Heat adaptation training
What’s the point?
Heat negatively affects your performance by more than 20%. In other words, if you can ride 300 watts for an hour, it’s still 240 watts. Even though you have invested a lot in training to maintain 300 watts for an hour. Just because your efficiency is not optimal in the heat, you should lose 20%? No way!
So it’s no wonder that marathon best times are run at around 8° Celsius. You have probably already noticed that the heart rate is very high in relation to performance in hot outside temperatures. Unfortunately, only a few athletes recognize the potential of heat adaptation training. They often say I’m no good in the heat, it wasn’t my day, etc. They forget or don’t understand that the body likes to learn. Adapt to the right stimuli like heat so that it can deliver.
Heat adaptation training is about enabling your body to perform better in the heat and understanding how it can better dissipate the thermal heat it produces by increasing its sweat rate. Becoming more resistant to external heat.
What happens physically when the body adapts to heat?
The first thing the body does when you prepare it with proper heat training is to increase blood plasma volume. Plasma is a similar substance to wrestling solution, which is administered to exhausted athletes at the finish line in the form of an infusion. They usually feel better quickly afterwards. It increases the water content in the blood so that it can cool better.
The second thing the body learns is to increase the sweating rate. So that even the outermost capillaries of the skin are still well supplied with blood. People would rather cool their skin than make all their blood available to their legs for performance. Above 40.5° Celsius body temperature it becomes critical. They used to tell me: if you sweat so much, then you’re not in top form. Which is not true. The only thing that athletes racing the Hawaii IM, for example, need to consider is that if the sweat rate is above what an athlete can take in during the race, they will die. Weight loss limits performance.
Heat adaptation training, also a type of artificial altitude training, is the perfect way to prepare for an altitude training camp, more about that later.
The point was that I couldn’t accept that external factors, such as the heat in this case, could simply melt away the performance I had spent weeks, months, even years building up. So I decided to get smart. And to get involved in a topic again. Unknowingly and intuitively, I had already done this in the 90s in America with a rain jacket on my bike at 40 degrees outside. Without having a core sensor on my chest strap and without knowing what the whole thing was supposed to achieve. Now the time was ripe to take a scientific approach. In 2020, I bought the first Core Sensor with a suit and shared my experiences with my athletes and other coaches. Then, in December 2023, I decided to implement my protocol myself. Another journey began. Facts from the app vs. my feelings, intuition and body knowledge.
Below you will find out how I was able to increase my blood plasma by 6.8%.
Preparation
As I prepared my “Pain Cave” for future heat training sessions, I remembered the 90s and my first painful attempts at walking. Back then, we still had our bikes in the sauna. Contrary to the general opinion that heat training should be done with a core suit, I finally decided to go a different way. And without a core suit. I was too irritated by the feeling of a wet suit, which tended to cool the skin temperature but still caused heat build-up. I preferred to simulate a heat situation in a very hot room. And thus remind my body in the best possible way how it can best cope with the heat. So I went out and bought a 15 KW radiant heater in a large DIY store. To ensure that the radiant heater can operate above 25° Celsius, I called my electrician friends, who removed the fuse from the radiant heater. Of course, this also required a new power connection. Because the radiant heater consumes 15 amps at 400 volts. This meant that my pain cave, which is 3.5m x 3.5m, could be heated up to 48 degrees within 30 minutes.
implementation
Heat training takes place after normal training. So on top of your normal training. This means an additional 5 hours per week. Efficiency is the key to success. These 5 hours are worth it. Maybe you take a little out of the Pot Zone 1 training, come home earlier and sit in the heat for another 50 minutes.
When do you know when you were able to produce the most blood plasma?
With the right heat adaptation training, the resting heart rate drops by another 2-4 beats. In my case, for example, my heart rate drops from 34 to 32/31 and at the same time my maximum heart rate increases again. Contrary to this, the resting heart rate also decreases in training camps, but it is difficult to increase the heart rate. So there is an upper limit. From the moment the resting heart rate increases again and the maximum heart rate decreases, the blood plasma is usually gone again. This happens relatively quickly, within weeks.
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Who do I recommend heat training to?
- If your training volume is on average over 8 hours per week.
- If you have the desire and time to learn new training methods.
- If you are looking for that last 3-5% performance increase.
- When you prepare for altitude training.
- If your A competition takes place in a hot environment.
- If you know you have a problem with heat.
- If you are a professional.
Blood volume measurement
I wanted to create clear conditions right from the start. That’s why I was looking for a place where you can measure the blood plasma. As far as I know, there are only 3 places in Switzerland. Magglingen, Lausanne and Zurich.
The whole procedure is as follows. Using the carbon monoxide (CO) rebreathing method according to Schmidt and Prommer, the hemoglobin mass (Hbmass) and the blood volume can be determined. The total amount of Hbmass of a person indicates the oxygen transport capacity of this person. The higher the Hbmass, the more oxygen can be transported per unit of time. Hbmass is directly proportional to VO2max and is considered an important limiting factor of VO2max in peak endurance sports. The principle of the method is based on the inhalation of a small amount of CO. which quickly diffuses from the lungs into the blood and binds directly to the haemoglobin molecule. The basic idea is to measure the change in CO bound to haemoglobin after administering a defined amount of CO. A small change in the CO concentration bound to the haemoglobin reflects a large haemoglobin mass and a large change reflects a small haemoglobin mass:
Method description: https://bloodtec.de/sportsmedicine/
result
During the initial test I had an absolute 1055 gr. Hbmass with a blood volume of 7.995 L, i.e. 13.9 gr. per kg body weight. After the 2 heat blocks @ 3 weeks over 3 months I had 1127 gr. Hbmass and 8.723 liters of blood, an increase of 6.8%, which is an extraordinarily large increase and was of course clearly reflected in my performance curve.
Evaluation of blood volume measurement
If you are interested in what the evaluation of a blood volume measurement looks like, you can download my evaluation here.
My offer
If you are interested in the topic, I offer you an 8-week heat adaptation training for 890.- francs on. During this time, in consultation with your coach, we focus entirely on the right training with the heat for you. It is small triggers over weeks and months that allow your body to complete an adoption process. And have a healthy and anabolic effect for the competition. If you take the training too extreme, you will suffer trauma and the opposite will happen at the competition. Then your body will shut down and not be ready to perform. The topic of heat adaptation is therefore very demanding and should be implemented sensitively and together with your body.
Cost Pain cave
I have invested a total of around 2,650 francs in the pain cave, where I can do my heat adaptation training. That’s about as much as a good set of wheels. Of which:
Radiant heater, approx. 150 francs
Electricity connection, approx. 1,000 francs
Dismantling heat sensor by electrician, approx. 250 francs
Two tests (blood volume) before and after heat training, approx. 1,000 francs
Core Adapter, approx. 250 francs
Registration for an 8-week heat adaptation training for CHF 890.-
