The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

Best Heat Training Strategies for Time-Crunched Cyclists

• CTS • Season 5 • Episode 254

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OVERVIEW
Heat acclimation is a big topic this summer, especially because heat training has been shown to also improve oxygen-carrying capacity in the blood - similar to altitude training! But, heat training can be tricky, especially for Time-Crunched Cyclists. What if you can't train in the hottest part of the day because of work? What if you spend your workday in a cold, air conditioned office building? Should you sit passively in a sauna or hot bath, or exercise with extra layers and no fans? For how long, at what temperatures, etc.? Coach Adam Pulford provides actionable, pragmatic heat training guidance for amateur and everyday cyclists so you can perform better in the heat and reduce your risks for heat illness.

TOPICS COVERED

  • Why should you get heat adapted
  • How long does heat adaptation take?
  • Native heat vs. Added Heat
  • Training Schedule for Native Heat Training
  • Air conditioning and "global heat stress"
  • Training Schedule for Added Heat Training
  • How do you know you’re heat adapted?

LINKS/RESOURCES

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HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Speaker 1:

From the team at CTS. This is the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast, our show dedicated to answering your training questions and providing actionable advice to help you improve your performance even if you're strapped for time. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford, and I'm one of the over 50 professional coaches who make up the team at CTS. In each episode, I draw on our team's collective knowledge, other coaches and experts in the field to provide you with the practical ways to get the most out of your training and ultimately become the best cyclist that you can be. Now on to our show. Now on to our show.

Speaker 1:

Heat is here and heat is a hot topic right now. Heat training has some well-established protocols. You can Google it or chat GPT it. But how do you take those science-based protocols and actually apply them to your busy time crunch life when your goals are simply performing well at the next race or group ride without melting like a stick of butter in 95 degree heat? Welcome back time crunch fans. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about a practical guide to heat training and preparation for riding and racing outside during the hottest of summer days. Because it is here, folks, first of all, I I don't think I need to sell anybody on why they should become heat adapted, but here are some very good reasons. Okay, number one and in like the most important reason is if you get adapted to the heat, you will decrease your risk of heat illness. Number one reason now if you get adapted to the heat, you will decrease your risk of heat illness. Number one reason Now if you're going to ride in the heat race in the heat, even once per year, you will do yourself, your loved ones, your training partners and the race organizers of a race that you do. You'll do them all a big favor by not being a dummy and preparing yourself well for this heat stress. Second reason is you'll you'll have decreased malperformance in hot conditions, ie you will suffer less.

Speaker 1:

So heat is a stressor and will zap your power and increase your heart rate and increase your rate of perceived effort when you ride in it, when you're not adapted to it. When you get more heat adapted, your power won't necessarily go up in the heat, but it may go down less. So you will have decreased malperformance. Additionally, you'll have improved thermal regulation. This means that your body gets more efficient at cooling itself increased sweat rate. Increased capillary density. More efficient at cooling itself. Increased sweat rate, increased capillary density by those stressors saying, hey, I need more fluid going to this area and you'll have enhanced capacity to sweat more overall. Additionally, you'll have increased performance in cooler conditions. So if you do the heat training protocols that I talk about and all of a sudden you go to a cooler environment, you'll perform better, and that's why many elites are doing heat training Now. You get a boost in those cooler environments and that primarily comes from increased plasma volume. Plasma is the watery portion of the blood and it's your body's main adaptation to the heat that will drive all the benefits that I just talked about. So, in effect, you're going to. What you're trying to do is teach your body to carry more fluid so it can sweat more, it can sweat earlier and it can sweat when it needs to. That's the primary driver in all this.

Speaker 1:

So how long does it take to become adapted to the heat? So how long does it take to become adapted to the heat? Once you start an intentional heat training protocol, you should plan on seven days at the very earliest and up to 14 days for full adaptation. For men, science is saying seven to nine days. For women, 10 to 14 days. Heat sources to use can include sauna, hot bath or hot rides, both inside and out. My best advice here is use a combination of all of these, and I'll get into that more here soon. But it's both to control the actual temperature as well as expose yourself to heat even on your days of not riding. Okay. So my best advice be open to using all the combinations of sauna, hot bath and hot rides.

Speaker 1:

Once you've gone through this heat training phase, you need to maintain it with what, uh, I don't know. Us coaches call top-offs. Okay. And the biggest concept here is what you did to build the heat. Adaptation is not what it takes to keep it meaning. You have this adaptation. Now all you need to do is kind of expose yourself to the heat every once in a while to keep that going. And these top-offs are heat exposures about every three or four days to keep telling your body hey, I need that increased plasma volume expansion. So here's some heat, keep doing your thing. And these top-offs you can again use sauna, hot bath or hot rides to get that top-off and keep the adaptation maintained.

Speaker 1:

Now let's just say you're doing a main event that's super hot, some gravel race or some big road race in the heat, I would say do your main protocol five to six weeks out from that main event. The reason for that is and I'll explain it here in just a second of in detail but the main reason is that this heat training protocol is a big stressor to the body, okay, and you want to develop that adaptation earlier on so it doesn't mess with your taper and your performance going into the race itself. So doing it sooner rather than later and then maintaining it leading into the main event is also my best advice. So let's define some of these terms that I've already been using. But we'll talk about native heat versus added heat. Native heat is essentially using the environment that is right outside your front door.

Speaker 1:

Okay, but how hot is hot? It is a great question and I would say, based on this research article that I will link to in my show notes, combined with experiential knowledge, I'd say it's right around 86 degrees Fahrenheit or 30 degrees Celsius, and that's according to the wet bulb or the real feel. The reason for that is I start to see athletes perform poorly at around that temperature. Now, this is very individual. You know my Nordic and German friends, you know they're going to start melting in 75 degrees and sunny Meanwhile. You know my athletes and friends from Southern California and Puerto Rico. They're wearing knee warmers, arm warmers and jackets when it's like 68 degrees and overcast. So, again, there's plus and minuses here and it's very individual according to, uh, like that person's previous background in history. But according to the best research I can find uh and a few others Stacy Sims, asker Zuchenrup, and again this uh, in particular this one research that I've linked to here around 86 degrees.

Speaker 1:

So when you're aiming for riding outside and exposing yourself to a heat stressor 86 or more okay, and and go for the hottest part of the day. Now, if you know that that's going to really zap you you can start doing the or develop the heat protocol. When it's even below that temperature, okay, you can start doing the or develop the heat protocol when it's even below that temperature, okay, riding outside in the heat or using some of the, the added heat, and the added heat is just that sauna, hot bath protocols that I'll cover here in a minute. Now, if you live in an area that's not super hot, I'm very envious envious of you, by the way but you can also use the sauna and hot baths to get the heat adaptation effect. Those living in a cool environment would still want this heat adaptation.

Speaker 1:

If you're competing at an event with heat or if you just want to increase performance in those cool conditions, like I talked about, the sauna and hot bath stuff are great options and they're very controllable because you know exactly the temperature that you're stressing yourself with. But if you don't have a sauna or if you don't have a bathtub or if you don't have the time to because this is a critical component if you don't have the time to get that heat stressor in post exercise, then they're not going to work as well post exercise, then they're not going to work as well. Okay. So you'll need to use native heat or heated rides to get the heat stress to your body. In the end, my best advice is to use a combination of Navy native heat, heated rides in the sun on hot bath during your heat training protocol.

Speaker 1:

So let's run through a couple examples here. Let's bring this, let's start to like just bring this thing home, and I'm going to first start with if you're and I'm going to first start with if you're going to use native heat as the primary stressor, okay. But one very, very, very big disclaimer, warning, and probably the number one takeaway from this podcast, if nothing else if you start doing your heat training protocol using native heat only or primarily, reduce your training intensity and volume during this seven to 14 day protocol so you don't get heat illness or overcook yourself Cause I see that all too often Heat is a stressor you need to risk, don't be afraid of it, but respect it. Okay. So if you're doing threshold intervals, for example, and you say I'm going to start my heat training protocol but I'm going to keep my threshold intervals in there, that's silly and not advised. You can probably do one or two sessions, but if you keep on going, you will under-recover yourself and over-stress yourself, and that is not a good situation to be in.

Speaker 1:

Additionally, you want to stay hydrated During these sessions. Push more water. If you're used to drinking a bottle an hour, move it up to a bottle and a half. If you're used to drinking a bottle and a half per hour, drink two bottles an hour. We'll talk about how you can identify how much fluid you should take in during and after a ride here in a few minutes. But stay hydrated. Your body will only form the adaptation if it has the tools it needs to work, and those tools in this case, very specifically, it's water, electrolytes and rest. So when you do these heated sessions, you need to drink water, you need to put in the salt and you need to rest afterwards. Okay, so that's my huge disclaimer, because you can really get it wrong, and when you get it wrong it's not great, okay.

Speaker 1:

So training in native heat let's use to keep it as simple as possible. Let's do a 10-day protocol and a typical Monday through Sunday work week for a time-crunched athlete, meaning you're basically going to go easy or take rest days on Monday and Friday. You're going to train midweek and then maybe have bigger weekends. That's the kind of operating premise that I'm going on here. So the first three days I'm going to start with Tuesday through Thursday you want to do regular endurance, riding for 60 to 90 minutes at the hottest part of the day and getting that heat exposure for an hour to an hour and a half. Just ride zone two. I don't care what your training program calls for, get rid of the intensity and stick it to zone two or even zone one. I don't care what your training program calls for, get rid of the intensity and stick it to zone two or even zone one if the heart rate is high during that time. Okay, so again that that kind of key temperature to be above would be about 86 degrees for the real feel, or or higher. Okay, so that's Tuesday through Thursday.

Speaker 1:

Friday, I would say don't ride at all, or do a short recovery ride in the hottest part of the day, or you can do a walk. You can do a walk for 40 to 60 minutes in the heat. You want to stimulate sweat and you want to get the sweat going. Here's where, if you're doing a native heat sort of protocol primarily, and you don't have time to use a sauna or hot bath post-workout all the time, on your off days you can use a sauna or hot bath to expose yourself to the heat if you don't have the time to go out and ride or use the combination thereof. So here the thing with this heat training protocol is you need consistent exposure for 10 or to 14 days and that's where using this added heat is really helpful. Okay, so on that Friday, uh, you can get outside in the heat, do easier training or you can use sauna or hot bath.

Speaker 1:

Days five and six, so this would be the Saturday or Sunday, ride longer, go in the heat, but again, zone two Okay, don't hit the intensity, don't jump in the group right, just yet. Zone two Okay, don't hit the intensity, don't jump in the group ride just yet. In my opinion, an experience. Monday is another rest day. You can use sauna or hot breath or go for an easy ride in the heat of the day. Keep this in mind, though, is it's not really a rest day or an easy day because you're exposing yourself to the heat and you're still moving. So again, this whole protocol is taking a lot more out of you than a normal zone two week. Just keep that in mind.

Speaker 1:

Finally, making the push on the home stretch days eight, nine and 10. This is the Tuesday through Thursday in week two. That's where, if the, if the training program had what was calling for some intensity, you could bring it up. If everything's going well, maybe ride some tempo intervals or just kind of like, get on the pedals and ride, ride high. Zone two on Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday keep it to endurance. Again, you want to ride in the heat, the hottest part of the day, to keep that exposure going.

Speaker 1:

After that, once you've completed all 10 days, and up to 14,. If you want to keep it going, you'll just need to do a top-offs, okay, but your, your heat training protocol is complete, okay, and do those top-offs every three or four days up until your main event. Or if you just want to keep on maintaining it for indefinitely, you can keep on doing that, okay, but you have formed that adaptation. And just keep in mind, once you have formed the adaptation, you don't need to keep on riddling yourself with it. You don't need to do another 14 days. In fact, what's kind of interesting is some of the research too that I'll link to in this really good article from EF cycling is, once you've built it, even if you had, say, a week, like a week off, and you didn't do your um, your top offs every three or four days, once you come back and start the heat training protocol, you would want to go for consistency again, but it would probably only take four or five days of continual exposure to get that adaptation back again.

Speaker 1:

So it's putting in the batch, putting in that heat training protocol. You want to do it right to begin with and then after that it'll be much easier to maintain or get it back. So what happens if you miss a day during your initial heat training protocol. You don't need to start over. Just simply add a day of heat to the end. So instead of ending on day 10, you would simply end on day 11. Okay, you can maybe stretch that out to day 12 and up to 14 days total if you want to, just to be sure. But you don't need to start over, and that's that should be good news.

Speaker 1:

Okay, one caveat here. Uh, more is not better, meaning more time in the heat or in more than I suggested or hotter temperatures. That won't speed up the process at all. It won't improve your adaptation. In fact, it may make it worse, because if you are too aggressive with the heat, or if you're too aggressive with like time and zone in the heat, you will cause problems. Basically, what you're trying to do is enough training on the bike to keep developing fitness or maintain fitness, while adding heat as this new stressor to get that specific adaptation. So what you'll generally see is your ATL and CTL may be going down during this time, but in actuality you're adding more stress to the total equation. More stress is coming in the door. We just can't quantify it perfectly on training peaks or anywhere else. Really, we just know that it is occurring, and so you need to adjust for this by bringing the intensity down, maybe bringing some of the volume down as well, and so this is not the time to increase volume or increase intensity in the training program. It is simply get through the heat training protocol so you form the adaptation, so that you're better in the heat, moving forward, all right.

Speaker 1:

A couple notes here on air conditioning and global heat stress. Okay, global doesn't mean like the earth. Global means like to your global, your whole life, okay, um, but the global heat stress is also a big issue too. Okay, so if you work in air conditioned environment for like eight to 10 hours a day and you have limited exposure to the outside and you're competing outside at hot races, I really recommend a heat training protocol so that you minimize the risk of heat illness at the event. That's the, again, the primary thing.

Speaker 1:

And now, if you're training outside and even exposing yourself to the heat, but it's also like intermittent, uh, because you spend so much time, you know, indoors and you can't get access to the heat, but it's also like intermittent, uh, because you spend so much time, you know, indoors and you can't get access to the sauna or hot bath immediately after training. Um, my advice is to get organized with a 10 to 14 day stretch to expose yourself to those, to the heat, and make a push for it, because having that adaptation is going to be very advantageous for all the reasons that I've mentioned. You probably just need like little life hacks, though, to get yourself out of the air conditioning on a regular basis. So, when you're driving home, roll down the windows, ok. When you have a break from work, go outside, go outside. And because I, from an experiential standpoint, I would say, when I'm trying to make that heat training protocol, and I only have an hour to an hour and a half per day with the athlete and they don't have the native exposure to the heat, the protocol is not going to be as good. So you definitely need some like real world exposure to heat while you're doing the heat training protocol and and again, like on the weekends and in between work sessions and all this kind of stuff like try to get out of air conditioning, and I do think that that will serve you well, especially during the heat training protocol.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's talk about added heat. Now. There's a couple nuances here and I'll try to make this as short and sweet as I can, but for those again who don't live in a naturally hot environment, this is the way to do it. All that much, unless you're doing a heated ride, you can also use a mix of that heated ride and, um, uh, the added heat with the sauna and the hot bath to get this effect. And it's very measurable, okay, it's very quantifiable and it's very controlled. Generally, my athletes don't get as tired during, uh, like, if we just use added heat um as much during this kind of four, 10 to 14 day protocol, because their exposure time in the heat is not as much. So I find that it just doesn't zap us as much as riding in the native heat, but it's still very effective.

Speaker 1:

But the downfall is timing of using this added heat, of using this added heat. The reason being is that you need to do your training, whatever the training is, and then get into the sauna within about five minutes or so, five or 10 minutes post-training, because the core temperature is warm, is heated up after a training session. So what we'll want to do is put or expose the body to the sauna or hot bath as quickly as we can in order to keep that heat stress going and get the full adaptation and get the full effect. The sauna needs to be around 170 to 190 degree Fahrenheit or 77 to 88 degree Celsius. You need at least 15 to 30 minutes time exposed per session at that heat and I'd probably, if you haven't done a sauna before, I'd start with probably like two by 10 or whatever you can tolerate comfortably two by 10 minutes and then build up from there. Think of it like time and zone for intervals, and we want to go up for about 30 minutes of total time and zone at that 170 to 190 degree Fahrenheit in the sauna and that will be enough to elicit a response needed for adaptation to occur. For a hot bath. What this means is you're using the bathtub in your house, you're gonna draw a hot bath and we want it to be around 105 degrees If you have a hot tub, that would work too and this is about 40 degrees Celsius. You wanna be fully submerged up to your neck if you can, and here we're looking for 20 to 30 minutes of time in tub per session.

Speaker 1:

Now, riding inside without a fan and riding in like a warm room that's a heated ride. Now room temperatures can also vary. I would say 80 degrees for the room. That's pretty warm, uh, and it goes a little contrary to that advice of the 86 degree uh wet bulb. Um, that I said for a native environment. But keep in mind, you don't have evaporated, you don't have a uh. When you're riding outside, you don't have the air uh cooling you, okay. When you're riding inside with no fan that's key you don't have as strong as evaporative cooling. The sweat comes to the skin and it can't move away as efficiently. Okay, so the room doesn't need to be as hot as that. So for most of my athletes, uh, riding uh with no fan 65 and up to 80 degrees works pretty good and you don't have to.

