DOES HEAT TRAINING WORK? WHEN SHOULD I DO IT?
If you race triathlon, undoubedly you're racing in some hot conditions. Hot and humid conditions are particularly difficult as they will tend to dehydrate you quickly. The problem for triathletes on swim and bike legs, is that dehydration can happen without our recognizing it, until it is too late. So it seems to make sense that training in the heat can help acclimitize your body to manage in these conditions. But does it really, or does it just dehydrate you for your training and not have much advantage.
Latest studies seem to indicate that training in the heat does have beneficial outcomes for athletes.
See this article below from Precision Hydration (my favorite electrolyte and race nutrition company:
Paper 1 - Can heat training improve performance in cool conditions as well as in the heat?
It's a well established fact that training in the heat improves your ability to perform in hot conditions - more on this later with paper 3. But, until fairly recently, most people weren't booking a block in a heat chamber to prepare for a race in temperate conditions.
That attitude started to change with the publication of a paper by Lorenzo and colleagues from the University of Oregon in 2010...
In this study, the researchers put twelve cyclists through either ten days of training at 40°C (104°F) and 30% humidity or the same sessions in cool conditions at 13°C (55°F) and 30% humidity. They found that, on average, the riders in the heat group:
❤️ Reduced their heart rate during the workouts by 15 beats per minute
🌡️ Lowered their core temperature by 0.5°C (0.9°F)
📈 Increased their blood plasma volume by 6.5%
⬆️ Saw improvements in V̇O₂max, lactate threshold, and time-trial performance in both cool and hot conditions...
... whereas the control group enjoyed none of these positive adaptations.
The takeaway: It might be worth considering incorporating some heat training into your program, regardless of whether your goal race is in the heat or not.
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