Training or competing in the heat can cause significant declines in the performance of any athlete., in some cases of 6 al 16% but being an individual response to the heat. But... Why does this happen? Here are a few causes:

• Dehydration and greater loss of salts and minerals through sweating.
• Decreases sysol volume and increases heart rate.
• Increases body temperature.
• Increases the use of glycogen as an energy substrate.
• stomach problems.
• Increases the feeling of effort caused by thermal discomfort.

One of the main symptoms that the heat is affecting our performance is that thecardiac drift which is an increase in HR, a decrease in stroke volume (amount of blood that our heart pumps with each beat) This is due to a loss of plasma volume (total blood volume) through sweating, that this will be produced to try to cool and maintain our body temperature, avoiding exceeding certain temperatures. In this way our body avoids more serious situations for our health such as heat stroke., that in some cases, can cause death.

All this drift and the mechanisms that are activated to avoid heat stress are produced by our nervous system, which will slow down our performance when our body temperature reaches very high temperatures that can cause damage to our body.. Add that themaximum temperature that our body is able to tolerate would bearound 40º in trained endurance athletes.

Even so, Avoiding reaching these temperatures can help us prevent greater energy expenditure since we will work at a lower HR and, above all, by seeing different studies., when our body later reaches high temperatures or does not reach them at all, Blood lactate will also be lower in cases where this temperature is not as high compared to other subjects in the same test., but in this case it will be more linked to a greater or lesser degree of dehydration that the athlete has..

Therefore, It could be interesting from the start for the athlete to start the competition with the lowest possible temperature., using cooling strategies such as using refrigerated clothing such as ice vests, immersion in cold water or drinking liquid at very low temperatures (Arngrïmsson et al 2004).

Finally, we must also take into account that to withstand this thermal stress produced by heat we must use nutritional strategies that allow usreplenish electrolytes How can sodium be?, Therefore, we must drink isotonic drinks since many of them provide adequate concentrations of electrolytes and carbohydrates..