But there are alternatives. Recent research suggests that a hot tub or sauna may help him adjust quickly to the heat by relaxing at least 30 hours a day, preferably after exercise.
This method, repeated for many days in a row, seems to provide a relatively easy and accessible way to start preparing for the heat. It has also been shown to be suitable for many elderly people as well.
The idea is to “help more people adapt to the heat,” according to Edward Cole, a PhD student at the University of Hull in the UK who studies exercise and heat. It is said that
But there are pitfalls. It may sound comfortable, but sitting in a hot tub for long periods of time can be surprisingly painful.
Why You Need to Adapt to the Weather
Hot weather can make outdoor activities exhausting and dangerous, especially if it appears suddenly. As we move around, our bodies generate internal heat. This has to be released to keep the core temperature stable.otherwise we risk heatstrokeillness and even stroke.
To dissipate this heat, the heart pumps warmed blood from the core to the skin. We sweat too. But when the air is warm and humid, these processes are barely maintained. Our hearts move more blood, our skin sweats, every step feels heavy, and it gets hotter and hotter.
Acclimatization helps. Gradually accustoming yourself to exercising in the heat will increase your blood volume and reduce the strain on your heart. We should also start sweating faster and more profusely and feel less flattened by the rising temperatures.
But this kind of adaptation is not easy. For athletes, this typically requires 10 or more hot workouts of increasing duration and intensity during the hottest part of the day, which for many of us is either unattractive or achievable. Not even.
Why hot baths are like exercise
“Using passive thermal acclimation techniques, such as immersion in hot water, can reduce barriers to acclimation,” says Andrew Greenfield, a graduate student in exercise and acclimation at California Baptist University in Riverside, California. will definitely be removed,” he said.
As far as our bodies are concerned, we’ve found that slipping into warm water is in some ways indistinguishable from exercise.
As such, some scientists speculate that it may also promote heat acclimation.
Pioneering 2015 study Let’s try this idea. Seventeen healthy, active men ran at his 40-minute slow pace on a treadmill in a room temperature room, sitting up to his neck in steam-heated water at 93 or 104 degrees. I got up. Another 40 minutes.
After 6 days of this, the men marinated in boiling water showed many of the characteristics of acclimatization. I also ran farther and faster in the 5km time trial.
How Anyone Can Adapt To Hot Water
Since then, researchers have lightly blanched other volunteers in various experiments. senior citizenIn a 2021 study, people aged 68 and over who exercised for 1 hour in a hot environment or took a leisurely 30-minute bike ride followed by an additional 30-minute soak in hot water. I felt less hot and was able to move around more quickly and easily in the heat.
Even a young man who first soaked in hot water for 40 minutes without exercise showed signs of heat acclimation after three days. Research in 2021.
However, it remains questionable whether hot baths are the best or safest way to acclimate.
“The heat is much stronger with hot water than with hot air at the same temperature,” said Greenfield, who led the 2021 Young Men study. Most of them could hardly stand being underwater for the entire 40 minutes.
Michael Zrawlew agrees. Now a Postdoctoral Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, he led a study in 2015 that sparked interest in what is often called passive acclimation and has since conducted a number of related studies. rice field. In his group’s experiments, at first the volunteers couldn’t stay in 104-degree water for long, he said.
However, their tolerance “gradually increased and by the sixth day they were able to complete the full 40-minute bath,” he said, at which point they were considered heat acclimated. will be done.
Start with a 20 minute bath
Want a long soak to prepare for your own impending heat wave or upcoming hot-weather race? Zrawlew recommends starting slow. Fill the tub with water heated to about 104 degrees, and on the first try, “complete the 20-minute bath,” he said.
“Anytime you start feeling dizzy, lightheaded, or nauseous, you should carefully leave the bath,” he said.
Soak your body as long as you can tolerate. In most acclimation experiments, volunteers sat with their necks covered, sometimes just their hips, or just their feet hanging in the hot water. It takes time for the body to warm up inside and adapt.
That’s also why he and many other researchers recommend exercising first.
The good news is that habituation begins quickly. Usually within 3 dayssays Zrawlew, but about six or more days of vigorous exercise and soaking in water will improve adaptability.
He said he knew he had adapted when the same hot water he could barely tolerate two days ago felt tolerable today.
Still, you should be careful during hard workouts in high heat. Drink water; seek shade if you are feeling unwell, and if possible go out in the morning when the ambient temperature tends to be the coolest.
Have a fitness question? e-mail [email protected] I may answer your question in a future column.
