ABOUT
COOLING OFF
To keep more energy available to your muscles, you need to help your body cool your internal temperature faster. The best places that research has found that the body can exchange heat– heat goes out, cooler blood goes in– are the hands, feet, and the upper face.
Holding special heat dumping devices (also called ‘palm cooling’) allows your body to dump the heat building inside the body, without getting warmer themselves. When you use them, you’ll notice that they don’t make your hands cold– that would be like shutting off the vents in your car.
There’s increasing scientific research that shows that high body temperature– especially internal body temperature– plays a large role in muscle energy and fatigue.
Heat kills performance.
There are two main ways that you get hot:
-
hot conditions: obviously, your body gets hotter on a hot day. It’s even worse if it is also humid– you’ll sweat more, but it can’t evaporate to cool you off; it will just run down your body and drip off, going to waste. Also, clothing and equipment will decrease the body’s own ability to dump heat out of your body, trapping heat inside.
-
exercise/movement: did you know that 80% of the energy that your muscles use gets wasted as heat? And when your muscles work hard and get hot, research has shown that energy to the muscles gets shut off. Then, your muscles become like a car that runs out of gas– they stop working. Only getting your temp back down lets your muscles have the energy to work again.
Photo: Apex Cool Labs
Photo: Apex Cool Labs
Holding the devices for 3 minutes– during breaks, timeouts, substitutions, changeovers, between rounds, sitting on the bench, or whenever you have a free moment-- has been shown to have a major impact on athletic performance.
Next time you feel tired or sluggish when playing in the heat, try heat dumping. Because limiting the heat inside your body will help you play better, longer, and safer.
Photo: CoolMitt
Photo: NICE Recovery Systems