Heat acclimatization training - a solution to

What is heat acclimation training?

Heat acclimation training (HAT) is the artificial exposure to heat during exercise, for example exercising in a heated chamber. Training in the heat increases body (core and skin) temperature, induces profuse sweating and increases skin blood flow.

Well, let's talk about your study now, it improves exercise performance. Uh, what did you want to find out? What was the purpose of this study? Correct. So, um, I don't want to go too long before the story of this, but I'm going to tell you a little bit about it, is that I worked with an athlete, a runner, a marathon runner named Nathan Ritson, and he trained and focused on the Olympics Games prepared in Beijing.

And at the time we thought the Beijing Olympics could possibly be the hottest marathon ever. Um, and now we have Japan, which is maybe that big too, could break that record. Um, and so, uh, you know, when you work with these, these they are absolute thoroughbreds.

So I was really concerned about doing anything that would compromise performance to get it to our lab, to our chamber, and worked very closely with his coaches. And, uh, but what are we worried about? is, we say, we have really prepared it for heat acclimatization. And then we find out that thr But maybe some human dilution or other factors that might be contributing to its actually deteriorating a little bit.

I would have done a terrible job as an exercise physiologist. Um, I would have been, um, very disappointed that this person has spent his entire life getting better with those moments. Right.

So, um, we really wanted to see. If we heat acclimatize someone then we will improve See apartments? I didn't think so. What do you see? No change in performance, but perform better in the heat.

Absolutely. Or we see a decrease in performance. We really want to try to pin that down.

That was a question we wanted to try. When you look at physiology, there are reasons why you think it might decrease or improve in cool weather performance after heat acclimatization. And that's what we wanted.

How did you design this study to find out? Yes. So we used a cyclist, um, barley because we are so good at quantifying the workload they are doing and within an environment we can do time trials, for example an hour time trial, to try to get performance variables, just like us can do it in the lab and get really good physiological data. At the end of the day, I'm a physiologist, but I'm at it too.

Integrative cardiovascular physiologist. I love looking at mechanisms. I really want to understand things that deeply.

So we have to do it in the, in our Chamber, um, we've recruited a lot of really good cyclists. So I think we only had one cat, three, everybody else cat one or cat two. We had a mix of men and women and we have a little more men when they want it next, but unfortunately we couldn't find enough women.

Um, of the caliber that were there. Um, all men had a VO, two were over 65 and all women were between 58 and 65, so we're talking about good cyclists, right? They weren't deleted, but there were some very good people who could be national. Um, we then designed the study, um, to try and really see, um, can we improve the heat? Uh, so I can improve performance and cool environments and improve performance in hot environments? So we did a whole bunch of tests before each type of intervention had the intervention, which consisted of two groups and they were randomly assigned to either the heat acclimatization group or the, um, who controls.

And then we did the whole series of tests after that and the intervention was, uh, uh, 10 days. So five days the weekends off five days, um, one of the key components we want to do is make sure people don't just come in and write just for us and create a workout, um, to learn to take a whole Year and one good thing in Eugene, Oregon where I am is the year round bike races. You go straight from road racing to, to, um, to cyclocross racing and that all goes through winter and they just circle around again.

Um, so everyone has been training all year round and we wanted d them to keep up their intensity. One of the key components that we really said is that if someone walks in and just slows us down in the heat, we'll likely see a decrease in performance, the same goes for working with the marathon runners, you, we want that Really separating out adding the heat. So benefiting from the heat, the high intensity, the most important workouts and have worked very carefully with the coaches to make sure that these are the most important workouts of the week? “Let's make sure these stay in place.

Make sure I'm at the best, ideal, cool temperatures, then add the warmth. So you are right? Control group that you had an athlete who ran at this high level and did this training load like the control, who completed a similar high level of performance with a similar training load. Yes.

Yes. So, uh, all of the outfits were pulled on the same two clubs as us, and, uh, they mostly trained together, and so we made sure there was a good mix of each group. We weren't like a club.

And then, uh, and then, uh, then we all wrote diaries and talked to coaches and all that stuff. To make sure we kept that high intensity in the long, hard work, it was also two, three, four, five hours Rides still available. So where do you have space? the, uh, the, the, the peat adoption versus the intense workouts? Correct.

