Tips for staying cool during hot weather workouts

Some of these techniques lower the temperature. Others make you feel cooler without changing how hot you are. Nothing lasts long or replaces common sense strategies to avoid overheating, such as exercising early or late in the day or strategically adapting to high temperatures.

But if you’re training in the heat or have a summer race or match coming up, the right combination of these cooling strategies at the right time can keep you fresher and faster for longer.

One of the most surprising ways to cool yourself down is menthol. A natural chemical found in peppermint oil or synthesized commercially in laboratories, menthol significantly reduces heat, studies showby activating specialized receptors found in our skin cells and oral mucosa.

These receptors are designed to detect subtle changes in the temperature of the outside world and send messages to our brain telling us whether we should be hotter or colder.

In ways that are not fully understood, menthol triggers the cold-related versions of these receptors, which then alert our brains that the world may not be as hot as our brains had thought, and we should start feeling cooler.

Athletes are increasingly using menthol in various forms to stay cool during hot weather training and competition, said Martin Barwood, a professor of applied physiology at the University of Leeds who studies exercise and heat.

In studies, athletes who drank or even rinsed their mouths with a menthol-containing beverage while competing in overheated labs finished faster and reported feeling much less hot than athletes who did not use menthol. 2020 Research Review Co-author Barwood concluded that menthol reliably improves heat sensation.

Menthol definitely helps athletes feel cooler and more comfortable, Barwood said.

In addition, menthol is easy to obtain. Do you remember your parents applying Vicks VapoRub to your chest when you got a cold as a child? One of its most important active ingredients is menthol. The same goes for peppermint tea, many brands of mouthwash, Halls menthol cough drops and some new sports drinks and sports drinks. Look for the word mentholated or menthol in the ingredients list.

As for cooling off with menthol, you can fill your water bottle with chilled peppermint tea, said Russell Best, an exercise researcher at the Waikato Institute of Technology in New Zealand. studied exercise in hot conditions. Peppermint is rich in menthol and also inexpensive and readily available, he said.

You can also dissolve a few Halls Extra Strength cough drops in warm water, freeze the mixture and either drink or just spit the drink out, said Maria Roriz, a nutrition researcher at the University of Porto in Portugal and the team’s nutritionist. FC Porto professional football club, who studied menthol and sports performance.

Because our mouths are full of specialized cold receptors, we don’t need to ingest menthol to feel colder, he said. Flushing seems to be enough to ensure that the menthol cooling mechanisms kick in, he said. In other words, you can swish a capful of menthol mouthwash or strong, chilled peppermint tea in your mouth for about a minute, cough, and feel cooler while running, riding, or dealing with pickle ball operators.

Slushhous and wise decisions

The effects of menthols don’t last, however, and usually wear off in about 15 minutes, Best said. At that point, you need to drink more chilled mint tea or rinse your mouth with the travel-sized mouthwash you secreted in your shorts.

You could also start off cooler by having a slushie before heading out the door, Roriz said. Slushies, which combine crushed ice and water, lower your body’s core temperature by absorbing a significant amount of internal heat, Roriz said.

But their benefits are few. Inside something 2015 study, male runners they were slower during a 5K race in a hot lab when they ate the slushies than when they rinsed their mouths with menthol. Slushies are also not portable, an icy slushie soon turns into a lukewarm puddle in the heat.

Basically, both slushies and menthol are short-term fixes for the rigors of a hot workout, Barwood said. They make you feel better. They do not make the environment less tense. So be careful and be smart, he said. Hydrate. Slow down if you feel tired. Adapt with long, hot baths to prepare your body. Exercise in the morning or evening when temperatures are at their lowest, and reroute your usual running or driving routes so that there is plenty of shade.

Above all, know your limits, Barwood said. If you start to feel sick, achy, cramping or nauseous, which may be symptoms heat illnessstop, seek shade, get wet, and seek medical attention if you continue to feel unwell.

Have a fitness question? E-mail [email protected] and we can answer your question in a future column.

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