The end goal of every travel physical therapist is to see their patients recover and return to doing the things that they love – whether that's playing with their grandkids or stepping back on the baseball field. Many PT professionals work with athletes frequently, assisting them all the way through the rehabilitation process and even checking in with those who are fully healed. Now, with summer around the corner, travel PT professionals should remind athletes how drastic temperatures can impact their play – for better and worse.
According to a new review published in British Journal of Sports Medicine, drinking cold water, taking ice baths or wearing ice vets before or during a workout in the heat can help athletes perform better. Anyone who has exercised or played a sport in the summer sun know that the heat is physically exhausting. It drains the body of water and salt through sweat and wears you down – no matter how fit you are. Therefore, the cooling techniques may lower the energy the body needs to stay cool, leaving more energy for the exercise itself, study author Dr. Thijs Eijsvogels, from Radboud University Medical Center in The Netherlands, told Reuters.
"More blood will be available for oxygen transportation to the exercising muscles, which enables a better performance," Eijsvogels explained to the source. "Thus less energy and effort is spilled for heat dissipating mechanisms."
For the study, male athletes were monitored when temperatures were above 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Before exercising, some of the athletes either wore a cooling vest, cooling packs, drank cold water, immersed themselves in cold water or a combination of these. The participants used the same methods during the workout.
The results showed that employing cooling techniques before and during exercise benefited performance, with the optimal results coming from combination of cooling techniques. On average, athletes who cooled down performed almost 7 percent better, which could mean the difference between winning and losing.
"Remember that in many elite sports the difference between a first and fourth place is marginal, so improving your performance with 6.7 percent due to the application of appropriate cooling techniques can have a large impact on the race result," Eijvogels said.
But you don't have to be competing for an Olympic gold for feel its perks. Even average athletes would notice an improvement, Dr. Paul Laursen, physiology manager at High Performance Sport New Zealand in Auckland, told Reuters.
Muscle endurance
Temperatures play a big role in muscle elasticity. When the weather is cold, muscles contract and tighten, increasing the risk for injury. In these conditions, proper stretching is essential. And while summer makes for loose and agile muscles, hot temperatures drain the body of nutrients needed for optimal performance. Heat cramps are all-too-common side effects of blazing temperatures, with symptoms including intense muscle pain and muscle spasms due to the loss of large amounts of fluid and salt.
In general, exercise increases core body temperature, which can hurt performance and even lead to the development of heat-related illness such as a heat stroke. The review discovered that precooling decreased peak core body temperatures from 102.4 to 100.6 degrees Fahrenheit. So, not only could cooling strategies boost performance, they may also reduce the risk of heat-related problems.
Those on travel therapy jobs can help patient athletes prevent further injury and optimize rehabilitation performance by incorporating cooling techniques into their rehabilitation. As Laursen pointed out, it promotes safe exercise – and who doesn't want to put a win on the board?
"If performance matters to you, then it's worth the effort," Laursen told Reuters.