By David Sheldon
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In preparation for the 2023 FIH Hockey Women’s Junior World Cup in Santiago, Chile in December, where temperatures regularly exceed 30oC, EDCAP Scholar and goalkeeper Evie Wood has been following a heat acclimation protocol. The protocol was carefully drawn up and supervised by exercise physiologists Dave Sheldon and Dan Lothian, as part of their dual roles between UB Sport & Fitness and the GSSPP.
Using a mixture of active and passive heat exposures across a number of weeks, Evie completed weekly 90-min bike sessions in the SportExR environmental chamber, supplemented with regular 30-min post-exercise sauna bathing sessions as a practical alternative, thus enabling her to better manage her training load and complete her usual hockey-specific training alongside this.
Chronic exposure to such environments drives several adaptations, resulting in a multitude of positive thermoregulatory responses. These include a lower resting and exercising core temperature, heart rate and perception of effort, as well as an increased sweat rate and thermal comfort, to name but a few. All of which meant that Evie was well-equipped and ready to take on that Chile heat!
More information on the Elite Dual Career Athlete Pathway (EDCAP) can be found here.
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D.Sheldon.1@bham.ac.uk