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Kettlebell Acclimating to the heat

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Jeff

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Is becoming acclimated to the heat by working out in the heat a real thing or is working out indoors just as effective? Or put another way, if a person becomes well conditioned working out indoors, will that conditioning carry over to outdoor activities In the heat just as much as if the person had worked outside all along? Do you take into consideration a person can get more done while inside.

I remember when Tom Landry was coach of the Dallas Cowboys they would go to California for training camp. When Jimmie Johnson became coach he moved training camp to south Texas because he wanted to toughen them up. Does that toughen them up or wear them out?
 
As a long-time cyclist in Mississippi who rides year-round, I end up acclimating to the heat every year, and I ponder these very things.

I think it's an additional stress, and something that has to be factored in. Your body can only handle so much stress productively. Beyond that, you spend more time recovering than the adaptations you get in return. So, it depends on how much of a priority the training adaptations is, i.e. that you're trying to get faster, stronger, greater work capacity, etc. For example, if I was on a barbell strength-building program, I wouldn't put any value in doing my barbell lifting in hot conditions; I would put ALL my effort and recovery resources towards the actual strength work. But if I was on a program to prepare myself for a summer of outdoor labor, I would certainly do some kettlebell carry, conditioning, etc. outdoors in the heat or as much as possible in the conditions I had to perform in. In that case, the heat is part of the productive stress towards the end objective.

All that said, as long as I get outside and keep riding with the seasons, I don't notice very much difference in my cycling in cool weather vs. hot. If my average speed is 18 mph avg on a 2 hour ride, on a perfect cool-weather day I might have a 19 mph avg and feel more fresh, and on a really hot brutal day I'll still be 18 mph but it'll be a harder effort and I'll be a bit more wiped out afterwards. So the only time the heat is REALLY a factor is if I haven't had a chance to acclimate to it, it's a REALLY hot day, and I try to ride my same average speed or higher. Then I might red-line and the day gets very miserable very fast. Have only experienced that a handful of times and would not recommend.

So, to your question "if a person becomes well conditioned working out indoors, will that conditioning carry over to outdoor activities In the heat just as much as if the person had worked outside all along?"... mostly I think it will, but the heat can be a factor if they push themselves too hard, it's very hot, and they're not at all used to it.
 
Anna C said:
As a long-time cyclist in Mississippi who rides year-round, I end up acclimating to the heat every year, and I ponder these very things.
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Auckland University of Technology

New Zealand Research Bike Research...

Heat Acclimation Training (1:15 minutes)



Hyperthermic conditioning for exercise performance (4:07 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=0RtsmxOl764

Jeff said:
Is becoming acclimated to the heat by working out in the heat a real thing or is working out indoors just as effective?
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ACE - Certified™: August 2017 - ACE-SPONSORED RESEARCH: The Performance Benefits of Training with a Sauna Suit

The Results​

... there were significant improvements in VO2max, ventilatory threshold, and 5K heat and temperate time trials in the treatment group. All performance outcomes were unchanged in the control group.

The athletes who took part in this study saw a 3% increase in their speed after only two weeks of training in the sauna suit. That may not seem like a huge improvement, but it can easily represent the difference between victory and defeat.

Can Heat Boost Muscle Growth?
Saunas aren't just good for relaxation. It turns out your performance can improve with a little extra heat.
Alex Eriksson | 02/17/17 Tip: Can Heat Boost Muscle Growth? | T NATION

The Performance Enhancing Effects​

Exposure to heat can increase the amount of heat shock proteins (HSPs). These are specialized proteins which are protective and regenerative in nature.

HSPs Promote Muscle Adaptation​

Muscle adaptation is an essential part of training progression. If a muscle group is unable to adapt to the stressors being placed upon it, it won't grow stronger or bigger.

During exercise, especially resistance training, HSPs are transiently elevated to facilitate the "chaperoning" of amino acids to the site of muscle damage to initiate recovery. Accumulation of amino acids to the local site of injury isn't merely sufficient for repair, as correct protein folding needs to occur as well. HSPs ensure the correct assembly of these amino acids into the appropriate protein, ultimately enhancing hypertrophy.