Yes. We always want to make sure that any heat acclimatization that we repeat occurs after intense training. So if you do an affirmation in the morning and do an intense workout afterwards, you will get a little more tired.

In our case, I already spent an hour and a half on the bike and in the heat. So we really made sure we kept them apart as much as we could, and that, so, you know, we had five days that they did the heat acclimatization, the weekend off, a lot of them going over that weekend and then again for five days. Um, and again, that was all year round and we worked with them to find the best time for their schedule too.

If they had a really big event we didn't want to mess with them because that's just not fair to them. Um, but that was kind of the goal. And then, well, then the control group also made the same additional volume, but just not in a hot room.

Is that right? Absolutely. Yes. So they did it at 13 degrees C which is about 50, 50 degree room.

We had vans for both groups, uh, and they did, uh, and that's one of the key components that we really discussed about How are we going to do it. And if we can do it? right choice or not in the end, um, we made a choice whether it was the best choice or not. And that means we had them to match the actual loads on the bike.

So we let them work 50% of the CO2 max, um, at that workload. Whether they were in the heat or in the cool state, the control condition. And, uh, that meant those in the heat had a higher heart rate.

So we adjust the physical stresses and where I did that I really thought the greatest stress for these people is going to be the stress or the laying on of their legs. And they'll feel the most, the greatest leg fatigue. They're all highly trained up to this point and within the season.

And they're all very cardiovascular. So we thought, let's go make sure we don't have a lower tier like a group workload, um, in the chamber even though their heart will be higher. Correct.

And that has become a big topic of discussion. And actually one of the more interesting things that came out of this study that we didn't really plan, and then you kept it and you kept it at 50% of the all-to-max because you felt like that These findings would not confuse ngs through, with an influence of the actual adaptation to the training, to the specific training. Absolutely one hundred percent.

You have, we have also given a lot of thought to that. They will raise their body temperature and be hot. But in general, you already know, an athlete we are, you're going to spend an hour and a half longer spinning on one, and you can tweak your workout a little bit if need be, but, um, you spend an hour and a half more spinning at 50% of your, your, your, your max watts or your max watts then it's you, that sounds good, no problem, it won't change anything, but that value has already changed previously shown.

It hasn't really improved performance on, uh, athletes and athletes. Right? If you took a workout personally, I wouldn't do it. Of course, they will adjust and get strong, but you won't see any real increase in two weeks.

And that for anyone who gets it d FTP, that's roughly. That's an aerobic pace. 70% FTP, 65% of TP, right? Right.

Yes, some tests. Let's talk about how to test them before we, even, they even got the, uh, the controls or the ones that worked on the heat intervention, sorry, thank you. Yes.

Yes like I mentioned we did a series of tests, so we really wanted to look at a number of performance variables and some physiological variables. Those are the most important things we look at at Vogel-VO, a maximum of two, to see if we can improve or change the VO two max., Let's look at a lactate threshold.

Uh, that was the, uh, and at that time people weren't really talking about FTP and, uh, critical power and other things. So we focused on lactate threshold as a physiological measurement that we can actually take. And then we had a one-hour time trial and we watched that too.

And we did a few extra things. Ain't it in the paper. We looked at some skin, blood flow, and temperature regulation, uh, markers.

And we looked at some, uh, uh, leg blood flow readings from a, uh, one-legged picker, uh, us don't talk about these because we're not, um, they're not that relevant to the performance side of things, but we had a pretty big set of tests that we did before that. And then after that. And the important part about it, we ran the tests once in a cool environment and once in a hot one.

So, uh, every test we did was the performance variable, uh, in those two environments, and we randomized the subjects to see what came first and what came second for each athlete. After the test, we kept the order as before. Correct.

So they heated up first and then cooled down. They do keith first and then cool. Someone was cool first, then he, then we kept the same way, but randomly distributed among the subjects.

So the VO two max test, I think that's pretty standard where people saw where you put the mask on. You're doing one, I think I read it was a 20 watt step test, right? And then you measure gas exchange, lactic threshold. Uh, I guess that's tiered too, but with blood Exactly.

Yes. Yes. It's a little different.

Weed is a separate test. Some people try to mix them at the same time, but usually you won't get the best data. Um, so we had another step test.

We have longer strides in between, um, and when we had a significant increase in lactate that we measured, um, then we stopped them. So we didn't make it the max test end. You only gained a millimole, right? Yes.

