How can you exercise in the heat? Is that harmful? What do I have to consider? This article provides the answers.

Sport at heat: What to consider when exercising in the heat

Most athletes prefer outdoor sports. And at any time of the year if possible. However, you are always exposed to the weather and as an athlete you have to cope with a wide variety of weather and environmental conditions. Under extreme conditions, fresh air athletes have to cope with freezing temperatures in winter and hot temperatures in summer. Here above all the correct clothes and drinking plays a large role.

Do as little exercise as possible in the heat

In hot summer temperatures, the basic question is whether one has to expose one’s body to these conditions. In any case, it would be better to avoid the midday heat, or the glistening afternoon sun, and to move the sports training to the evening hours, or perhaps even in the morning, and to complete his training session before work, for example.

So it is definitely not very healthy if you walk in the sun for a long time or do sports. If this cannot be avoided, one should in any case not make the training session as long, and protect the body from the sun as far as possible, and of course provide for sufficient liquid supply.

Making important preparations for heat training

Before you do your “heat training” you should drink enough before the sport. The exact amount varies from person to person and is very individual. In any case, you should drink before you’re thirsty. If you intend to do a longer sports unit, you should also consider taking something to drink with you. Depending on the sport, a rucksack, a camel bag or a drinking belt is suitable. During sport it is important to drink continuously.

So don’t wait until you are really thirsty, but in the sense of a good drinking behaviour always take small amounts again.

Then it is still important to provide the body with sufficient cooling. For this purpose, it is important to wear functional clothing that transports moisture away from the body and provides cooling through the evaporation cooling that occurs. The head reacts particularly sensitively to the piercing heat. For this reason, one should provide for an appropriate headgear, and these should possibly even wet from time to time with water. This also provides refreshing cooling.

Protect the body from excessive loads

Last but not least, one should also think about skin protection. Especially when it is hot, many people think about using their clothes sparingly and thus expose a large part of their skin to direct sunlight. This is particularly dangerous when cycling, for example, because the cooling air makes it easy to forget the intense sunlight and you quickly get sunburned. So, it is best to find the best possible compromise between skin protection and cooling. All free areas of skin should be protected from the sun in any case. Particularly gladly the nose and also the ears are forgotten here.

In case of doubt, however, one should refrain from training in heat, because one is not particularly efficient under such conditions anyway, and the training effect will not be particularly intensive by default.