The Target: Total Fitness - The sweater myth

For decades people have been donning sweaters after heavy exercise. The name sweater, in fact, has obvious origins. The sweater began as a means of keeping the body warm and covered once it had become hot and sweaty.

Unless exposure to inclement weather is a problem, or the individual has particular reasons for putting on a sweater at the end of a hot workout, the sweater myth is just that. Under normal temperature, weather, and other conditions, the sweater simply prolongs the body's hot state. That helps not at all.

Some stiffness can, of course, result from exercise. But wearing a sweater is not the way to prevent that. Stiffness usually has its sources in the body's condition—or lack of it.