Heat

Heart Training and hot to not melt your brain

 

INTRO

Yo.  YO YO.  Here we are chatting about training in the heat, and working to be healthy at it.  

Bonnie: I’m interested, what’s  your worst heat related race story. 🙂

Me:  cozumel 70.3.  Where the day tried to bake my face off.  Or Kansas 70.3  where my kidneys almost shriveled up and died.

 

 

BACKGROUND

I hear a lot and see a lot of misunderstanding on electrolytes, how to train in the heat, etc.  And want to provide a resource as education to help you figure out how you are going to manage the heat during training and racing.  Story.  At one race, my first 50K, I watched as a man and his son where attempting their first marathon. It was a mile loop, so I could see them often and watched the little boy really begin to struggle.  Because he wasn’t taking in any electrolytes (or nutrition)  I strongly encouraged his mom (mostly pushed them into her hand and said do this) to give him my base salts.  And wouldn’t you know … he started to perk up.  This is very important.  Doing it wrong can have large negative impacts to your training/racing/AND overall health.  (the electroyle podcast 101 will give you this full picture)

 

GOOD POINT:  Managing heat, while super important when it’s hot, is a topic all year around.  Say if you are a heavy sweater … more on that later.

 

Disclaimer:  I am an engineer, certified coach, smartie and person with common sense, not an MD, rocket scientist etc. 😉  We are doing a podcast with a very qualified person to cover all the points that we briefly talk about.  We will be providing links of studies, sources of info, etc in the show notes www.bonniekissinger.com/heat.

 

MAIN

Your body is mostly water. H2O

Electrolytes (Na, Ca, K, Mg) are elements that move things (electrical signals, etc) in and out of the cells, facilitating EVERYTHING.  YO.  Everything that you do, think, blink, not blink … are a product of the sodium/potassium pump and blah blah blah working right.  ALL THE TIME.  You run out of Na and not all your muscle fibers will work right.  You run out of Mg and you will get cramping because Mg facilities the relaxation of a muscle contraction.  This most awesome story is going to be covered in way more detail in our Electro. 101 podcast.

 

You and your body are sort of a closed system.  Water mostly.  And when the environment around you changes, your body reacts to maintain temperature and all this other stuff.  Your body is mostest awesome.  Give it due credence.  It does some majorly cool stuff.  You need to support it right when you want to do this extreme stuff.  Because really, you were designed to be sleeping it off at 2pm. Not finishing a HIM.

 

NOTE to keep in your head:  You aren’t made of just water.  Straight up.  For simplicity sake, just think like this … your IV fluid replacement is a 1% saline solution with other stuff in it.  Your tears are a bit salty.  Ever put tap water in your contacts!?! How did that go for you.  Ever forget to put salt in your neti body.  OMG!

 

The body does a lot of things to keep you cool.  Why?!?!?!  Because the body falls apart in a quick hurry if you get too hot.  

 

The body keeps you cool by:

  1. Perspiration/Evaporation
    1. In this, the blood vessels toward the surface of the body dilate so the body can cool itself off. This is why you look red in the face.  The body sweats to keep you cool.  It does with this evaporation from your skin.  You have a LOT of surface area for the skin, thus why this is a good way to cool you off.
  1.  Radiation.  One body to the next without contact.  Primary way when the body is at rest.
  2.  Conduction.  One body to the next.  Hot car to your skin.
  3.  Convection. Like air over your skin.  (water molecules across the skin.  water/air)

 

NOTE:  this means that if it’s humid, you will have limited cool ability.  That will be the way it is, short of applying ice.

 

Disclaimer:  In my opinion, most electrolyte pills/drinks/etc do not have nearly enough of what we need.  A lot of them are still following guidelines stemming from the idea that salt is unhealthy.  However, check this study out about …

There a pretty concrete recommendations based on science and math.  Beginning w 1000mg of sodium an hour when workout for an extended length of time.  And yes.  This is just a guideline.  Everyone is different. You can do a sweat test, which any joe can do and all of our coaches know how to do that. It’s not rocket science.  That would give you a good foundation to start from.  So the next time you look at different ways of getting electrolytes, see what they say and how close they come to 1000mg an hour.

 

Side note:  Magnesium is NEEDED.  But you have to get this in your diet and prob supplement as the food has become nutrient deficient.  Farmers aren’t generally putting magnesium into the soil.  I will link to a podcast that I did with a NASA researching on Heat Training and magnesium.  bk.com/heat

 

Heat Acclimatization 7-10 Days

Series of physical and chemical changes in the body that happen with consistency and a bit of patience, that help the body to deal with the STRESS of training in the heat.

Note:  body type, fitness status, nutritional status, health status, etc will all impact this.

Note:  give due credence to “forcing” this change on the body.  You live in AC, in your car, etc etc.  This can be a tough change on the body.  Be mindful and nice, not that the body is weak and what not. Again, you are really designed to be nappy during this time.  Most of the animal kingdom does not do all their stuff during the hotness parts of the day. 😉 JS.