The Surprising Benefits of Training in the Heat | Outside Online

in contrast to the live low, train high philosophy, we more quickly adapt to heat stress than we do to hypoxia. In other words, heat training not only does a better job at increasing V02 max than altitude, but it also makes athletes better at withstanding a wider range of temperatures.

Google Heat Shock Protein...

For more information on it.
 
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Jeff said:
Is becoming acclimated to the heat by working out in the heat a real thing or is working out indoors just as effective? Or put another way, if a person becomes well conditioned working out indoors, will that conditioning carry over to outdoor activities In the heat just as much as if the person had worked outside all along? Do you take into consideration a person can get more done while inside.

I remember when Tom Landry was coach of the Dallas Cowboys they would go to California for training camp. When Jimmie Johnson became coach he moved training camp to south Texas because he wanted to toughen them up. Does that toughen them up or wear them out?
Click to expand...
My understanding is your body's ability to regulate core temperature is key for optimum training.

There are limits of course to how far one can train this ability... Olympic hopefuls were dropping like flies two weeks ago in Oregon.
 
One can most definitely adapt (train) to performing in the heat. And one needs to if competing or needing to perform in the heat. I live where it routinely hits 40+C in the summer for many days and weeks in a row (like today). I’ve had very fit friends visit that were not heat adapted, and the results weren’t very pretty.

That being said… I heard the Norwegian Tri Olympic team being interviewed today, where they are training in the south of France. They said 2 weeks adaptation is all it takes… (I would have thought more…)
 
offwidth said:
One can most definitely adapt (train) to performing in the heat. And one needs to if competing or needing to perform in the heat. I live where it routinely hits 40+C in the summer for many days and weeks in a row (like today). I’ve had very fit friends visit that were not heat adapted, and the results weren’t very pretty.

That being said… I heard the Norwegian Tri Olympic team being interviewed today, where they are training in the south of France. They said 2 weeks adaptation is all it takes… (I would have thought more…)
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I agree, we just covered this in exercise physiology, there are many benefits to heat acclimation training, the general consensus is 7-14 for the acclimation to take place. Heat shock protiens are very interesting, they generally dispose of damaged or older cells and make room for replacements. You start to sweat earlier (cools you down), your muscles become more efficient (something with a hydrogen reaction i believe but can’t recall), which results in less electrolytes being lost in sweat. I know there are other benefits I’m forgetting as well. It seems like there was little benefit of training in the cold though.
 
For the last five or six weeks I've been going out in the afternoons most every day ( Phx. ) and doing some walk/jogs, 30-40 minutes. I take a couple of small ice packs with me which I put on my face and hold in hands from time to time. Picked up this tip from a Huberman podcast. This helps. Normal for me this time of year to train in the am with a/c off and windows open, or outside. The afternoon stuff is new. Going for the heart shock proteins. Don't know if the ice packs negate the desired effect
 
Don Fairbanks said:
For the last five or six weeks I've been going out in the afternoons most every day ( Phx. ) and doing some walk/jogs, 30-40 minutes. I take a couple of small ice packs with me which I put on my face and hold in hands from time to time. Picked up this tip from a Huberman podcast. This helps. Normal for me this time of year to train in the am with a/c off and windows open, or outside. The afternoon stuff is new. Going for the heart shock proteins. Don't know if the ice packs negate the desired effect
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Yeah… I train outside virtually all of the time, and usually in the AM, but it can still be in the 30’s (C)
Rucking is good, because you can carry plenty of water and ice. I don’t have anything to back this, but I don’t believe using ice negates any heat training adaptations to any significant amount…
 
offwidth said:
Yeah… I train outside virtually all of the time, and usually in the AM, but it can still be in the 30’s (C)
Rucking is good, because you can carry plenty of water and ice. I don’t have anything to back this, but I don’t believe using ice negates any heat training adaptations to any significant amount…
Click to expand...
Huberman mentioned a carryover effect with the cooling of the face, palms, and bottoms of the feet during heat training. After a time your heat performance increases without the use of the cooling modalities.
 