Speaker 1:

Personally, I don't think that you need to cover up and wear a ton of clothes. I think initially you can, okay, and here's my protocol that I use with my athletes when we're doing that. So maybe you just wear regular riding bibs and a long sleeve and you start riding endurance five to seven minutes and then hit it at about 15 minutes of tempo and get the core temperature up. You start sweating and breathing starts to get labored, okay, and what you're trying to do is stimulate core temperature right away, then take off the long sleeve or the jacket, whatever you're doing, and then just ride endurance for that 60 to 90 minutes total. So what you should observe is lots of sweat. Rate of perceived effort is higher than normal for zone two riding and heart rate should be on the upper end of zone two, maybe even creeping up into tempo, maybe even creeping up into tempo. And again, we want that 60 to 90 minutes of kind of sweaty time per session in order to uh elicit uh the response for adaptation real quick.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to blow through this uh like a 10 day, a 10 day protocol, using uh added heat. I'm going to break it down into the first three days, that's, the Tuesday through Thursday, do your normal training Okay, you can do your, your intensity, you can do your intervals, if that's what your training program calls for, and then immediately thereafter, again within five or 10 minutes, go in the sauna or the hot bath, try to get at least 15 minutes and up to 30 minutes Now, and then rehydrate and really push the fluids afterwards. Wednesday, the day in between, that's when you can do a heated endurance ride, like I just described. Day four, which would be Friday, go, you know, it's easier or a rest day, but you need to add the heat training stimulus and that's where you'd use sauna or hot bath 20 to 30 minutes. You could go a little bit longer in the sauna. If you're taking breaks, select three by 10, but again right around 30 minutes of time to exposure, with short breaks.

Speaker 1:

Day five and six this is your weekend, this is your normal training. You can jump in your group rides, you can do your your intensity, but again, that's the timing component Hit the sauna or hot bath immediately afterwards. Monday is that rest day or easy day, but you're still exposing yourself to the heat, could go a little bit longer in the sauna, take some breaks. And then days eight, nine and ten this is that Tuesday through Thursday. In week two Normal training Hit the sauna and hot bath immediately afterwards. Wednesday I do another heated ride.

Speaker 1:

Um, and because there's actually some very good applicability with uh, mentally, uh training yourself to be able to ride in the heat too, and that's why I always try to do some heated rides, even if I'm using an added heat protocol. Uh, during the heat training protocol, some questions I hear from my athletes and uh, those of you who have written in um, how do you know when you're adapted? Now I've done several episodes on heat training. You can just Google heat training time crunch, cyclists and uh, I interview uh Lindsay college who is head of the environmental chamber at the Olympic training center. We go through all these protocols and some other like really in-depth stuff, okay, so check those out If you want more on the sciencey and nerdy aspect of things. I'm trying to make this episode as practical as I possibly can. So how do you know when you're adapted? My pragmatic answer here is if you follow all the above protocols that I just described, you can be sure that you're adapted.

Speaker 1:

But what you'll notice is you'll sweat earlier and you'll sweat often. Your sweat is more watery, which means that the salt concentration is less. Now you're still probably going to see some salt rings, but it won't be maybe as heavy unless you're just like guzzle a bunch of salts or eat a eat a very, uh heavy salt, uh dinner the night before or something like that. Rate of perceived effort in the heat will come down to normal rate of perceived effort, meaning if you're doing zone two and, uh, you're in the heat zone to remember should kind of feel like that maybe four out of 10 or five out of 10. When you ride in the heat, it's probably going to feel like a six out of 10, seven out of 10 sometimes, but it's going to come back down to riding in that four or five. Even when you're in that 90 degree temperature, your heart rate's going to normalize and you'll feel less exhausted in the heat when you're properly adapted to the heat itself.

Speaker 1:

Now a lot of people have questions on fancy wearables. Okay, so we're talking all the gadgets and gizmos that you can attach to your body or put inside your body to make sure that you're training for the heat properly. To make sure that you're training for the heat properly. Now, I've tried a few of these and my general recommendation is for those listening here for the amateur athlete, you don't need core temperature sensors or sweat testing patches or sweat rate analyzers. You can do the simple stuff like I've just described here. These, these very practical protocols. One simple thing you can do is weigh yourself before and after your ride to know your sweat rate. Okay, now what you need to do is factor in how much you actually drank on the ride, and I'll link to a little worksheet from Oscar Zuckerman that describes how to do this. But if you do this before your heat training protocol and you do it after your heat training protocol, you'll also be able to determine if you are sweating more in total and also sweating earlier as well, because this will help bring awareness to everything that you're doing with your training, your heat in your body awareness.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about that for a second. Body awareness let's talk about that for a second. I, with my athletes, I try to cultivate high awareness. Why? Because this is literally a bazillion times more valuable than wearing whatever these devices are. Because when all technology fails which it will and it does you will need to be a fully functioning athlete, because you're a human, you're not a robot. You're going to need to keep on going, no matter what your core temperature is or your heart rate is or the power. Like stuff breaks, stuff goes away, right, and you need to keep on going.

Speaker 1:

Now for heat. Hot is hot, okay, like in these saunas, in the hot bath that we're talking about. Those are hot temperatures. You will become very uncomfortable. Hot ride sessions will feel terrible, they'll feel miserable and you'll be like why the hell am I doing this? Remind yourself, it's for the future adaptation, it's to perform better in the heat and remember it's to minimize the risk of heat illness.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you use a core temperature sensor or measure your internal body temperature during these sessions, you want that internal core temp to be around 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It's like 40 degrees Celsius. You build it up to there and you ride that for a full hour Celsius Okay. You build it up to there and you ride that for a full hour Okay. Our natural body temperatures three degrees lower than that. And really, when we are reading a lot of these research articles, what if you get much above a hundred degrees for internal body temperature? Your body doesn't function that well and there's a lot of harm that you can do. So that's why I think it is also better to have high awareness, read your body, know the perceived effort of what's going on and err on the side of a little less, especially when you're utilizing something like the core temperature sensor, because how accurate are they, especially if it's an external core temperature sensor and things like this, and if you're just living and dying by the numbers and those numbers are off. The margin of error is very small here. So again, I think you're better off going less tech on something like a heat training protocol rather than high tech right now, especially for the amateur athlete.

Speaker 1:

Now these wearables can help cultivate awareness. So if you do use one, use it for a few weeks to get a sense of the sensations and kind of where those numbers lie and what other indicators are. But I would not rely 100% upon them to tell you if you're heat adapted or your sweat composition or anything like that, because it's not as straightforward as that sweat composition or anything like that, because it's not as straightforward as that. We know that there's a time course of adaptation and a dose response to all of this and it can be very different to the individual and to different groups. So the guidelines I provided for you will cover those differences and those nuances in your physiology better than one or all of these fancy devices out there.

Speaker 1:

Okay, cause you're not going to find one that says you are now heat adapted, even though, I don't know, maybe your Garmin says that now. I have no idea. It's wrong, by the way. So follow the protocol and I fully confident that you will find success in that, okay. So finally, to wrap this thing up, be careful and be practical.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, heat is hot right now and because all the pros do it. There's lots of benefits and you know what. It's readily accessible and available. However, you can get it wrong by being too aggressive with it. Too aggressive means too much intensity in the heat before you're adapted. It also means too much total time in the heat before you're adapted. And, like I said before, more is not better. Consistent exposures and moderation is better when you're doing a heat training protocol.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you want further reading on this, um, including the protocols themselves, was like Stacy Sims and ask her. As you can, I've linked to all those in my show notes. And if you're going to go after a heat training protocol, uh, this year I would. I would do further reading. I wouldn't just listen to the nerdy podcast dude um only. Okay. So definitely, definitely hear what I have to say here, but I would do further reading to wrap your brain around what you're about to do and then proceed going forward. Now remember, if you miss a day, simply add on another day at the end of the protocol. You don't need to restart. Okay, and if more ever applies, I would say the only area where the kind of more would be better is to run the protocol out to 14 days total. If you want to be sure that you're fully adapted to the heat after that, I think that you're wasting your time. But what we know in research is up to 14 days is beneficial. Now, if you do this gradually and progressively, like discussed here, you should notice better heat tolerance, decreased rate of perceived effort and decreased heart rate in the heat. You'll also notice increased sweat rate, more watery sweat, and you'll have a nice boost of performance when the heat finally comes down and you turn up to the group ride and smash it All right.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's it. That's our show for today. If you liked what you heard, please share it with a friend or your training partner, and if you didn't, I guess let me know or ask whatever question that you want. Uh, by going to train rightcom backslash podcast and click on ask a training question. All of this is the best way to grow the show and make sure that you keep on getting short, actionable training advice delivered to you weekly. And if any of this moves you and you want more, please know that you can hire a coach for a consultation or monthly coaching.

Speaker 1:

All of that can be found on trainrightcom. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you here again next week for more hot topics on all things endurance training. Thanks for joining us on the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you want even more actionable training advice, head over to trainrightcom backslash newsletter and subscribe to our free weekly publication. Each week you'll get in-depth training content that goes beyond what we cover here on the podcast. That'll help you take your training to the next level. That's all for now. Until next time, train hard, train smart, train right.

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