How much does heat affect your erg training?

[Gammmmo]

I wonder if one of these cooling vests would make a big difference? http://store.coolvest.com/flex-vest-bla ... ct-reviews

I tried a low-cost variant of that for a half-dozen rows or so and found that it was incredibly difficult to row comfortably in, and didn't provide much cooling -- far less than a small fan.

I think ice-vests are for PRE-cooling. They do help a little..plenty of pro cycling teams use them now and often when warming up. You've got two choices when coping with heat - you either use cooling equipment OR work on the body's own tolerance to heat stress,

[gcanyon]

ice-vests are for PRE-cooling.

That makes more sense. I hate being cold, so chilling my body before a row seems like an awful idea to me. What I need is something that lightly straps around wrists/ankles/neck(?) and circulates ice water through it from a large reservoir beside the rowing machine. Anyone care to engineer something like that?

[Droode]

I find that it is not just the heat but how high the air humidity is in combination with the heat. I live in the Normandy region of France and the humidity is very high throughout the year, this past week we have had unseasonably high temperatures with humidity readings of 85% to just under 100% no rain just heavy hot air. Yesterday it caused me to back down 20 minutes into a 30 minute moderately challenging session, this is the first time since I can not remember when that my body said back off. I was drenched and did not feel like I had really done anything particularly hard but that is the heat/humidity factor and it makes me puss out, in the winter I row with the windows open so I am worthless in the summer.

[Gammmmo]

I did a long-ish steady session with HR last week to test how much heat might be affecting me. Over the course of 12K@~2:03.0/500m my HR rose over 25 beats. This is cardiac drift. It is the body trying to cool itself (and/or deal with some other factor such as dehydration) by sending blood to the skin. The consequent loss of blood in the heart means stroke volume reduces and HR needs to increase in order to keep the pace. RPE remains largely the same.

Now, here is the issue I'd be interested in people commenting on...with a high intensity session which is quite protracted the HR will be high to start with so as heat builds up will HR have less "headroom" to move into and therefore would this affect erg training by limiting pace??? If so, I don't think we take cooling as seriously as we should.

[hjs]

I did a long-ish steady session with HR last week to test how much heat might be affecting me. Over the course of 12K@~2:03.0/500m my HR rose over 25 beats. This is cardiac drift. It is the body trying to cool itself (and/or deal with some other factor such as dehydration) by sending blood to the skin. The consequent loss of blood in the heart means stroke volume reduces and HR needs to increase in order to keep the pace. RPE remains largely the same.

Now, here is the issue I'd be interested in people commenting on...with a high intensity session which is quite protracted the HR will be high to start with so as heat builds up will HR have less "headroom" to move into and therefore would this affect erg training by limiting pace??? If so, I don't think we take cooling as seriously as we should.

The more blood is needed for cooling, the less is left for the muscle, for our heart that does not matter, trainingeffect would be the same. For the muscle its different, they do less work.
Loss of bloodvolume is the main problem, erging is a static, slow moving thing, so not much chance to cool off. Not sitting directly in the sun and sitting in a breeze helps. But no matter what, we loose fluids and when its really warm a lot. Even in fool conditions without wind once heated up I sweat lots.
Trying longer TT is warm/humid weather is more or less a waist of effort. It will never be a succes compared to cooler conditions.
Getting used to warmer conditions helps a bit, but in the end not much. Its not for nothing Marathon races in warmer situations never produce great results.
The only thing thats really helps is drinking, see cycling, but at running and erging this does cost time, cyvling is also much easier, lots of time is done at very moderate intensities, and cycling the peleton safe a lot of energy. No comparing with erging which is seldom easy. Although it is possible, some people row hours a day, but pace should be very relax. With enough drinking/eating.

[Droode]

I did a long-ish steady session with HR last week to test how much heat might be affecting me. Over the course of 12K@~2:03.0/500m my HR rose over 25 beats. This is cardiac drift. It is the body trying to cool itself (and/or deal with some other factor such as dehydration) by sending blood to the skin. The consequent loss of blood in the heart means stroke volume reduces and HR needs to increase in order to keep the pace. RPE remains largely the same.

Now, here is the issue I'd be interested in people commenting on...with a high intensity session which is quite protracted the HR will be high to start with so as heat builds up will HR have less "headroom" to move into and therefore would this affect erg training by limiting pace??? If so, I don't think we take cooling as seriously as we should.

I absolutely believe it does as I could of held my pace yesterday but the HR elevation left me no room to continue so I had to back off for seven and a half minutes at the end and finished the last two and a half strong but my average pace for the whole 30 minutes was well below average for this type of session. During the summer I try to maintain a decent level of fitness so that when the cooler days come, end of August beginning of September, I can ramp things up without feeling like I am starting all over again. I always peak the end of November through the second week of January and then I back off the intensity sessions a bit. However summer time heat and humidity are kryptonite for me so I just try and maintain with lots of lsd sessions and know better training days are ahead.

