body temperature

  • Body Temperature, Heat, Hydration, Memory, Performance, Wellness

    Overheating and Its Detrimental Effects on Cognitive Performance in Athletes

    As athletes, you constantly strive to push your limits, surpass your personal bests, and excel in your respective fields. You diligently train your bodies, but it’s crucial to remember that your cognitive performance plays an equally vital role in achieving athletic success. However, excessive heat and increased core temperature can have a profound impact on your ability to think clearly and perform at your best. In this article, we will delve into the link between heat and cognitive performance, specifically in relation to athletic performance. We will also explore three practical strategies to mitigate these effects, ensuring that you stay sharp and focused in the heat of the game. Considering the average temperatures continuing to climb, this is even more applicable than ever.

    The Heat-Cognition Connection

    Research published in the Journal of Applied Physiology highlights the compelling connection between excessive heat and cognitive performance. When your body’s core temperature rises, certain physiological changes occur that can impede your cognitive abilities. Heat stress triggers a cascade of effects, including increased heart rate, reduced blood flow to the brain, and altered neurotransmitter function. Consequently, these changes can lead to reduced attention span, slower reaction times, impaired decision-making, and even memory lapses – all of which can be detrimental to an athlete’s performance on the field.

    Hydration: The Foundation of Cognitive Performance

    Hydration is the cornerstone of maintaining optimal cognitive function in hot conditions. Dehydration amplifies the negative effects of heat stress on the brain, compromising your ability to think clearly and make split-second decisions. Therefore, it is crucial to establish a well-honed hydration routine before, during, and after physical activity.

    Pre-Activity: Start hydrating well in advance. Consume adequate fluids, preferably water, leading up to your training or competition. Aim to drink at least 16-20 ounces of water 1-2 hours before your athletic endeavor.

    When it's hot outside it can impact more than your physical performance. Your cognitive performance is also affected and should be monitored!

    During Activity: Sip on fluids regularly throughout your training session or game. Water is typically sufficient for activities lasting less than an hour. For longer sessions, hot/humid temperatures with increased sweat loss or intense activities, consider incorporating electrolyte-enhanced sports drinks to replenish essential minerals lost through sweat.

    Post-Activity: Rehydration is equally vital after exertion. Consume fluids to replace lost sweat and promote recovery. Weigh yourself before and after exercise to gauge your hydration status. For every pound lost, aim to drink 16-24 ounces of fluid.

    Cooling Strategies: Beat the Heat

    Combatting excessive heat is crucial to safeguard your cognitive prowess during physical exertion. Employing cooling strategies can help regulate your body temperature and keep your brain functioning optimally.

    Cooling Apparel: Invest in technologically advanced, breathable sportswear designed to wick away sweat and facilitate heat dissipation. Opt for light-colored, loose-fitting clothing that allows air circulation to promote evaporative cooling.

    Cold Water Immersion: If available, take advantage of cold water immersion techniques to cool your body quickly. Submerging your body or applying cold towels to your head, neck, and wrists helps to lower core temperature, providing instant relief from heat stress.

    Strategic Rest Periods: Incorporate short breaks in your training regimen to allow your body to recover from heat stress. Seek shade or air-conditioned areas during these intervals to facilitate efficient cooling and rejuvenation.

    Mental Preparation and Focus

    While physical preparation is vital for athletic success, the power of mental fortitude should not be underestimated. Sharpen your cognitive skills through mental training to counteract the negative effects of heat stress on your ability to think and perform.

    Visualizations and Simulations: Use imagery and mental rehearsals to familiarize yourself with performing under challenging conditions. Visualize yourself successfully executing your game plan despite the heat, reinforcing mental resilience.

    Cognitive Flexibility Exercises: Engage in cognitive exercises that improve flexibility and adaptability, such as puzzles, memory games, and brain teasers. These activities enhance your ability to switch between tasks, think creatively, and maintain focus under pressure.

    Mindfulness and Meditation: Practice mindfulness techniques and meditation to cultivate a calm and focused state of mind. These practices can improve concentration, reduce stress, and optimize your cognitive performance even in high-temperature environments.

    When it's hot outside it can impact more than your physical performance. Your cognitive performance is also affected and should be monitored!

