Shvitzing like a warthog might not be appealing in the oppressive summer heat, but it can help your training. Photo: Virginia Beach
The blazing summer heat can be a convenient excuse not to hit the gym, go for a hike, trail run or mountain bike ride. Especially with this week’s heat wave in Southern California, you can feel like a rotisserie chicken moments after stepping outdoors. And aside from being uncomfortable, suffocating heat prevents you from working out at full capacity. So, is it better to wait until cooler temps arrive? Actually, research shows that enduring the heat and shvitzing like a warthog can boost your performance in extreme weather — hot and cold.
How Does It Work?
Like listening to Donald Trump speak, the profound discomfort of working out in blistering heat lessens over time. (Human adaptability can be a dangerous thing.) Your body adapts in a variety of ways.
It’s been shown that by training in high heat, the body can learn to sweat three times as much as normal (three liters an hour, as opposed to one) which helps the body cool itself. High heat also increases blood plasma, AKA the fluid component of blood. The expanded volume allows for blood to be more easily pumped to muscles that need it and to the skin, also assisting with cooling. The heart likewise compensates, more efficiently pumping blood. And blood lactate, the lactic acid that builds up in muscles during exercise and causes burning and soreness, is lessened. One of the key studies that established this examined cyclists who rode indoors in 101-degree heat, so it may need to be fairly excruciating outside to get these benefits.
Clearly, exercising at high temperatures requires ample hydration and going easy. But so long as you’re not dehydrated or experiencing heat stroke, you should acclimate in just five or ten days of workouts. Strangely enough, these benefits transfer to exercise in extreme cold. A handful of stupid hot workouts this summer could boost your performance come winter, or on a summertime mission to South Africa, New Zealand or Australia.
