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Effects of warm-up and precooling on endurance performance in the heat

¹ Institute of Sports Science, University of Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany
² Institute of Sports Science, University of Muenster, Muenster, Germany

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr S Ückert
Institute of Sports Science, University of Dortmund, Otto-Hahn-Str 3, 44227 Dortmund, Germany; sandra.ueckert{at}uni-dortmund.de

Objective: To examine the effects of different thermoregulatory preparation procedures (warm-up (WU), precooling (PC), control (C)) on endurance performance in the heat.

Methods: 20 male subjects completed three treadmill runs to exhaustion (5 days apart). In each session, all subjects performed an incremental running test after WU (20 min at 70% maximum heart rate (HR)), after PC (wearing a cooling vest (0°C–5°C) for 20 min at rest) or without particular preparation (C). After a 5-min break, the exercise protocol commenced at a workload of 9 km/h and was increased by 1 km/h every 5 min until the point of volitional fatigue. Running performance, HR, blood lactate concentration, tympanic temperature and skin temperature were measured in each trial.

Results: In the PC condition, the running performance (32.5 (5.1) min; mean (SD)) was significantly (p<0.05) higher than in WU (26.9 (4.6) min) and in C conditions (30.3 (4.3) min). During the first 30 min of testing, HR, tympanic temperature and skin temperature were significantly (p<0.05) lower after PC than after WU. There were no significant differences in lactate concentration; however, there was a trend to lower values after WU.

Conclusions: The use of an ice-cooling vest for 20 min before exercising improved running performance, whereas the 20 min WU procedure had a distinctly detrimental effect. Cooling procedures including additional parts of the body such as the head and the neck might further enhance the effectiveness of PC measures.

Abbreviations: BL, blood lactate; bpm, beats per minute; C, control; CT, core temperature; HR, heart rate; PC, precooling; ST, skin temperature; TPP, thermoregulatory preparation; Tt, tympanic temperature; WU, warm-up