Heat Training: Why do it and how to do it easily

oliverbridge7
Nov 8
3 min read

How to do heat training? Unless you're lucky enough to have a sauna or live in a very hot climate all year round then heat training is something you can easily miss out on and all the benefits it has. Read below on why heat training is good and some ways that anyone can do it well.

Firstly, what are the benefits?

The benefits of more extreme temperatures at both ends, cold and hot, force physical adaptations that can benefit endurance performance.

There are recent studies that have shown heat training to almost be on a par with the benefits of training at altitude.

If you're going to be racing in a hot and/or humid climate then heat training is going to be something very sensible to do in advance of that race for the obvious reason that you want to get used to it.

But what does ''Getting used to it' mean?

Mental Toughness
Putting yourslf under stress will increase your mental grit.

Thermoregulation
Your body adapts over time and becomes more efficient at cooling itself, getting used to sweating at different levels.

Then as well as these, regardless of getting used to it, heat training has benefits for any endurance effort:

Cardiovascular
It boosts blood volume (plasma) and the abiity to get oxygen to muscles. By training your system you can increase your blood plasma generally and that means you have more blood being pumped on every beat. This means you can see your increasing ability in a lowered heart rate.

These two main things of Thermoregulation and Cardiovascular Efficiency are like a domino effect to your aerobic capacity, VO2 Max, lactate threshold and all those lovely indicators of fitness we look to improve.

Another benefit is that you can train more as recovery is quicker when you've been training with better blood flow.

How to do it?

This isn't rocket science - get hot!

Here are the best ways to do this, and one way not to.

Indoor Training
The lack of wind indoors, even if you have a good fan, means that working indoors is typically a hotter experience, with you having to thermoregulate better in account of the sweat not being blown off you. The ability to stop as well if you must then it's a fantastic environment to really push into heat training.
Indoor Training + extra clothes!
Layer up! You can do this particularly well on an indoor bike because extra layers are not going to be as uncomfortable or weird to run in as on a treadmill.

Taking a bath immediately after warm runs and cycles!
The easiest way to heat training. Don't change anything except during the exercise but particularly during summer or after runs and cycles when you might want a cool shower, switch it for a very warm bath. Make sure you have a drink to hand, ideally with electrolytes. It's tougher than it sounds and your body will take a while to cool down after but you're extending your training stimulus to a significant degree, that doesn't actually feel like significant work.

*It is never recommended to try really pushing into heat training by wearing too much swimming like neoprene in already very warm environments. This gets dangerous because heat can cause quite sudden dizziness etc. and you don't want that effect swimming.

Have fun!

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