Training to Keep It Cool

By Duston Morris, Ph.D., ABD, M.S., ACE, USAT

 
Most of the athletes I coach put plenty of time in for training the basics of multisport (i.e. swim, bike,
run). Countless hours are spent trying to shave seconds of that swim, bike, & run time. However when it
comes to rest and recovery…well that is a different story. Some of the newest literature (over the past 3
years) is suggesting that more time spent in recovery produces higher performance than that extra WO
that you “think” does something magical for you. Sure, that last WO before your big event can boost
mental confidence, but putting in long volume the week or two before a big race or when your body is
telling you not to train…well that just drains the tank!

Allen Lim, PhD. has demonstrated with professional cyclist that cooling the body after hard WOs helps
the blood dissipate heat and reduce your core body temp much faster. I can recall running a fever in the
hours following some IM events…simply because my core body temp was significantly elevated due to
the vigorous effort of the IM event, and I was not cooling my body properly.

So how important is it to regulate body temperature? Lim suggests that the human body is only about
25% efficient, so when you are producing about 400watts of power on the bike, your body is trying to
dissipate about 1200 watts as heat. The quicker you can reduce your core body temperature, the faster
you can recover…thus the quicker your body will switch to an anabolic recovery phase, which will
increase your body’s ability to rebuild muscle and replenish glycogen stores.

The take home point…Lim suggests anything you can do to reduce the body temperature after hard
WOs or a race. This can be ice, cold water, more airflow (a BIG fan) for connective cooling. All of this will
help the body use more of its energy for mechanical purposes (rebuilding the body) vs. cooling
purposes, which slows down body recovery. TDF riders use high tech equipment to cool their body
temperature and report: 1) better performance & 2) better sleep – which we all know is critical to body
recovery.

So after a long WO or hard race, try to cool off as soon as possible. Take a cold shower, use ice packs, sit
down in the shade, put some water all over your body and turn on a fan, turn down the AC. I don’t
recommend hanging around at the end of a race in the heat…NOT GOOD. Find a cool spot if you are
going to stay and enjoy the after race party…for that matter, go get back in the water with your floaties
and a cold one! Do whatever it takes to “keep it cool!”