Heating up!

I’m currently writing this as I reflect on how things went at the world championships in Italy.

One of the main things that stood out to me was how the heat and humidity affected people’s performance.

With this in mind, this blog will briefly examine heat acclimation. I will discuss what I did to acclimatise and what I could have done better.

Leaving Australia on the first day of winter and coming to European summer was ok for me because I tried to acclimatise back home.

Our bodies like to stay in a state of homeostasis. Acclimatising to heat will allow us to better defend this state and improve performance in the heat. When we train in the heat, we have an increased perception of effort because of the physiological processes that happen in the body.

The body has a variety of feedback loops.
For example, when your temperature increases:
– You start to sweat.
– More blood goes into your skin.
This is to help cool you down. When the sweat evaporates, it will cool you down. Having more blood in the skin is another method to help cool the body because when air moves across it, some of the heat will be lost.

However, sweating can result in decreases in blood pressure, possibly due to reduced blood plasma volume, losses in sodium and blood pooling in the periphery. If there is decreased blood volume, there may be less preload coming back to the heart, which will require it to work harder and may cause the body to redirect blood flow away from muscles to protect the heart.

As a consequence the body can adapt by increasing sweat rate and blood plasma volume, and in turn hopefully improved performance in the heat.

Sweating may also increase the risk of dehydration, which I will not cover today.

This is a very interesting video on heat acclimation

I had a very basic knowledge of what happens when you train in the hot weather (active heat) vs. passive heat. My efforts to acclimate involved some active heat training and passive heat training. This held me in good stead, but it was certainly not optimal.

What I did:

Crosstraining on a bike with two jumpers and tracksuit pants
Regular hot baths
Interval training

The above is a low-budget approach – if I had access to a sauna or hot room to train in, I would have used those regularly.

Crosstraining was done with extra clothes, which increased my core temperature and sweat when it was cold. The two reasons I did this for my crosstraining were that 1) training in hotter environments can reduce your training intensity, and 2) Extra clothes are particularly hard to do when you’re doing kettlebell sport.

Interval training can be another way to get a heat acclimatisation effect. If you do intense interval training, you can get your core temperature quite high and get a heat training effect without even training in the heat. Some studies of interval training have recorded people’s core temperature as high as 40 degrees Celsius. Bouts of interval training might be a way that people inadvertently get some heat training effect and acclimate.

Although passive heat exposure isn’t as effective as active heat exposure, it can make a useful contribution, especially when equipment is limited. I regularly tried to have baths as hot as I could tolerate, as I didn’t have access to a sauna.

The best example I’ve seen of adapting to the heat was when Anton Anasenko (biathlon world champion) travelled to Australia during the summer. I was lucky enough to discuss his sauna protocol with him. From my notes, it was 5 minutes after a training session, 5 minutes on and 5 minutes off on the weekend at 80 degrees cellulitis.

This is impressive because he travelled from a cold climate well into the negatives and performed over 80 reps of long cycle and over 200 reps of snatch with 32 kg bells in 30+ degrees in Australia.

See article: https://www.menshealth.com/uk/fitness/a29264778/kettlebell-world-cup/

Here is a great video on passive heat for performance:

This is a protocol used by distance runners, and it is different from Anton’s. Context is important, as he lives in a very cold climate.
It would seem, that climates and fitness levels may come into play. So to determine what is best for you, you might like to start slowly and measure your temperature at rest and during exercise or heat (please notes that there are different ways to do this, which might have different results). If you are unsure or have any health issues you should speak to your doctor.

From looking at a couple of articles. The adaptations can happen in four or more days if you train correctly. To improve what I did, I could have had a hot bath or sauna directly after a training session to prolong my core temperature being elevated.

Once you are in the heat, you can try to offset any issues with pre-cooling.
There are three typical ways to pre-cool:
1) cold water immersion,
2) cooling clothing or ice vests,
and 3) consuming ice slushies.

Cold water immersion may be the most effective approach; however, it will leave your limbs cold, and your performance may be reduced for the first couple of minutes of competition, which might not be beneficial in the context of a 10-minute set.

Cooling clothing may be a useful option. I would pay attention to avoid making your hands or forearms cold to avoid any negative consequences of them needing to ‘warm up’.

Consuming ice slushies or cold drinks may be the easiest to implement. Personally, before a long cycle or jerk set, I don’t drink any water to avoid liquid slushing around in my stomach. If this is not an issue, I might be a good Option, further during half marathons or marathons having a cold drink might be helpful.

So, in summary, if you are using a low-budget approach to heat acclimatisation, you might like to cross-train with extra clothes; this should cause you to sweat. After training, you might like to have a hot bath or sauna, depending on what you have access to, to keep your core temperature elevated. Typically, prolonging it to 38.5 °C seems to be something to aim for.

Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply