Are there long term benefits to judicious heat training?

Benji Durden credits it with his making the U.S. Olympic team.

Most of what you need to know:

http://www.camilleherron.com/blog/2011/06/03/the-little-things-heat-training

YMMV wrote:

Benji Durden credits it with his making the U.S. Olympic team.

Most of what you need to know:

http://www.camilleherron.com/blog/2011/06/03/the-little-things-heat-training

At the end she refers to somebody as Gaylen Rupp. Oh boy...

Heat acclimation improves exercise performance.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20724560

Thank you both. Is this widespread knowledge? Any particular reason altitude training gets more press?

Third time I've posted this

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/04/10/saunas-hyperthermic-conditioning-2/

YMMV wrote:

Benji Durden credits it with his making the U.S. Olympic team.

Most of what you need to know:

http://www.camilleherron.com/blog/2011/06/03/the-little-things-heat-training

jaguar wasn't able to take the heat, moved up to ultras

Lots of research starting to back this up.

We love it down here but we appreciate the cool winter training, too.

I use it to reframe athlete negativity toward the heat. "But you're getting training conditions that are as beneficial as altitude!"

The east Africans

Kruppe wrote:

Thank you both. Is this widespread knowledge? Any particular reason altitude training gets more press?

I'd like to hear more about this subject. Great article postings so far. Training through the summer in Mississippi, I've learned to adapt but also to suffer a bit. The payoff always comes in September and October, when morning temps in the low to mid 70s with humidity in the 80-93% range suddenly shift to high 50s and dry. You get a Sunday morning like that, with clear blue skies, and the long run is suddenly a joy. You're fit, strong, and comfortable.

I've always wondered whether that sudden wonderful feeling of comfort and fitness was simply due to the heat/humidity stress falling away, or whether the heat and humidity actually INCREASED my fitness more than the same training in cooler, dryer conditions would have done. Several of these articles suggest the latter.

But here's the question: in order to train at a reasonable heart rate in Mississippi's summer, I'm forced to slow down, sometimes to the point where an easy run becomes a slow jog. I suspect that too much training at that pace would tend to interfere with my stride efficiency. But perhaps not. Opinions on this? On a warm, humid day when I'm planning on doing 8 easy miles, would it be better to run 6 of them very slowly (70-75% of max HR) and then, over the last 2 miles, throw in some short fast intervals or strides, with full recovery, just to keep my stride alive, as it were?

I have lots of friends who simply don't run long runs (10 or more miles) in the summer down here. They give up on that. They wait until the weather moderates. I've always pushed right on through--slowing down a bit, starting earlier in the morning, and certainly drinking more water along the way (bottles stashed along the route). But it can be tough. And it seems to get tougher as I age.

Funny story: I've been in the UK for the past 10 days, and when I got to London a few days ago, I went for a run in Hyde Park. The weather was cool, not too humid, and after two miles I was suddenly flying. Soon I was hammering in a way I haven't done for the past year, nursing a long-troubled hamstring. My heart rate--I was wearing a monitor--soared, but, to my great surprise, I felt amazingly good AT that high HR. I was running around 90% of max, a HR that would kill me in Mississippi's summer warmth, but it just felt like a solid tempo run. Hard but comfortable. So the heat training effect is real. Of course, my quads have been sore for the past couple of days! But I ain't complaining. It's a great feeling when you haven't had it for a year, trust me. The hamstrings feel good.

Camille won a major 50-miler in very warm conditions yesterday. She runs the run.

As far as the stride efficiency/turnover: hot weather is great for strides and speed work. In summer I do a very long run every two weeks, but some kind of short, faster stuff (with good/full recovery) every few days. Very sparing on the intervals/tempo. Having my best season in ten years.

Always wondered why they stopped training in Gainesville. Great running conditions -- hills, summer heat and humidity, plenty of facilities. Shorter won gold off of that training, Once a Runner was written about it, and then everybody abandoned it for whatever reason.

I can't imagine going to the Olympics and not having done a block of heat/humidity training. Running in Florida sucks in April/May when you're not used to it, but now I can handle 100+ "feels like" temps with no problem.

It's a good question, but we're not likely to get any good answers from the scientific community at least. Long term research into training modalities is almost non-existent.

As others have noted, there's some very solid research about the effect of heat training on cool weather performance. It definitely works. The effect also disappears fairly quickly. What's not clear is whether this loss of adaptation leaves you in a better or worse position than if you'd just been training in cool conditions the whole time.

I have a few theories about long term heat training.

First, I think it's probably good over the long term because it necessarily introduces a period where you're forced to run slow, reducing the mechanical shocks that your body experiences. I always find that my nagging pains disappear during the summer, even if I'm increasing mileage at the same time. I think this slower period helps one to avoid injuries, and there's no more important factor in long-term development than injury avoidance. If you can stay healthy, then you can build, little by little, year by year. If you get injured, you're starting over.

