Beat the Heat: Win the Game

Your team is a force. You can see their hard work on and off the field: sweat, grass stains, maybe bruises. But you can’t see their biggest competition. It’s not the team on the other side of the state or the country. It’s the heat. High temperatures can hold them back from performing their best and even lead to serious medical emergencies.

To build a winning strategy, focus on heat illness prevention for athletes and use reliable cooling strategies during training, competition, and recovery.

How Heat Affects Athletic Performance

Temperatures over 85°F aren’t just uncomfortable—they’re dangerous. Unlike a hard workout, heat isn’t something athletes can push through with grit. Just feeling hot can reduce endurance performance by up to 9%.

Slower sprint times, missed shots, and fumbled plays can be signs of a serious medical condition like heat illness or heatstroke. Athletes like football players are especially vulnerable due to the weight and insulation of their equipment, body types, and artificial turfs which raise on-field temperatures.

Signs of Heat Illness in Athletes

Heat illness sets in when the body can no longer regulate its core temperature. Heat illness can quickly progress to heat stroke if left untreated.

Teach your team to spot these warning signs:

• Muscles: Cramps or spasms in arms, legs, or abdomen
• Skin: Heavy sweating, chills, pale or flushed skin
• Mental State: Confusion, dizziness, fainting, or seizures
• Digestive Issues: Nausea or vomiting
• Temperature: Body temperature above 104°F

If any of these symptoms appear, stop activity immediately. Help your athlete move to a cool or shaded area and cool their body with wet towels and ice packs (do not apply ice packs directly on the skin). Seek medical attention if symptoms don’t improve.

How to Prevent Heat Illness in Sports

At its worst, heat illness can lead to death. Even when it’s caught early, it can still harm your players and keep them out of the game. Preventing heat illness in athletes starts with preparation:

• Adjust outdoor practices based on the weather using Wet Bulb Global Temperature (WBGT) guidelines
• Schedule frequent breaks
• Gradually introduce heat into training regimens

Boost Athlete Safety and Performance in the Heat

A winning strategy prevents heat illness and helps athletes prepare to play in the heat. Targeted heat training keeps athletes safe, helps them recover faster, and gives them a competitive edge.

What is Heat Training For Athletes?

Heat training, also known as heat acclimatization, helps the body adapt to hot environments. During heat training, athletes exercise in the heat, gradually increasing the intensity and duration of their workouts over a 10 to 14-day period. This tolerance helps reduce the harmful symptoms caused by heat, like overheating, fatigue, and muscle cramps.

When paired with active cooling methods, heat training also improves cardiovascular efficiency, reduces perceived exertion, and improves athletic performance in hot conditions.

How to Tell if Heat Training is Effective

Most approaches to heat training focus on exercising in the heat, not staying cool. Yet the key to successful heat training is balancing heat exposure with cool recovery. Athletes should slowly ramp up their training in hot temperatures while properly hydrating and monitoring for signs of heat illness. After every session, they should focus on recovery and cooling their bodies down to relax tired muscles and reduce the chance of injury.

Maximize Training With Evaporative Cooling

To get the most out of heat training and prevent heat illness, coaches and athletes turn to quick and reliable solutions like Portacool’s evaporative coolers. Evaporative coolers can lower the ambient temperature by as much as 30°F. By pulling in hot air and passing it through water-saturated pads, they chill the air without added moisture or chemicals. Then, people inside the cool zone feel immediate relief from the heat.

Portacool makes it easy to regulate and control temperature so athletes can keep their cool and gradually train in hotter environments. That means less risk of heat illness and more time spent with their head in the game.

Put Portacool on your team

Top teams like the Mean Green trust Portacool to help them tackle the heat during pre-season training, as well as practices, games, and more:

“Anything we can do to lower the players’ temperature or help them recover can give them a competitive edge, but it is also important to just ensure they stay safe…. Whether we are at home or on the road, we have our Portacool evaporative coolers on the sidelines with us.” – Jeff Smith, Senior Associate Athletic Director of Sports Medicine at the University of North Texas.

Best Places for Evaporative Coolers in Sports Facilities

Portacools train and play with your team. Since Portacool evaporative coolers use evaporation to reduce the surrounding air temperature, they can work in places where traditional fans and air conditioning solutions can’t go. All you need to do is plug the cooler in and add some water.

Practice and training

• Indoor Training Facilities: Gyms, weight rooms, and practice areas could always be a little cooler, especially if they don’t have central air conditioning.
• Outdoor Practice Fields: Put a cooler in your high-activity zones during drills and conditioning exercises to provide immediate relief from the heat.
• Off-Season Training Camps or Temporary Facilities: Portacool units are ideal for makeshift training setups, such as tents or outdoor structures.

Game day

• Locker Rooms: Keep your players comfortable and focused before their high-intensity performance.
• Warm-Up Zones and Sidelines: Provide targeted cooling for your athletes during games or practice, reducing the risk of heat-related illnesses and helping players recover more effectively between plays.

Recovery

• Recovery Areas: Designated cooling spaces help athletes relax and recover from heat stress and fatigue.

It’s time to rewrite your heat playbook

Heat is an unavoidable opponent, but with the right strategy, you can outsmart it. Coaches and trainers who prioritize athlete safety and use heat training effectively can turn a liability into a competitive advantage. For that extra edge, put Portacool in the game and use our evaporative coolers to enhance athletic performance wherever you train or play.

When staying cool is part of your playbook, your team can beat the heat—and the competition.