Acclimatize your body before summer heats up
MONTREAL — The forecast is in and Canadians can expect a hot and humid summer. Perfect if you’re on a beach, but something to be wary of if you’re an outdoor enthusiast.
Exercising in the heat has its consequences, including diminished performance, a spike in body temperature, elevated heart rate and the possibility of heat-related illnesses like heat exhaustion and heat stroke. And since climate change means more extreme weather patterns, chances are we’ll have to get used to sweating our way through more and more heat waves in the months and years ahead.
What do you do when the heat sets in? Be prepared. Get your body acclimatized to the hot weather now, so you’re better able to tackle the dog days of summer.
It takes anywhere from
10 to 14 days for the body to fine-tune its cooling systems, including sweating earlier and in greater quantities. But not everyone acclimatizes at the same rate, nor do they start at the same baseline when it comes to tolerating the heat. Fit individuals are already pretty efficient at cooling during high-intensity workouts, so they tend to sweat more and store less body heat than those who spend less time in the gym.
Still, it’s the evaporation of sweat, not sweat itself, that cools the body, something to keep in mind on hot, humid days when evaporation is compromised. And while it’s important to drink water, find shade and move your workout to a cooler part of the day during a heat wave, sometimes there’s no choice around what time your team is playing or when you can squeeze in your long run or bike ride. Hence the need to understand how to get your body acclimatized to exercising when the temperature spikes.
The trick to optimizing cooling is methodically exposing your body to multiple short bouts of hot weather exercise. Forget about pushing yourself through your regular workouts when the heat is on. Keep it short (under 30 minutes) and easy. And if possible, time it to coincide with the warmest part of the day.
Admittedly, those first few hot weather workouts will be tough. But within four to five days, depending how often you sweat it out in the heat, you should start feeling more comfortable. Once you feel that change, go ahead and slowly increase the length and intensity of your workouts to further adapt to the heat and meet your exercise goals.
If you’re travelling this summer, it’s worth noting that heat acclimatization is specific to the climate. So, if you’re welladjusted to running in Vancouver heat, you’re going to find it tough to take on the humidity of a Montreal summer. Plan on re-acclimatizing to the environment if you’re going to be training or competing in conditions different from what your body is used to.
Yet even those comfortable in the summer heat need to take extra precautions on days when the temperature soars and humidity sets in. There’s a breaking point in everyone’s cooling system where they can no longer compensate for the one-two combination of extreme exercise and extreme heat. In that case, it’s best to find a cool place to work out, be it in a pool, lake or air-conditioned gym.