    Conclusion

    Excessive heat and increased core temperature can significantly impact an athlete’s cognitive performance, leading to compromised decision-making, slower reaction times, and reduced attention span. By implementing effective strategies to mitigate these effects, athletes can maintain their mental edge even in hot conditions. Prioritizing hydration, utilizing cooling strategies, and investing in mental preparation are essential steps to safeguard your cognitive performance. Remember, a cool and clear mind is just as crucial as a fit and strong body when it comes to achieving athletic excellence. Stay hydrated, stay cool, and stay sharp!

    Study referenced: click here

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  • Body Temperature, Heat, Hydration, Performance, safety

    Training in the heat recommendations from the Olympic Committee

    Most athletes would tell you that they would rather play in the heat than in the cold. That is unless you’re a skier or hockey player of course! Other than those winter sports, most would pick warm weather every day of the week. That’s why most major tournaments are located in areas where the weather is going to be warm, allowing athletes to compete at their best. Competing in hot conditions though requires proper planning to ensure athlete safety. It’s a fine balance between warm and dangerously hot where cooling strategies need to be in place. Helping to combat those challenges, the International Olympic Committee put together a statement on considerations for it.

    Too much heat dangers

    Being warm is one thing while overheating is a completely different story. When training in the heat, caution needs to be observed. The body tries its best to keep internal temperatures in check but like everything it does have its limits. Unfortunately, if those limits are surpassed it can result in heat strokes and be incredibly dangerous.

    Training in the heat is very common practice but safety needs to be kept in mind and the Olympic Committee has updated recommendations.

    Severe exercise-induced heat illness (also referred to as exertional heat stroke) is one of the two main causes of death amongst athletes. As the body begins to overheat it sends the signal to the brain that things need to start slowing down to try and rest and cool. If unable to cool down the body begins to fail and shutdown. To help avoid such scary situations, proper planning and actions need to be kept in mind.

    Know the environment

    Before traveling anywhere you want to know the type of conditions you are going to be exposed to. If it’s something in Alaska, the heat may not be a major issue for you! Most cases though you will want to do some homework to know how to prepare. Checking the average temperature and humidity will allow you to gauge how much you are likely to sweat and if that sweat will be able to evaporate and cool you down or if it’s too humid. You will also want to know if there is going to be shade available where you’re at. If you are going to be constantly exposed to the sun you’ll want to plan accordingly as well. Then also know the availability of beverages and cooling stations to ensure what you need to bring of your own. You don’t want to have any surprises when you show up!

    Heat acclimation

    Preparation is important in every aspect of life, including getting your body ready for heat. When exposed to higher temperatures the body goes through several changes to help stay cool. Those adaptations include sweating earlier, sweating more and decreasing the sodium content of the sweat. Too bad those changes don’t occur immediately though. If going into a competition in the heat, you’ll want to ensure your body is ready ahead of time.

    In a perfect world it’s recommended to give yourself two weeks to prepare and adapt. Exposing your body to higher temperatures and inducing sweat for 60-90 minutes at a time is the desired timeframe. Doing that four times per week for the two weeks will get your body acclimated and primed to handle the hotter environments when you competition begins. Spending that time in the hot environment itself would be ideal but if unable to do that there are a few alternatives. Hot rooms, saunas and hot baths can be helpful alternatives when living in a cold environment and planning to travel to a hot environment. While not the exact same as actually training in the environment, it still gets the body sweating and making those physiological changes.

    Hydration and fluid intake

    Once in the environment, you will want to make sure your hydration and fluid intake is appropriate as well. As you become dehydrated, your body has a lower blood volume which decreases the ability to spread out the body heat and cool it down. The goal during competition/training is to drink enough fluid to avoid a weight loss of >2% from sweat. Maintaining that weight represents maintaining proper blood volume for the body to help dissipate that heat.

    In order to ensure that excess weight and fluid loss doesn’t occur, it’s important to begin hydrated and drinking early into the event. The goal is not to completely avoid weight loss and definitely not to gain weight. That would represent overhydrating and has it’s own complications associated with it. What we’re aiming to do is help minimize the water loss occurring with sweat. Your body can only absorb so much fluid at a time so by starting early it helps avoid trying to play “catch up” later on in the event.

    How much you need to be drinking during competition and training is very individualized. A general rule of thumb is around 1 liter (~32oz) per hour would be about the max to consume and still be comfortable. This can be played around with to find what feels and works best for you. Some may find a bit more can be tolerated while others may have to have a bit less. Adding in some sodium will help the body to absorb and retain that fluid and is important to keep incorporated as well.

    Additional considerations

    Outside of just general hydration, there are various cooling strategies that can be incorporated as able too. Things such as cold water immersion, cooling vests and mist fans are all great at helping decrease the body temperature. Consuming ice and slushies can be very beneficial as well. Not all of these strategies are able to be implemented depending on the situation but you should keep all options in consideration. Then when preparing figure out what all is feasible and works best for you to help keep cool.

    Study referenced: click here

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  • Body Temperature, Heat, Hydration, Performance, Travel

    Preseason hydration needs to keep in mind

    Preseason is a unique animal where physical demands significantly increased. Right alongside that, nutrition and hydration demand increase significantly. Typically occurring in warmer places as well which can be a unique challenge. If a player is coming from a cold environment pre-camp, they will have a few days of acclimation. Many changes are occurring all at once and without proper planning could set you up for a tough camp.

    Environment impact on preseason hydration

    Entering preseason, the main goal is to optimally improve performance as efficiently as possible. Everything is monitored on another level to ensure things are all accounted for. Training loads, meal times, meeting times and everything is typically broken-down minute by minute. What can throw a wrench in this is weather. Storms and rain can keep teams off the field which then means one less session for improvement. In order to decrease the risk of that, typically preseason is held in a warm location that on average doesn’t get much rain or storms.

    Preseason hydration needs to keep in mind

    While nice for a vacation it poses a challenge to athletes from a hydration perspective. Especially if an athlete is coming from a cold environment (like Ohio in January) to a hot environment, the body needs time to adapt. In the first few days there isn’t as much sweat being produced as quickly or as much as may be usual. The sweat that is produced though has a higher sodium concentration. After a few days the body then adapts and begins to sweat earlier and more but it is more diluted with less sodium being lost. This needs to be accounted for in your hydration if in this situation. Prioritize some additional sodium via electrolyte packets or salt at meals in the early days. Then the priority shifts a bit more to overall fluid intake.

    Worse hydration = worse training

    Nobody feels good when dehydrated. Even slight dehydration though that may not be as noticeable can still have a noticeable impact on your ability to train. Less water in the system results in less overall blood volume. What that means is that the heart has to pump quicker to move the blood throughout the body. Like when your heart rate increases when you train harder forcing you to feel tired, if your heart rate is already starting slightly higher because of dehydration it will have you “hit the wall” that much quicker.

    This was demonstrated in the recent study linked at the bottom which showed dehydrated resulted in decreased accelerations/sprints. These are key pieces of training that need to be done to help improve fitness for the upcoming season. If unable to achieve those high speeds, the training sessions won’t be as effective.

    Stay cool by staying hydrated this preseason

    The blood volume situation mentioned previously also impacts your internal temperature. When the blood is flowing through the body near the surface of the skin, it’s able to be closer to the air. This contact with the air is what can help to cool the blood down as it returns throughout the body. Slightly cooler blood is able to help keep the internal core temperature down. Being hot can be uncomfortable and add a psychological challenge on top of the physical challenge of training.

    Maintaining proper blood volume allows for the blood to flow a bit easier to the surface of the skin to achieve that cooling effect. If you’ve ever noticed your veins “popping” a bit more in the heat, this is why. The body is trying to maximize that exposure to help cool itself down.

    Ways to monitor your hydration level

    One of the oldest strategies is to look at the color of your urine. It’s an oldie but goodie still as it is a very convenient way to tell and is fairly accurate. If your urine is a light pale lemonade color, you’re in good shape. On the opposite end if it’s dark and apple juice colored, you need to grab a bottle of water pronto.

    Another helpful strategy can be used to see how you’re hydrating at training itself. This is done by weighing yourself before and after training. When done, that weight difference is how much sweat you lost during training that needs to be replaced. A general rule of thumb is that for every pound lost, drink one 16oz bottle of water/fluid. Overall try to avoid a weight loss of more than 2% of your body weight. For a 150 pound individual this would be 3 pounds or for someone 200 pounds it would be 4 pounds.

    Maintaining that hydration will ensure you are staying ready to maximize your training sessions. By being able to more consistently train harder you’ll see more results and apply that to an overall better season. Last but not least as well, proper hydration decreases your risk of soft tissue injury. These are things like those annoying muscle pulls/tweaks. Keep yourself on the field and maximize your potential by keeping that water bottle on hand!

    Study referenced: click here

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