Scott Martin

As we head into summer here in the Northern Hemisphere, recent research has uncovered a trick that could improve athletic performance in heat and humidity.

The New York Times says researchers in England found that runners could cover significantly more distance in the heat if they wore an ice-cold strap-on neck collar. The study’s lead author theorized that the collars cooled the blood in the neck’s carotid artery, which flowed to the brain to create a “subsequent lowering of cerebral temperature.” This convinced the brain that the body was cooler than it actually was.

But is this smart? Or would it open the door to heatstroke or worse by fooling the body into ignoring elevated core temperature ?

Douglas Casa, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut and an expert on heat illness, told the Times that recreational athletes should worry less about performance in hot weather and focus more on staying healthy and using proven strategies such as acclimating slowly to heat over a week or so.

But, the article added, the collar could improve performance if you are “fit, competitive and ferociously intent on outdoing your training partners,” which describes about 99% of the cyclists I know. You just need to be aware of overexertion and -- yes -- the danger of an ice-cream headache (also known as “brain freeze”).

Can cyclists be trusted to exercise caution? I wonder, based on a teammate’s anecdote from the U.S. Masters National Road Race last summer in Kentucky, where competitors faced suffocating heat and humidity.

An exhausted racer collapsed at the finish. Emergency responders were having no luck reviving him till the rider’s wife came over and suggested they pour ice down his shorts, which they did.

Seconds later his eyes popped open and he screamed.

“Works every time,” his wife said.

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