DOHA: Few researchers have investigated the effect of heat on elite athletes’ performance in competition, but Aspetar will soon share facts on players’ health and performance under the heat.
Dr Sebastien Racinais, head of research at Aspetar, is one of those scientists working on the topic for more than a decade.
In fact, the pre-season of most team sports take place in these conditions, and if you add the post-holiday fitness levels of most players, it makes achieving adequate performance at the beginning of the season even more difficult.
On the purpose of water break applied on European football championships, Dr Sebastien, said: “The purpose of a break is to allow time for both cooling and hydration. A three minutes break is likely too short to allow for large external cooling, but it still provide a relief for the player, and allow hydration with a mix of external and internal cooling”.
This year and because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many football leagues resumed during the summer, where heat increases, and where cooling break applied.
The break times are determined by the referee, which is the middle of each half.
The players need to stay hydrated which was part of the protocols to restart the season is also that the players would have to drink from their own personalised water bottles as part of measures to ensure that players don’t share water bottle which could lead to a spread of the coronavirus.
The Qatar Stars League clubs returned to training on June 10, and the league will resume on July 24 at the air-conditioned stadium.
However, for other countries competing in the heat it is more challenging.
“An AC stadium is one of the measures to minimise the heat stress during a game. Other environmental measures include using shade or playing by night,” said Dr Sebastien.
“An increase in muscle temperature (e.g. through warm-up) has several benefits for explosive athletic performance such as sprints, jumps or throws. However, preventing an excessive rise in core body temperature during prolonged exercise requires transferring metabolic heat from the working muscles and core, to the skin and then onto the environment.”
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