Combating Heat Stress For Maximal Performance
Anyone who has ever competed in a sport in the heat knows how seemingly quick it can sap your muscle's ability to produce force. Whether you’re a football player, cross-country runner, or Crossfit games competitor, the ability to maintain performance during heat stress can be a deciding factor in who wins and loses. Before discussing specific strategies for mitigating heat stress, it’s essential to understand the physiology of why heat stress impacts the working muscles so significantly. As a result, we’ll aim to answer the following two questions in this article:
What happens to blood flow through ‘resting’ organs during exercise?
What is the functional significance of regional blood flow to the redistribution of blood volume and oxygen as well as the maintenance of arterial pressure?
For starters, a given percentage of VO2max our splanchnic blood flow, which is the blood flow to the abdominal and gastrointestinal organs, is ~20% lower during heat stress that it would be under more mode…
