When is warming-up a bad idea? Not often, but in a particular circumstance when your athletes will exercise in the heat, the opposite strategy might be more appropriate: pre-cooling. Uckert et al. (2007) examined the effect of three pre-race strategies on endurance performance in the heat. Twenty males participated in the study and were asked [...]
In 1996, there was a concerted effort by health and fitness professionals to address the question of hydration for sport. The American College of Sports Medicine (1996) subsequently published a position stand on the issue, advocating athletes’ to drink as much water as possible at regular intervals. In 2007 the ACSM revised their position statement [...]
Given that summer is in full swing, it’s high time we spoke a little about exercising in the heat. Heat exerts a significant physiological challenge for the body, where the demands of muscles that need blood for work compete against the demands the demand of the body to lose heat via sweating, all while trying [...]
How important are euhydration and rehydration prior to, and during exercise respectively? It appears that they are essential. Data from Cheung et al. (2000) demonstrate that subjects exercised in hot conditions at constant pace for 106min when euhydrated AND rehydrated with water at a rate of 1L per hour. However, when the test was repeated, [...]
When you exercise in the heat, your clothes can become saturated in sweat. Good thing right? .. only if you change your t-shirt and continue to stay dry. When we sweat, it is to lose heat that is accumulating in the body. However, at one point that sweat can become trapped in a microenvironment between the [...]
When an athlete sweats during exercise in the heat, it is because the body is trying to lose heat with the aim of prolonging exercise. However, ambient temperature and humidity play a key role in the athletes’ ability to lose that heat and continue exercising. Basically, the bodies ability to lose heat through sweating is [...]