When an athlete such as a football player tells a coach he is overheating or exhausted, researcher Brendon McDermott suggests coaches give him the benefit of the doubt.
"One day won't make a season," said the University of Arkansas professor, just like stopping a run earlier than planned or even failing to finish outdoor yard work won't adversely affect long-term plans.
Fast Facts
Hot Weather,
Cool Advice
University of Arkansas assistant professor Brendon McDermott offers the following tips for avoiding heat illness during workouts:
• Acclimatize to the conditions, as the body takes about 14 days to get used to workouts in the heat.
• Never lose more than 2 percent of your body weight during a workout. Take your weight in kilograms before a workout for ease of measurement, and for every kilo lost, replenish with a liter of water and/or electrolyte drink.
• Wear appropriate clothing for the workout.
• Have an emergency plan at the ready.
• For heat cramps, stretches and ice massages may alleviate the cramps. Drinking a bit of pickle juice or ingesting plain yellow mustard may ease symptoms for some.
• Particularly in the case of a young person fainting for the first time after a warm-weather workout, go for a post-event cardiac screening. Recovery from a fainting episode is often very rapid and without long-term effects, but it could indicate an underlying cardiac issue.
• Coaches and friends should watch those who overheated the day before with extra concern the next day. Heat exhaustion encountered on a previous day can be a precursor to heat stroke the following day.
— Source: Brendon McDermott
The opposite can be true of a workout pushed to the brink. One day can lead to long-term consequences -- or worse.
McDermott is one of several UA researchers studying exertional heat stroke and lesser but still dangerous forms of heat illness such as heat cramps, heat exhaustion and syncope, otherwise known as fainting. They have been working in a new environmental chamber in the HPER building where factors such as temperatures -- with a setting up to 111 degrees -- and humidity can be regulated, duplicating tough conditions outside.
Between work being done on the University of Arkansas campus and by researchers elsewhere, much is being learned about heat illness. And yet there are still many unknowns.
McDermott spoke July 31 to a group of prep football coaches that on Monday opened up official practices for the upcoming season. The session took place at the John Q. Hammons Center in Rogers as part of a one-day coaching summit sponsored by Mercy of Northwest Arkansas.
Even with an increase in knowledge about the subject and high-profile deaths serving as visible warnings, the number of heat-related deaths has increased in recent years, McDermott said. The past five years were the most deadly in the last 35 years. Heat-related deaths have more than doubled since 1975, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury. About 95 percent of heat strokes occur during the first or second day of conditioning, McDermott said.
There are many potential factors that may be at play regarding the continuation of heat-related deaths, said Ronda Fincher, executive director of the Rogers-based Kendrick Fincher Hydration for Life Foundation. She started her organization after her son Kendrick died of heat stroke in August 1995.
Potentially, a more sedentary lifestyle and reliance on air conditioning may be partially to blame. So too might be the increase in how seriously sports are treated by kids and parents alike.
And as for the more recent uptick in deaths, the number of factors prohibits Fincher from even speculating.
Researchers at the University of Arkansas are currently working to determine both how to properly recognize heat illness and how to treat it once the diagnosis is confirmed. An ice bath works best as a cooling mechanism for someone with an exertional heat stroke, research shows.
But football practices, runs and other high-stress workouts will not stop entirely on hot days. Instead, McDermott said researchers have indicated several factors that often complicate or exacerbate heat-related illness: poor hydration, inadequate sodium intake, low blood sugar, muscle fatigue and lactic acid buildups. So, conversely, proper hydration and the monitoring of other contributing factors can work to stave off heat illness. So can acclimatization, which relates directly to the fact that so many heat-related deaths occur so early in a workout sequence. It takes the body between 10 and 14 days to get accustomed to warmer temperatures, research shows. There's another rise in occurrences on the first day football teams begin wearing full pads in practice, McDermott said. The counter to creating these situations is to go easy at the start. Again, one slow introductory practice or run or other form of strenuous exercise is unlikely to be the defining moment of the season.
Both McDermott and Fincher agree that knowledge goes a long way.
"The kids need an education, and they don't need it just once," Fincher said.
The same might be said for adults, too.
NAN Life on 08/06/2014