Funny things happen when you race in the heat.
As soon as you throw your body into the heat and begin to exercise, you create a need to circulate blood out to the skin for cooling, and this both draws blood away from working muscles and also lowers the amount of blood your heart can pump with each beat. Since evaporative cooling from sweat is the primary mode of heat reduction during exercise, this redistribution of blood to the extremities is combined with loss of fluid and blood volume via sweat, which places additional demand on an already stressed heart.
As blood pressure and cardiac output fall from this drop in blood volume, temperature elevation accelerates, performance is impaired as the body reaches a critical core temperature, and neuromuscular drive and metabolic function subsequently begin to plummet. In other words, the wheels fall off.
So what can you do about?
Can you do anything about it?
You bet.
Not only can you condition your body to maintain a higher blood volume, increased sweat rate, decreased salt in the sweat produced, increased salt store availability, decreased fatigue rate of sweat glands and more rapid onset of sweating, but you can also keep your body’s core temperature cooler during exercise in the heat.
And in this article, you’re going to learn how to be a mad scientist, hack yourself to handle the heat, and throw every possible wrench at your body to keep it from blowing up when the pressure cooker is on.
