In this post I would like to come back to the problem of exercising and racing respectively in the heat. Also this text refers to a publication on the blog of »The Science of Sport«.
Especially in exercise science over-heating is primarily outlined as induced by the environment: bright sunshine with high temperatures, high humidity and dehydration. All documented reports account for other reasons than environmental ones. Even though the view that heat stoke is a cause of hot weather is prevailing doggedly. Just recently when I have been at the triathlon world championship in Kona on Big Island, Hawaii, heat and humidity has been the big issue. It has become a major topic of the pychological warfare taking place around this tough race.
Nobody can doubt that the environmental conditions there are extreme, nevertheless heat stroke is not a common problem among the athletes. To raise your doubts concerning the well accepted scientific concept of heat stroke and temperature regulation I want to draw your attention upon the fact how different various people perceive temperature. There are those who dress with short sleeves and a sleeveless jacket even if the temperature is a good deal below 10°C and there are others who feel chilly if the thermometer displays comfortable 20°C and above. And moreover, it is common sense that our feeling for temperature is not a stable constant condition but changes depending on our body’s condition. His ability to regulate and adapt the weather situation is only one variable and obviously not of such crucial importance (the fact of heat loss, production and storage is certainly there, e.g. evaporization, radiation and convection)
I think when it comes to thermoregulation in the cold insulation becomes central, nevertheless excessive endogeneic heat production and »heat stroke« may be possible. Of course, we won’t use this term, but the phenomenon remains the same, I suggest.
But now back to the article of Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas. Thermoregulation they state is a far more complex physiological phenomenon than a simple balance between heat loss and heat production.