stress. As your body temperature rises, your nervous system activates its natural cooling mechanisms, including increased blood flow to the skin and the production of sweat. The infrared energy contributes to the thermal load that signals your body to cool itself. Sweat then evaporates from the skin, helping dissipate heat and regulate body temperature. Because you’re exercising at the same time, your muscles are producing additional metabolic heat, which can further increase the demand for cooling. While your liver, kidneys, lungs, and digestive system handle most of the detox processes there is a measurable amount of toxic waste in sweat.

One intriguing area of research surrounding heat-induced sweating is the presence of certain toxic metals and trace elements in perspiration. Studies have detected substances including lead, arsenic, cadmium, nickel and mercury in human sweat, suggesting that sweating can provide an additional route for their excretion alongside the kidneys and gastrointestinal system. (PubMed Central (PMC)) Infrared sauna research has also found measurable concentrations of several toxic elements in sweat, including arsenic, cadmium, nickel and lead. (PubMed) A comprehensive review concluded that sweating’s contribution to overall toxicant elimination is likely small compared with the kidneys and gastrointestinal tract.

Research from a 2022 study found that dynamic exercise produced higher sweat concentrations of several metals than sitting in a sauna alone. (PubMed) Imagine the one, two punch of what can happen when workouts are performed inside of an infrared sauna. For a HOTWORX workout, the most important post football weekend takeaway is that infrared heat, combined with exercise, promotes substantial sweating—and that sweat can contain measurable amounts of certain toxic elements—while hydration and the body’s normal organs of elimination remain the primary mechanisms for maintaining the body’s chemical balance.

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