Supercharge your Exercise Performance & Recovery with Cooling
Our body produces heat when we exercise, causing our core temperature to rise. This Temperature rise can lead to fatigue and decreased performance, making it difficult to sustain our workout routine. But what if we could supercharge our exercise performance and recovery with cooling? In this blog post, we will dive into the fascinating aspects of the Supercharge Exercise Performance & Recovery with Cooling | Huberman Lab Podcast #19 and explore how cooling can benefit our body during exercise.
Before we delve deeper into the topic, let’s summarize the main points we will cover in this blog post:
1. Why cooling is essential for exercise performance and recovery
2. The science behind how cooling helps improve endurance and performance
3. Surprising ways to incorporate cooling into your exercise routine
Why Cooling is Essential for Exercise Performance and Recovery
As mentioned earlier, during exercise, our body produces heat which can lead to fatigue and decreased performance. This is where cooling comes in. By cooling the body, not only can we reduce core temperature and prevent overheating, but we can also enhance our exercise performance and recovery.
According to neuroscientist and tenured professor at Stanford University, Dr. Andrew Huberman, cooling is a crucial step for optimizing workout performance and recovery. In his Huberman Lab Podcast #19, he explains how cooling can enhance endurance, prevent fatigue and muscle damage, and even promote fat loss.
The Science Behind How Cooling Helps Improve Endurance and Performance
When we exercise, our heart rate and blood flow increase, causing muscle energy stores to deplete. Cooling can help slow down this energy depletion, allowing us to increase our endurance and performance.
In the podcast, Dr. Huberman explains how cooling can improve muscle function and reduce muscle damage during exercise. By cooling the muscles, we can reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, two key factors contributing to muscle damage and fatigue.
Furthermore, cooling can promote fat loss by increasing the number of brown fat cells in the body. Brown fat cells are metabolically active and can burn calories to produce heat. By triggering the production of brown fat cells, we can enhance our body’s ability to burn fat and improve overall metabolic health.
Surprising Ways to Incorporate Cooling into Your Exercise Routine
Now that we understand how cooling can benefit our exercise performance and recovery let’s explore some surprising ways to incorporate it into our workouts.
Ice Baths – Taking an ice bath after exercise can help reduce inflammation and muscle damage, allowing the body to recover faster. According to Dr. Huberman, taking an ice bath 5-10 minutes after exercise can help improve endurance and performance.
Cold Showers – Unlike ice baths, cold showers can help reduce inflammation and muscle damage. A 30-second cold shower at the end of your workout can enhance recovery and improve overall performance.
Cooling Vests – Wearing a cooling vest during exercise can help lower core body temperature and enhance endurance. This is especially helpful for athletes and individuals who exercise in hot and humid climates.
Cooling Towels – Cool towels can help regulate body temperature during exercise, preventing overheating and fatigue. Wet the towel and wrap it around your neck or head for an instant cooling effect.
In conclusion, integrating cooling into our exercise routine can provide numerous benefits to our body during exercise, including enhanced endurance, decreased fatigue and muscle damage, and even fat loss. So next time you hit the gym or run, consider incorporating some cooling techniques to take your workout to the next level.
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Source Description
In this episode, I explain the science of heating and cooling the body, a process called thermoregulation– and how to apply that knowledge to significantly improve physical performance. I describe the three areas of our body that can remove heat (or bring heat into the body) faster than anywhere else, why that is so, and how proper cooling of these areas with specific protocols can allow people to perform 200-600% more volume and repetitions of resistance exercises at the same weight loads, or to run, cycle or swim significantly further. I also describe how to use directed cooling of so-called glabrous skin: the bottoms of feet, palms, and face, to significantly enhance recovery times from exercise. Also, why the standard practices of trying to heat up or cool the body via the torso or whole-body submersion in the cold can be inefficient and dangerous– and the better alternatives. Finally, I discuss the temperature effects of caffeine, alcohol, and anti-inflammatory compounds. The information in this episode is focused on mechanisms and tools for increasing athletic or exercise performance.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:05:08 Physical Performance & Skill Learning
00:06:40 Optimal Learning Protocol (Recap): 4 Steps
00:08:31 Variables Impacting Physical Performance
00:10:00 Temperature Is the Dominant Variable
00:12:08 Understanding Mechanism Is Key
00:13:42 Heat: The Enemy of All Performance (& Why)
00:16:30 Blood Flow & Sweating & Piloerection
00:22:35 Heat Is What Limits Effort: Even If You Feel Fine/Motivated
00:25:29 Proper Cooling Can Double, Triple, Quadruple (Or More) Your Ability
00:26:42 Heat-Induced Confusion & Death
00:30:02 The Three Body Parts Best For Heating & Cooling Your Whole Body
00:31:38 Face, Palms, Bottoms of Feet; Glabrous Skin
00:33:00 Arterio-Venous Anastamoses (AVAs) Are Super Cool(ing)!
00:37:15 Palmar Cooling Can Supercharge Your Athletic Performance
00:38:35 ATP, Pyruvate Kinase & Heat
00:40:55 Palmer Cooling Outperforms Anabolic Steroids Several-Fold
00:43:45 Increasing Endurance, Willpower & Persistence
00:46:33 Cardiac Drift, & Moving the” I Quit” Point
00:50:44 Deliberate Heating: Myths and Better Protocols
00:53:20 Protocols For Self-Directed Cooling To Vastly Improve Performance
00:59:23 How To Use Cold To Recover Faster & More Thoroughly
01:02:05 Ice Baths & Cold Showers Can Prevent Training Progress: mTOR, etc.
01:06:29 Alcohol, Caffeine, NSAIDs: Their Temperature Effects Matter
01:09:44 Are Stimulants Counter-Productive For Performance? It Depends.
01:12:00 The Caffeine Rule & “Caffeine Adaptation”
01:14:20 NSAIDs for Training: Performance Enhancements & Risks
01:17:00 The Best Way to Explore Your Own “Parameter Space.”
01:18:35 Tools: How To Try
01:21:35 Cost-Free Support, & Additional Support & Resources
Please note that The Huberman Lab Podcast differs from Dr. Huberman’s teaching and research roles at Stanford University School of Medicine. The information provided in this show is not medical advice, nor should it be taken or applied as a replacement for medical advice. The Huberman Lab Podcast, its employees, guests, and affiliates assume no liability for applying the information discussed.
Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac – https://www.blabacphoto.com
