Saturday 16 June 2012

Heat training.

Today is the first day of the year that I'm really feeling that the weather is getting hot.
I tend to bear with it quite well, as usually the really hot days are never too many in the area where I live, but usually heat comes kinda unexpected, so the body has no time to get used to it. And as for everyone, also my training habits change a bit. When it turns hot, I usually do softer but more frequent workouts. When I have enough time I workout two times a day for 45 minutes each session, and one of the two sessions is a fast walk uphill. Fast walking is my favourite cardio training during summer. The second session, that happens 3-4 times a week, may consist is swimming, mild cycling, playing badminton with wife or, from time to time, basketball with friends is the outdoor court. Making it not too intense and funny is the key to keep active when the weather is hot.
This is going to be also my first summer as a footbiker, and still have to see how it's going to be to kick in the hot weather.
Doing a little research on the matter of training in the hot weather, I've found this interesting article on going to saunas to get used to the heat. As you will notice, the article by Arthur Webb is taken from the Badwater Ultramarathon website. Actually I can't imagine nothing more challenging that an ultramarathon in the Death Valley in July.
Even if you'll never run the Badwater marathon, like me, having some tips on training in saunas can be useful if you want to train hard during summer too. Building resistance to heat is a matter of conditioning the body to a certain type of exertion. It's not very different from building strenght or endurance.
Just to keep motivated to train in the heat, a nice video from Badwater Ultramarathon by AdventureCorps:

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