[Anth_F]

Affected me massively on an 8k recently. Started out fine, then after 20 or so mins 2:03 pace felt like 1:55 pace (couldn't breathe) Heat and humidity was insane that day.

[gregsmith01748]

Interesting podcast by a coach and sport scientist in the Australia rowing program about heat training. They talk about the adaptations that you get from training in a hot environment (mainly increased blood volume). They do a block of 10 to 12 sessions in a heat tent on watt bikes over two weeks , and then do 1 or 2 sessions a week after that to maintain the effect. They started to do this in the run up to the Beijing Olympics, but decided that it had beneficial effects even if they were prepping for races in less punishing conditions.

They said that the focus these sessions on endurance. A typical session would be 60 minutes at ~70% to 80% MHR in a tent with the temp around 30C. The wattage is way reduced from what this session would be at normal temps.

It's an interesting discussion of the topic.
https://soundcloud.com/user-877376293/brow-show-2-heat

[Gammmmo]

@Greg - thanks hugely for that link. Is heat training something you (or anyone else) have experimented with? Having had no success on my performance with passive heat acclimation I am going to try a 1-2 week block of heat training on the erg by not using a fan, maybe wearing extra clothing and doing "steady-state" sessions building up the duration. Right now, I'm doing intervals twice a week aimed at improving principally my 5K time - which amazingly is something I've not really bought into so far, so I will try heat training after I can ascertain whether the intervals have helped so as to not muddy the water as to what may or may not have worked.

BTW - the file format is m4a which didn't work on my mp3 device so I used media.io to convert it.

[lwtguy]

I did it, but not intentionally. Two summers ago I was training in my college boathouse and the A/C broke. So for two weeks I erged on the patio outside. It just so happened to be in the middle of July during one of the hottest stretched I can remember. It was regularly 75 (24 C) degrees, and one morning it got above 80 (26 C), with humidity. It was a miserable slog of training but once I got out of it a few weeks later it took significantly less effort to get the same pacing. It really helped me in the end.

[gregsmith01748]

I've never done heat training purposely, but every year I notice a delightful bump in performance in the fall as the temps go down. Even in the mornings, its pretty warm and humid on the water in July and August.

One thing to note: The podcast is about olympic level training. They are typically doing about 12-15 training sessions per week, so devoting 5 sessions in a week makes it a high priority, but not an exclusive focus. I'm not sure what the best way to tailor heat training for a masters athlete who is doing 6 or so sessions a week. It might be best to do 4 daily 40 minute low intensity sessions in heat in a row, and one some days double up with a shorter sprint session or strength session. After the initial block of two weeks doing that, I would probably do 1 session a week.

But for goodness sake be careful with this. The other thing they say in the podcast is that they do heat training with a physician and sport scientist in attendance. I think this kind of training could expose you to risks of hyperthermia, hyponatremia, dehydration, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and probably the regular kind of stroke too!

[Gammmmo]

Yes, don't worry.

I did say I'd build up gradually as per when I did passive heat acclimation in a sauna. I thought I'd just do say 5K at say 2:00-2:05/500m ish sort of pace and then build from there depending on how that felt. There were alot of key points in that podcast that were useful e.g. weighing before/after, do a block in a short amount of time, use clothing etc etc.

The bit in the podcast about some HWTs creating literally litres of sweat below the erg reminded me of this (amazing performance) around 1:50 into the vid :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQGRo733mMQ

[svish]

I'm kind of a newb/rookie, but I can definitely say I find it gets more difficult to row as temperature in my apartment increases and air quality lowers... so before I start rowing I now make sure to set the ventilation system in my current place on max...

Also, a summer or two ago, I did a 10k rowing session outside, in the sun, on my parents veranda... unsure if I managed to complete the distance, think I didn't, but do know I ended up feeling dizzy, nauseous, and with a rather large heat rash... so... yeah... like others have noted: be careful with heat

[DNA_Rower]

I think my problem with the heat is partly psychological. I am now taking breaks when I do long pieces. The longest single piece I will do is 5k now. 30min or 10k gets at least one break. But then it probably becomes more difficult to get back in to doing the full piece once the temperature gets back down to reasonable.

[DNA_Rower]

Here is a potentially dumb question. When the gym is hot and I am sweating lots on the erg, my instinct in any break is to use my towel to wipe my legs and arms and head to get rid of the sweat. Strictly speaking should I be leaving it there to help with cooling?