Working out in the summer heat is tough. Not only is it already roasting hot outside, but your body is heating up because of the workout you’re doing. To counter overheating, The New York Times shares a few ways to cool yourself down, including precooling. Guess what? There’s evidence that the irresistible urge to dump water on your head really works.
Photo by Caitlin Childs.
Before you start exercising, you can use a couple of precooling techniques to keep your temperature down. This includes drinking a slushie, or even just draping a cold rag around your neck. These precooling techniques can improve endurance in hot weather exercise by nearly 4 per cent.
But what about in the middle of a workout, when you’re hot and sweaty? It turns out that dumping cold water on your head really does cool you down:
But only when cold water was poured over their heads did the volunteers report feeling blessedly cooler than in the other exercise session. They also said that the workout felt noticeably easier, and their skin temperatures were lower than in other sessions.
Bear in mind that dumping water on your head doesn’t improve performance. It simply makes the heat more tolerable so you actually finish your workout. So remember to actually drink a bit of that water too.
Strategies for Hot-Weather Exercise [The New York Times]
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