 

Couple of helpful notes:

  • Do not participate in more than one practice per day in the first five days of practice
  • Do not practice more than three hours in one day
  • Be properly hydrated before, during and after practice
  • Gradually increase the intensity of practice over the course of a few days
  • Increase the amount of sodium in your diet for the first days of practice to make up for sweat salt loss
  • Avoid practicing while sick
  • Have cooling methods available during practice (ice towels, ice tubs)
  • Take breaks frequently to avoid your body overheating
  • Get plenty of sleep the nights before practices

FOR MORE:

http://ksi.uconn.edu/prevention/heat-acclimatization/

 

SPECIFIC LOGISTICS

  • HYDRATE BUT don’t drink a bunch of FREE WATER.  (podcast on elect. 101)
  • Drink the RIGHT amount for you.  Not just a default of what people would say.  Like a gallon.  Etc.  Body Weight x .3 is a good starting place.
  • Don’t fill up the belly with a ton of food before or during
  • Think about liquid nutrition that is GOOD STUFF to help the belly get the calories, etc needed without a lot of work. Remember, training in the heat, the belly gets less blood flow, so less functioning.  You need to make the belly’s job easy.  You can mix liquid nutrition with good clean and easy to digest bars.  I use a mix of Ucan/Glukos/Aminos with Base Salts and Glukos energy bars.  I have a podcast on that topic I will reference in the show notes.  Kindbars.  Discount codes for stuff at the end if you want to try some of this stuff.
  • CONTINUE hydrating after with water AND electrolytes.  This really should be a daily, hourly, habit … not something you do just because it’s hot.  An athlete skill.

 

 

 

OTHER THOUGHTS WHAT TO DO WHEN IT’S HOT  (Screen Share page a)

  • Eat right daily
  • Hydrate well (not just free water), all the time.
  • Think about extra salted food
  • Think about going out when it’s not blazing hot
  • Work to get a tan but don’t get burnt
  • If you don’t tan well, where the UV clothes
  • If you need STRESS to be less, this about UV clothes, like in my case with heart issues.
  • If you are pale complected.  Think about … how  much heat training do you really need to do.  What is healthy?  I have an athlete that gets migraines from training in the heat.  Me personally, it’s too stressful on my heart.  
  • If your A RACE isn’t going to be hot.  Don’t train in the heat like a mad person.
  • MAKE SURE to figure out logistics.  DO NOT go on a long bike ride and not  have it planned out where you are going to get extra water
  • Have people KNOW you are out and kind of keeping an “eye” on you
  • Listen to your body before, during and after.  Your food cravings in all of these areas will tell you want you need.  Like craving salt or watermelon, etc.

 

 

KNOW THE SIGNS OF GETTING BEHIND IN HYDRATION / ELECTROLYTES (Screen Share page b)

 

  • Body temperature goes up
  • You have less blood volume so blood pressure goes down and heart rate goes up
  • With heart rate going up, you will use more sugar for fuel.  If you are low in sugar already … you start feeling really bad.
  • Fatigue sets in
  • Sweating decreases, the body holds on to the water
  • Your ability to cool yourself goes down, because your internal organs are now hogging the blood.  
  • Fuel in your body will start to .. not get dealt with and the body might decide it needs to go.  One way or the other.
  • Feeling dizzy
  • Cramping, decrease in water, ion delivery to the cells and decrease in electrolytes
  • Being low in electrolytes can give you different symptoms or the same, cramping, fatigue, muscles seizing up, cravings like for salt  (those chips look really good)
  • Cardiac drift, (electrol. 101)
  • Your ability to deal with lactic acid goes down, your performance goes down, legs can get the feeling that they just can’t work anymore.  Lactic acid build up interferes with the firing of neurons to create movement.
  • (everything goes sideways)
  • RESTLESS LEGS AT NIGHT – Magnesium
  • CALF CRAMPING – this in more often magnesium or dehydration (not salt)

SPECIAL NOTES

  • Please note:  Heat sickness/exhaustion/stroke … can be like concussions.  Once the brain is a bit injured, it will have a higher risk of it reoccuring
  • Drinking too much free water “washing out sodium” from your blood stream.  This leads to varying degress of being HYPONATREMIC.  This causes h2o to move into intersticial spaces.  When this occurs in the brain (with the hard covering around the melon), the brain “swells” and things really go sideways.  Confusion is the first obvious step in this.  I watched an athlete do this on a Long’s Peak climb.  I don’t mean to scare you, but this stuff is real.  
  • DO NOT take over the counter NSAIDS when triainging (ever) or when it’s hot.  The prostaglandins from the NSAIDS can be harmful to the kidneys, especially if you get dehydrated.  Which we most certainly will.  It’s HARD to get enough water on the run.

 

In Summary

 

YOU ARE WANTING TO DO THESE EXTREME THINGS!  (HIM and Ironman is extreme)

YOU NEED TO UP YOUR GAME AND  BE SMART!!! YOU ARE PUSHING THE BODY.  YOU MUST UNDERSTAND ITS PROCESSES AND FUEL IT ACCORDINGLY (end of rant)

 

 

IF YOU HAVE MORE QUESTIONS OR NEED HELP  (Screen Share page c)

 

Discount Codes if you want to try some of this stuff:

  • Base Salts:  Bkweb17
  • Ucan: CoachBK
  • Glukos: Karma20

 

Free Athlete Assessment with our Coaching Team

  • Online form to fill out
  • 30 Min phone chat to get an overview from us on what we see
  • 3 suggestions/resources in email on what would be most awesome steps forward to help you rock out our next set of goals

 

Important Take Aways

  • www.bonniekissinger.com/heat  for notes and resources sited, etc
  • Learn how much and how to get in enough water and electrolytes FOR YOU
    • Sweat Test
    • Chat with a person that knows, etc.
  • Drink ENOUGH, GET IN the ELECTROLYTES
  • Probably need to be taking a magnesium citrate supplement!
  • Recognize that you can and WILL get low in Na, Mg, K, Ca.  And going to the doc to have your electrolytes taken … will not tell you a lot unless they are really low as the body works really hard to have the blood serum always correct, at the expense of other things. (refer Electrol. 101)
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