Run normally from baseline. Yes, so you did not measure what we call the lactate threshold, which is typically the maximum lactate city-state is. Correct.

And we've actually brought them a little further. Um, and we have a piece of paper that, um, looks at different ways to, um, look at a lactic acid, reshold and ways to calculate it. And there is a formula form, overall one milling step, there is the turning point work that we made.

So we looked at all of these different variables, but for this one. Paper us, and they have all changed similarly. So it wasn't really flashy, but we kind of took what was probably the most common approach back then.

I think. Gotcha. And then the time trial performance, that sound, that's brutal.

Can you describe what made you want people to do it? Well, uh, uh, so it was an hour long time trial. And so basically, uh, all of that. They didn't really have any feedback for her.

Besides getting some distance, and then we just, um, let them do an hour long time trial and, um, we did it either cold or hot. And they did that both times before and after, you know, some of the athletes really did. Those who are stronger at the time trial actually liked it.

Um, and, uh, those who don't hate it, the sprinters and others like it of course, hate time trials. Um, I'll say there was one thing we could have done better, um, all people had experienced the time trial, so we felt good about it. But, uh, you know, we, then we looked at some work, uh, different histamine blockers and, uh, some work by Matt Elian and heis, he did a really good job making sure people were doing time trials.

Just practice, just learn, get used to it and make sure we get to really consistent variables. And then we added the, the, the, uh, the controlled experimental conditions. Um, the one we trusted, oh, they're really good.

Cyclists will do it. But there was a pace that we saw between the changes before and after the change, um, in the heat. And on the first, some of the athletes went out pretty quickly.

And they didn't know how hot they were going to get. And so it was, that was interesting, but we felt like that, at least in the chilly cold conditions, which was really con A real question was, that we really have consistent data. Um, in the control group of the children's performance at the time, it was on an ergometer.

So people are used to earth mode up or down. Right. And then change the wattage.

bike storage

Is that what it was? Yes. They couldn't see the wattage. Right.

No. Yes, we just wanted them can go in and use the absolute. You know, we didn't want them to get any leads.

And it's all just in your head how hard you work and how hard you are going to push. And they just have the time, how long, how much longer do they have to do, and then how did you measure their core body temperature? Because I saw it in the newspaper too. Correct.

It's crazy. Yes. So that's something I understand, it's a lot of discussion.

Um, you know, we've taken the industrial pills in the past and some people like these but they cost at least $ 45 a pill. Um, well, and sometimes they work not so good. So, um, we use the class sic, that's a rectal temperature.

And, uh, how I explain this to the athletes who get through, and how I explain this to any cyclist, uh, God or evolution or whoever gave us this wonderful butt crack, and it's specially designed to help you with ride a bike with a rectal probe. It uses human evolution to advance really good science. The crazy part is that I read that I was five inches tall, which seems like not always 10 cents.

How much was that? 10 centimeters, 10 centimeters, that seems like a lot. Uh, I don't know. You know the funny thing is, um, and I think, um, women are generally more comfortable, their bodies are than men.

And so women are never bad. And I really do about rectal tubes, other than being a little embarrassing to walk around here. So yes.

Here's my rectal probe, you know, and it's coming out of your pants. Um, but men have a harder time with it. I don't think men in general, not so comfortable with our bodies s.

Um, and you tell them how far to go and you show them and they say, ah, but honestly you don't if you do plug in, there's that little lightbulb that we all of ourselves go through, um, to keep it in place. It has to go through the anal sphincter. Um, it's not bad.

And if you've ever done an esophagus we also do a soft gel temperature nose down the throat. Uh, down there, you know, in there to Sophos, uh, that's miserable. You have a gag reflex, all that stuff.

But, uh, the rectal probe is when you're moving, it's not bad. How did you, uh, how did you control things like what did a bunch of caffeine that day or something like that make them perform better? Yes we did, we made sure that they kept, uh, food diaries and they followed them every day. Uh, you know, I'm sure you know that a bit about the athletes.

Talk to us, but most of them are pretty regulated, especially those that rain for big events. They're pretty good at telling you to document things. Um, they are, they are, they are fine, the X has a certain amount of foods that don't bother them.

