Keep your cool when the heat is on

You’ve just come back from a run, ride or other outdoor workout with a shiny sheen of sweat superimposed on a soaked shirt.  It dawns on you that the summer heat has finally arrived.
Later that day, your energy ebbs away like a receding tide and you’re dragging along with sagging shoulders at a pitifully poor pace.  Welcome to the hammering hurtin’ that heat can put on you!
Heat stress is the primary danger, and it comes in three forms:

• Heat exhaustion
• Heat cramps
• Heat stroke.

Generally, heat exhaustion comes first, and is characterized by profuse sweating, lowered energy, headache, and possible nausea.  Heat cramps are specific muscle cramps that occur due to potassium depletion.
Untreated heat exhaustion can quickly become heat stroke, which is life-threatening and requires immediate medical attention.  Symptoms include stopping sweating, soaring heart rate, elevated temperature, breathing problems, hallucinations, disorientation, and more.
In the short term, during the first few hot days, you will suffer a bit regardless of what you do because it takes anywhere from three days to a week for your body to adapt to the heat, and the length of time depends upon your age and conditioning level.
During this time, it is normal to feel an energy drain after working out in the heat.

But even after that, you are still at risk for developing the energy-robbing, head-throbbing effects of heat stress and exhaustion—or worse—if you don’t take certain steps.

Keep hydrated

Hydration is a given—you probably already carry a water bottle with you when you ride or run.  However, if it’s only one, and it’s a small one, you might want to rethink that.
Studies have shown that workouts in warm or hot weather require hydration to the tune of about twenty to thirty ounces per hour.  Most water bottles don’t hold more than twenty ounces, so you may need to carry two.

Another thing that will help you to avoid the dreaded “heat bonk”, that saps your energy towards the end of your run or ride, is drinking a half-and-half mix of water and sports drink or filling one bottle with water and the other with sports drink.
The purpose of the sports drink is to keep your blood sugar up by providing simple carbohydrates (in other words, sugars) for fuel.  When your blood sugar levels are good, you resist heat stress better.

Protect yourself against heat stress

There are also some physical steps you can take to protect yourself against heat stress. 
One of them is to throw water on your face, your head, and the back of your neck to cool yourself through convection…and when your hair gets wet, convection cooling (due to air moving across water) can continue for awhile.
You can also buy special headbands that have cooling gels or crystals in them…just soak them in water, and they cool you for hours.
If you have a choice in the matter, you should work out in early morning when it’s cool and the day’s distractions haven’t had a chance to book your time yet.  Second choice would be an early evening workout, and the last resort would be a lunchtime workout. 
But even a lunchtime workout in the heat is still better than no workout at all, so go for it…sensibly!
And if the heat still beats you down, consider supplementing with EnergyFirst’s Greenergy or Ephedra-Free Leanergy for extra energy!

More tips on how you handle heat in a healthy way can be found at www.energyfirst.com.