Cooling Players down in hot weather

[James]

Hi all, can anybody help me with this one.

On sunday our game commenced at 930am. By half time it was hot (10am) so in an attempt to help reduce the players core body temp i got them to get under the showers and cool their head and upper body. This was a strategy i used as a player.

At the end of the game i was advised that wetting the players in this way would result in the players pores blocking up and the player will stop sweating. As a result the player will become dehydrated.

I under stand that the best practice is not to play in excessive heat, but did my attempt to cool the players down actually work against them?

[RIDER]

Hi all, can anybody help me with this one.

On sunday our game commenced at 930am. By half time it was hot (10am) so in an attempt to help reduce the players core body temp i got them to get under the showers and cool their head and upper body. This was a strategy i used as a player.

At the end of the game i was advised that wetting the players in this way would result in the players pores blocking up and the player will stop sweating. As a result the player will become dehydrated.

I under stand that the best practice is not to play in excessive heat, but did my attempt to cool the players down actually work against them?

i think by what you did you made things worse.
you see when you jump out of a cold shower your temp body temp has dropped,by a lot,then you go back into heat and play and the body temp,changes rapidly again,your body has not had the chance to adapt to one temp,for a long enough period of time,this could be very damaging to your players.
by keeping the body fluids up and the body temp at steady temp you should be ok if players are fit enough,i was in the same position yesterday with my kids playing for 70mins and they were fine,with drink breaks every 20mins.

[James]

blues

I spoke to a sports trainer regarding the temp change between the shower and gameplay.

He advised me there is an issue with applying 'iced water' but he said the temperature difference between the shower and the outside wouldnt have an adverse effect.

He did state that young kids dont have alot of sweat glands in operation, so they will not be able to cool down as well as teenagers through sweating. This means they a more susseptible to effects from the heat.

The crows etc use ice vests and i think evaporative cooling to cool their players down but i dont know if they water them down.

The questions i have are -
(1) does the body think it is cooler than it really is if the it is wet from fluid (saturated t shirt) and stop the natural cooling process.

or

(2) Will the body over heat with steam when the saturated shirt of the player begins to heat up when back onto the field.

It was common practice when i was playing to shower cool down at half time, but so was running 10km a night through all of the preseason - not common practice anymore.

I have emailed the federation for their opinion or if they can give me a contact to answer this one. I will keep you posted.

Until i know for sure i will not apply the 'shower treatment'.

[Squizzy]

It would be interesting to see what the FFSA/FFA say on this because I've had kids pull drink bottles out of their parents eskys or the canteen fridge/cooler bin and poor it over themselves. Even normally temperatured (sitting on the side line or in their bags in the change room) water bottles.

I've heard that using iced water is bad. Same as drinking said ice cooled water as it doesn't soak (for want of a better word this late) into the body anywhere near effectively.

As said above though, use more breaks in play for the kids to recover and cool down. However, this is when the body perspires the most - which will in effect "saturate" their clothes. And then we ask them to play again for another 10/15 mins (or whatever). During this time, humidity will play a part. So at each break, it is important that they keep up their fluids properly.

I hope that makes sense.

[Jay Walking]

It is actually better to drink cool water rather than icey water and when it is colder it takes longer to absorb into the body and rehydrates slower.

[RIDER]

IT WILL INTERESTING TO SEE WHAT THE FEDERATION HAS GOT TO SAY.

Their are a lot of different ideas out their but are we harming the kids or players or not.

[James]

No reply from the FFSA yet.

I got some advice from a sports scientist on this one. He said that anything to cool the player down is benificial.

Ice vests, showers are good. He did stress that the young ones have a very small heat tolerance band so we need to be very careful.

[Dr.D]

Malcolm, applying a cold wet towel or ice pack to the back of the neck, the underarms and even the groin area are the best ways to quickly reduce the bodies core temperature.

Sports Medicine Australia recommend regular breaks for drinks, rest in the shade and spray bottles on their website.

Check out the site http://www.smasa.asn.au got to resources and they have a whole section of playing sport under environmental conditions.