The human body is an engine with efficiency similar to a car engine. In both cases, about three-quarters of the energy consumed is released as heat. That’s why it’s easy to heat the interior of a car: just blow some of that heat from the engine into the cabin. And it’s why endurance athletes worry a lot about getting too hot but mostly view cold as a minor annoyance rather than a fundamental limit on performance. If you’re pushing hard enough, you won’t be cold for long—right?
But new research published in the Journal of Applied Physiology suggests that cold really does diminish endurance performance. That’s contrary to what some previous research has found, but those earlier studies often involved volunteers who were ushered into a cold room and then immediately asked to exercise without waiting for their body temperatures to drop. In the new study, the volunteers got cold—and then stayed cold, no matter how hard they exercised. That’s a lesson that winter athletes will want to keep in mind next time they’re lingering in frosty air before a workout or a race.
The study was led by Phillip Wallace…