That was a lot of information. For me, the takeaway is to train outside as much as possible, possibly working my way up to it. In the case of SnS, work up to doing all swings outside.
 
Heat acclimatisation has been extensively studied in military and occupational hygiene\health circles for over 100 years. The military and some occupational situations involve substantial workloads which you can consider as equivalent to strenuous exercise. Sometimes the conditions added make that worse eg radiant heat from furnaces, wholebody clothing (sweat evaporation preventing) and so on.

There is a physiological phenomenon of slightly improved workload performance under hot conditions that occurs after several days of heat. It is lost fairly rapidly, heat acclimitisation disappears if there is little environmental heat load for a couple of weeks. Hence hot jobs like foundries usually (or should) have an ease back in policy after leave. To determine the load imposed on a person it is necessary to consider radiant heat, air temperature, humidity, clothing, metabolic rate (workload), air speed and movement, evaporation of sweat. There are special methods of assessing these but most people won't want to spend money on the equipment and assessment methodology which includes measuring at the positions of the person whose heat risk is being assessed.
A few tips jotted down in no particular order:

Put safety first and realise that the early symptoms of heat illness like feeling sick, weak, clumsy, dizzy could be permanently life changing once you add an overhead or ballistic kettlebell into the equation. Similarly, pullups could result in fall downs and so on. Stay safe. Stop exercising well before these symptoms occur during hot conditions.

if the heat environment is severe then expect your workload to be substantially reduced.

keep hydrated as athletic or occupational sweat rates can be substantial. Don't gulp down enormous amounts of fluids as this can result in other problems ie electrolyte dilution. Someone did a review a few years ago and the conclusion was that half of the collapses in marathons were due to too much water consumption. So a tea cup of water every quarter of an hour is usually about right and you keep drinking at about this rate after your 30-45 min session for an hour or so. In hot weather you should be drinking around a tea cup per hour and more in extreme conditions..

once the air temperature gets to above 35 degrees it becomes quite difficult to avoid taking on heat. I find it best to reduce exercise to predominantly a strength component and substantially reduce (or drop) conditioning during a hot spell. Those living permanently in extreme conditions would need to cautiously improvise. Another hazard of an air temperature above 35 degrees is that high air movement transfers heat to the body - blowing a fan can make you get hotter. This has been know for nearly 100 years although some cardiologists in Texas were shocked when they identified it as a problem for their emergancy admissions (they were unaware of the earlier research). Gyms and exercisers relying on fans should know the air temperature and be wary about relying on fan usage.

use of a heart rate monitor can help a lot provided you keep hydrated and realise the workload will be reduced. If you follow Maffetones guidelines then you will find that to stay within them will mean your workload drops compared to cooler conditions. Anyone, in doubt would best drop 5-10 points off that for the first week of training in heat - just using a similar approach to that suggested by his guidelines. Always go light for the first week or so during a hot spell. It is a good time to back off and de-load or have a lay off for few days and then start back light. This especially applies to the first hot spell at the start of summer and then during summer if there have been weeks of cool weather and then it heats up (ie acclimitisation has been lost and you need to wait a few days before it comes back).

best to exercise in the shade if solar load is the main concern, however, even in shade heat can be reflected or radiated from hot surfaces like asphalt and so on. Indoors may be better.

Be cautious working or exercising in heat as there have been many casualties and the contribution of heat stress to serious incidents and even fatalities is often not identified. For example, slips, trips and falls can be caused by heat illness (as well as the overhead and ballistic kettlebell loss of control scenarios). Also, sweaty hands may need added caution. Dehydration from drinking alcohol the previous night or consuming caffeine and so on have also contributed to problems as the person does not realise they are dehydrated when they start work\exercise, even when drinking water, and the high sweat rate and heat illness catches up quickly.

Some of the genetically gifted types here who have trained for a long time and are also exceptionally fit will be able to do more in heat that others. But, during cooler conditions the same comment applies. Be cautious know your limits and take appropriate measures.
 
For sure. And I thought it was hot and humid in Corpus Christi on the mid Texas Gulf Coast.
 
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