-->

Encrypting your link and protect the link from viruses, malware, thief, etc! Made your link safe to visit.

Female Olympians Needed to train Longer to Beat Tokyo’s Heat

This week's Olympians will be confronted with the hottest games for decades in Tokyo, where temperatures hover around 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Many sports physiologists and athletes have long been watching the Japanese summer temperatures and have planned to help athletes adjust to it.

The Olympics were a time when female Olympians had to spend more time getting ready for the heat than their male counterparts. Early studies have shown that female athletes can take twice the time to adjust to heat than male athletes. However, the information is not complete because most of the research about how to prepare for competition in hot environments was done only on male athletes until a few years back.

Jessica Mee, a researcher at the University of Worcester, UK, says that there will be more considerations for female athletes and that they may need to adapt to extreme environments.

To adapt to heat, athletes can use many strategies, including layers of clothing, extra training sessions to maintain a high body temperature, and spending time in saunas or heat chambers after exercise. This allows the body to disperse heat better, lowers resting heart rate and core temperature, and increases sweat rate. All of these factors allow someone to perform well in hot environments. These changes can last for around one week once someone has left a hot environment. Then, the normal temperature will return to normal.

However, most of the research on this subject was done with male athletes. Oliver Gibson, a Brunel University London researcher on physiological reactions to heat, says that for so long, the narrative was about young, healthy men. "We are only now getting down to the details about sex differences heat responses." This is a problem in sports medicine. Female athletes are underrepresented in science research so the majority of our knowledge about the body's response to exercise and other conditions is based on male athletes.

Gibson, Mee and other researchers have provided a glimpse into the ways male and female athletes react to heat over the years. Mee states that they both react in the same way to heat. These differences are related to the preparation for being in hot environments. Her research and other studies have shown that female athletes take longer to adjust to heat than male athletes.

Mee's study showed that male athletes were able to adjust within five days of heat adaptation, while female athletes took ten days. She says that it will take longer than the five-day approach, which is often preferred by female athletes because it doesn't compromise their training. They must ensure that they have enough time to put these strategies into practice.

Gibson states that it is not clear why female athletes take longer to adapt. Gibson speculates that male athletes have a greater muscle mass, which heats up faster, and are able to adapt to heat quicker. Also, larger male bodies may store more heat so they reach that point earlier.

Gibson said that he has had discussions with the English Institute of Sport over heat acclimation for athletes, which is a British Olympic support organization, in the past few years. These conversations have included discussions about heat acclimation and sex differences. He says, "From the beginning, we've stated that female athletes need to be aware of this extra time burden." It's something I know, at least in the UK, that people who prepare for the event are thinking about.

The English Institute of Sport and the Great Britain women's soccer team collaborated on heat acclimation programs. This included riding a stationary bike for 90 minutes per day in a heated tent for one week. Similar programs are being implemented by other countries: The eight-member Canadian women's rowing team practiced in a heated sports dome. Additionally, the senior sports physiologist for the United States, Randy Wilber, provided custom acclimation programs.

Wilber stated to The Washington Post that athletes who are able to prepare for heat and humidity effectively can defeat many other athletes with more talent, but have not prepared for heat or humidity.

Elite athletes who are preparing for the Olympics can benefit from understanding the differences in how male and female athletes adapt. They also have implications for other areas than sports. Climate change is making the world's hottest days more hot, and record-breaking heatwaves are becoming more frequent. Extreme heat poses a serious health risk. It is important to address the public health problem of how to help people adapt to high temperatures.

People who work outdoors, such as farm workers, are particularly at risk from heatwaves. While male workers may be able to adapt in a few days to the heat, it might take female workers longer. Gibson states that each person should make their own recommendations about how to adjust to the heat and protect themselves. He says, "If we are saying that you should decrease your activity for four to five days, then you can gradually return to activity levels prior to the heat wave," Gibson adds. Their bodies might not adapt over the heatwave's duration so they may need additional heat protection.

Mee states that athletes are the best starting point for research in physiology since there is a clear application of what they have learned. She says, "There is a drive and an interest in getting additional marginal benefits." Gibson states that they are often healthy and strong and can handle any stressors researchers might put on their bodies to find out how it responds. Experts can then use that information to see if it applies to others. He says, "While it might not be the best for an athlete, there are some lessons we can take from that."

ST