They eat at certain times. Um, we try to make sure they have no caffeine on the test days and you know the big debate in my field and and and so. I have some ideas that are kind of fun to do a study on is Caffeine Consumption Regularly, Caffeine Drinkers.

And not having taken caffeine for a day and seeing their physiology change. Because there will be some changes, nobody complained of headaches or other things. Um, but we tried and, uh, to make sure that food, diet, exercise, everything they did in every pre- or post-test was identical.

That's great were the results. Yes. The main thing that we saw is that there are two parts.

One is that we knew or really suspected it. We see real impressions changes in the performance variables, in the hot conditions, ie heat, acclimatization work. Acclimatization works very well in the heat.

So improvements in the heat, uh, all heat, uh, tests in the experimental control group, we didn't see any changes, uh, but it was surprising as we saw. Um, the U2 max increase, the lactate threshold has been improved and the performance in the time trial in the cooler state has been introduced. That was, um, and it wasn't 100% all, but it was pretty close.

We released our individual data so people could see who the true responders and the non-responders are. Um, and, um, almost every athlete improved in cool weather performance. If you enjoyed this article, give us a thumbs up, if you didn't like this article, you can thumb down to rate it , but let us know in the comments below what you would have done differently.

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Like that.

How long does it typically take to acclimate to training in a hot environment?

It is recommended that the athlete gradually increases exercise intensity and duration over 1014 days of heat exposure, although full acclimatization can take up to 12 weeks.

How should an athlete acclimate to the heat?

Usually, about 7-14 d of heat exposure are needed to induce heat acclimatization. Optimal heat acclimatization requires a minimum daily heat exposure of about 90 min (can be extended to 2 h and broken into two, 1 h exposures) combined with aerobic exercise, rather than resistance training.

At what temperature will death ensue?

At 91 F (33 C), you can experience amnesia. At 82 F (28 C) you can lose consciousness. Below 70 F (21 C), you are said to have profound hypothermia and death can occur, Sawka said.

Which is an example of acclimatization?

One of the best known examples of acclimatization in humans can be observed when travelling to high altitude locations such as tall mountains. For instance, if an individual hikes to 3,000 meters above sea level and stays there for a period of 1-3 days, they become acclimatized to 3,000 meters.

How long does it take to adapt to the heat?

You usually fully adapt to exercising in hot weather within 10 to 14 days. The key to becoming heat acclimated is to raise your core body temperature so these adaptations can take place.

What are the 3 stages of acclimatization to high altitude?

We divided the time at altitude into nine periods, with three stages from the preparation for ascent to a high altitude to the time after soldiers descend to a low altitude (Fig. 1). The three stages are the preparation stage, the ascent stage and the descent stage.24.01.2018

Can you die in 30 degree weather?

Hypothermia, a condition in which the body's core temperature drops below 95 degrees, is the No. 1 killer of outdoor recreationists. Most cases occur in air temperatures of 30 to 50 degrees. But people can succumb to overexposure even at 60 or 70 degrees.09.01.2007

Can 30 degree weather kill you?

If a person's core temperature drops from the typical 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit to 95 or lower, they have hypothermia and their critical organs will stop working properly. At temperatures of -30 degrees, a person improperly dressed for the cold could experience hypothermia in just 10 minutes.31.01.2019

What is the process of acclimatization?

Acclimatization or acclimatisation (also called acclimation or acclimatation) is the process in which an individual organism adjusts to a change in its environment (such as a change in altitude, temperature, humidity, photoperiod, or pH), allowing it to maintain performance across a range of environmental conditions.

What do you mean by heat acclimation training?

Heat acclimation training (HAT) is the artificial exposure to heat during exercise, for example exercising in a heated chamber. Training in the heat increases body (core and skin) temperature, induces profuse sweating and increases skin blood flow.

What are the different types of acclimatization methods?

Acclimatization methods consist of two types, heat and altitude acclimitazation. Heat acclimatization, sometimes referred to generically as heat training, is a technique directed to improving athletic performance in warm climates. The process of acclimatization is distinct from heat acclimation.

When to start heat acclimatization for Ironman?

Heat acclimation training improves the body’s ability to exercise in higher temperatures. For most triathletes, training for an IRONMAN starts early in the year and never in subtropical temperatures. This does not simulate anything close to race day conditions. Here are some training strategies to consider: