ISSN: 2638-6003
Trevor Shaw*
Received:October 28, 2021 Published: November 9, 2021
Corresponding author: Trevor Shaw, Palmer College of Chiropractic, Florida Campus, 4705 S Clyde Morris Blvd, Port Orange, FL, 32129, United States.
DOI: 10.32474/OSMOAJ.2021.05.000217
Athletes face many factors that can limit performance. Proper
nutrition, sleep, and even the environment are all contributing
factors to an athlete’s overall performance. However, when we
look a little deeper, the athlete’s ability to handle the environment
can be one of the more difficult challenges. The healthy athlete’s
ability to tolerate a hot climate during exercise can be the most
significant threat to performance [1]. Exposure to high heat cause
premature fatigue, dehydration, and challenge the cardiovascular
and neurological systems faster and harder. Training at higher
temperatures has also been demonstrated to reduce power output
by up to 15% in 14 different research articles [2]. So, what are
the options for athletes who must compete or train in the heat?
Hydration may be the most critical aspect of training in the heat.
As athletes increase their fitness level and acclimate to higher
temperatures, they naturally sweat faster and at higher rates than
their untrained counterparts [1] (Figure 1). Due to this, athletes are
a higher risk of depletion of fluids and electrolytes, something that
can have catastrophic implications to performance goals. During
the hottest months, a pre and post-training session weigh-in should
be implemented so athletes can be sure to consume enough fluid.
Current guidelines state that athletes should consume 150% of
fluid lost during training in the hours after [1].
Heat acclimation may be one of the best ways to deal with
climbing temperatures. Athletes can quickly build up a tolerance
to higher temperatures by exposing themselves in a progressive,
intelligent manner [3]. suggest that acclimation can be maximized
in as little as five days of exposure and that a mix of intensity and
duration is necessary to improve core temperature tolerance, heart
rate changes, and sweat rates. Therefore, athletes should program
days shorter exposure on the hottest days and more prolonged
exposure on the slightly cooler days. Coaches and athletes should
be careful to note that acclimation decay or deterioration takes
place at nearly 2.5% per day of non-exposure. Therefore, athletes
should be encouraged to keep up with heat exposures even on
light and non-training days. Preparing athletes for handling
environmental stressors can pose one of the bigger challenges
for the coaching staff. Knowing the details of how heat, humidity,
and even colder temperatures affect human physiology can be the
difference between winning and losing. Heat poses one of the single
biggest threats to the healthy athlete [1]. When exercising in hot
environments, the athlete can experience numerous physiological
changes that can limit performance. Reduced muscular function,
cardiovascular strain, and even central nervous system fatigue can
all manifest because of excess heat. In preparing athletes to deal
with the extreme heat, acclimation is key (Figure 2). It is important
to remember that acclimation takes and takes the athlete anywhere
from one to two weeks from the first day and completely lost
within 28 days [1]. Training for the heat will result in nearly a 10-
12 percent increase in blood plasma to distribute blood to the skin
and reduce body temperature effectively. Interestingly, athletes can
continue to benefit from heat acclimation with the use of heat baths
when other means of exposure are not available [4]. Discovered
that by implementing post retraining, hot baths athletes could
retain the heat acclimation for up to two weeks. This is a fantastic
discovery for many athletes as time off the field does not have to
equal a complete reset in acclimation.
When it comes to exposure, there is little we can do to influence
that outside temperature. However, there are many things we can
do to promote our body’s ability to withstand the heat. Pretrainingcooling
has demonstrated positive results for those training in high
heat environments. Pre-cooling can reduce blood lactate, thereby
reducing muscle fatigue, but can also reduce the athlete’s perception
of an overly hot environment. Reducing fatigue and environmental
heat perception can help the athlete power through tough training
sessions and competitions, thereby improving performance [5,6,7].
Pre-session cooling is easy to implement with the gyms already
existing cold baths but can also be done easily with ice packs.
The acid-base balance in the body is one of the most tightly
controlled systems in human physiology. With a survivable range
beginning at 7.4 and deviating a mere. 4 unites in either direction
before death [1], one can see why regulation of these numbers is crucial. While a large shift is highly detrimental, a small shift towards
arterial acidosis has been implicated in muscular fatigue along with
the burning sensation described in muscle tissue after extensive
exercise [1]. This burning sensation was previously blamed on
lactic acid accumulation, not H+ ion accumulation. Understanding
of the acid-base balance and how it can serve as a limiting factor
in exercise can be vital to performance outcomes. Supplementation
with select key ingredients has been implicated in the reduction
of systemic arterial and cellular acidosis, thereby creating a
physiological environment conducive to high performance [8,9].
An ideal supplement sack would be multifactorial in its ability to
buffer acidosis and provide quality effects to the human energy
system allowing for increased energy and reduced fatigue. A stack
comprised of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), beta-alanine and
glycerol would improve athletic performance while mitigating
some of the risks associated with training in the heat (Figure 3).
Sodium bicarbonate is a cheap supplement that can provide
a large benefit to performance. Acting as an acidic buffer sodium
bicarbonate helps regulate intra and extracellular pH, which has
been shown to increase an athlete’s time to exhaustion [1,10].
Sodium bicarbonate works by buffering out intra and extracellular
H+ ions from the muscle tissue, thereby decreasing the painful
sensation of intense exercise but also the fatigue associated with
H+ accumulation [11]. Demonstrated ingestion of other alkalizing
substances such as sodium citrate helped reduce the acute effects
of dehydration and may alleviate the physiological stress of intense
activity in the heat. Beta-Alanine is responsible for up to 10% of
the muscle’s buffering capability. It has been demonstrated as a
powerful performance aid for its potent abilities to increase muscle
carnosine. Carnosine acts as an intracellular pH buffer as well and
can serve to regulate intracellular calcium usage [12]. Carnosine
also has been shown to serve as a potent antioxidant [13], indicating
both therapeutic and sports performance benefits. Examples
of therapeutic benefits were demonstrated by [12] to improve
cognitive function along with antiglycation properties. Glycation
is the deleterious effects of protein and lipid oxidation in the body
leading to advanced aging and even decreased life span along with
many other physical conditions [13]. At just 6.4 grams per day, Beta-
Alanine has been shown to improve performance [14]. Overall, the
benefits of beta-alanine on the brain, body, and performance cannot
be overlooked. Creatine is one of the most studied supplements on
earth. Traditionally, creatine was known for its ability to improve
water retention, maintain ATP homeostasis and support muscle
power during exercise [15,16,17]. Recently, however, demonstrated
that alkaline creatine could serve as a potent anti-inflammatory
and even protective against cytotoxicity.
Finally, glycerol and betaine have been shown to improve
the body’s ability to hold water during extreme heat. Also, know
as hyperhydration, these supplements promote water retention,
thereby mitigating some of the deleterious effects of training by
decreasing core temperature and heart rate elevated temperatures
while improving time to exhaustion [14]. Glycerol should be taken
in doses of 1.2g/kg bodyweight 60 minutes before exercise. The
benefits of glycerol and its hyperhydrating effects can be seen for
up to 49 hours according to come literature [18]. Although the
literature is conflicted on muscle power, betaine has been shown
to improve muscle endurance and time to exhaustion in doses of
1.25 grams / day in as little as ten days [14]. Until recently, the only
thing an athlete could do to cope with an environment of elevated
temperature would be to work on exposure and tolerability with
proper hydration. However, recent breakthroughs in apparel
science have shown a third option, specialized clothing designed to
keep athletes cool via more efficient evaporation (Figure 4).
Evaporation is the most effective, efficient means of cooling the
body when humidity is low [1]. A well-designed clothing line takes
full advantage of this system. Advancements in clothing technology
have begun to change the circumstances for athletes competing
in the heat. Discoveries such as those by [19] show that new
developments in synthetic fabric improved the athlete’s perception
of heat and their difficulty rating of the performed exercise session
[20] also demonstrated that clothing with specific zones of heatdissipating
fabrics improved running performance in male runners.
This information is promising for athletes who compete in hot
environments as it suggests clothing can help with making an
already effective natural system more efficient. A clothing line that
takes advantage of the natural sweat mechanism and wicks water
away from the body while allowing for little fluid retention and fast
evaporation would prove most effective in hot environments. In
designing clothing for hot weather training, a synthetic blend such
as polyester has been shown to hold less moisture while providing
better evaporation qualities [21]. Ideally, such a design would
be snug to the skin allowing for immediate transfer of moisture
through the fabric to the environment. Apparel that aides in sweat
evaporation is essential in these conditions. Tight-fitting polyester
style clothing has been shown to wick sweat from the body and
resist fluid retention allowing evaporation to happen faster and
more effectively [21-24]. Making sure athletes choose proper
training apparel can help reduce heat injury and even improve
performance by taking advantage of the body’s most effective form
of heat reduction [1].
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