Second, unless you decide to wear a "sauna suit" or workout in a heated room on a treadmill year round, heat training is, by definition, seasonal. I think that varying one's training throughout the year and even throughout one's career is useful. You get diminishing returns from doing just one type of training. If you change types of training for a while, even if what you're doing isn't totally optimal, you may find that when you return to your preferred methods, your ceiling is a little higher than it was before because the alternate training method improved some secondary physiological parameters that were holding you back despite not being specifically targeted by your preferred training.

I think training in high dew point conditions can come very close to altitude training. I do not think that heat, in and of itself, is necessarily that beneficial. Going for a run in the full sun when it is 90+ degrees out is going to be very taxing for a lot of non-running beneficial reasons. Core body temp will shoot up very high and cause all kinds of problems. Slowing down significantly to mitigate those problems isn't going to make for a beneficial run and may end up resulting in some loss of fitness or lack of progress. But running in high dew point conditions in the early morning before there is too much heat can be beneficial. The moisture content displaces oxygen in the air and makes breathing more difficult. You get a lot of stress from the hot conditions, but not so much that you are in the danger zone and have to pull up. I actually find that doing tempo runs is the most beneficial. Short fast stuff in the heat does not tax your cardiovascular system that much. But the longer stuff really makes you dig deep on your cardio as long as you manage your pace to keep from bonking in a workout.

Precious Roy wrote:

I think training in high dew point conditions can come very close to altitude training.... But running in high dew point conditions in the early morning before there is too much heat can be beneficial. The moisture content displaces oxygen in the air and makes breathing more difficult.

Now that is an interesting point. Is this true? Does the moisture in the air in fact displace oxygen--i.e., lower the oxygen content of the air? I've never heard this before, but I've certainly felt the dew-point holdback; I do 99% of my runs in the morning, and during the summer in Mississippi it's pretty humid. I've always assumed the stress from these conditions had more to do with a failure of sweat to evaporate and provide cooling, but you're saying that it's as much or more about lowered oxygen levels in the humid air--which would, if true, mean that there is indeed a parallel between training in such conditions and altitude training.

I hope you're right! This would completely change my attitude towards the summers around here. Can you provide research that backs up this point? I'm not skeptical; what you've said is something I'd love to believe.

I've always felt that there was a sort of triple-witching hour in such conditions: a point at which humidity is still pretty high, the temps have come up (because the sun has come up and begun to warm the air), and the radiant sun is beating down on you. In my neck of the woods, during July, I'm guessing that this triple-witching hour occurs somewhere between 9 and 10 AM. When I'm doing two-hour Sunday runs, I try to finish before nine, because I know I'm gonna hurt if I go much beyond that. "Hurt" is the wrong word. I'm going to slow, badly, and ultimately find myself muttering things like "This isn't running, it's jogging" and fantasizing about the big icy smoothie I'm going to make when I drop through the front door, back home.

Mississippi Summer Smoothie (recipe)

In a blender, put:

1 very ripe banana

big handful of blueberries

5 or 6 cut up strawberries

1 Tbsp. strawberry or raspberry jam

juice of one lime

1/2 to 3/4 cup Stoneyfield lowfat vanilla yogurt or the equivalent

1 cup orange juice

one full tray of ice cubes

Blend well at high speed. Add honey to taste--quite a bit. 1/2 cup?? Just squeeze it into the blend and blend it again.

Makes enough for one blown-out runner and another non-runner or two. You can freeze the excess, then, when you want to use it, nuke it for 15 seconds, dump it in the blender, add a little orange juice and a bit more honey, and blend it up again.

I have found that when the weather is hot, the air is thinner, which will make it similar to altitude. There is actually some calculations on the Internet that compare hot days to what it would be like at altitude on a normal day. Pretty interesting.

I'm doing some runs in humid New England wearing long sweats preparing for Pike's Peak Marathon. I'm hoping it helps in couple of weeks wheezing at 14,000 feet. Some of the research seems really promising so I think it's worth a shot even if the training is no fun.

KudzuRunner wrote:

Precious Roy wrote:

I think training in high dew point conditions can come very close to altitude training.... But running in high dew point conditions in the early morning before there is too much heat can be beneficial. The moisture content displaces oxygen in the air and makes breathing more difficult.

Now that is an interesting point. Is this true? Does the moisture in the air in fact displace oxygen--i.e., lower the oxygen content of the air? I've never heard this before, but I've certainly felt the dew-point holdback

The difference in oxygen content in humid air is a tiny bit lower. The main difference you feel when you run is the amount of blood going to your skin for cooling mean that a lot less goes to your muscles.

How you make best use of this harder work to improve is a harde question to answer.