What most athletes get wrong about cooling the body down

The benefits of cooling come from BEING cooler, not FEELING cooler.

There is a difference!

"You're putting ice on you briefly during a match.. but these measures have very limited power to change the body temperature. We're tricking the brain into thinking we're cooler."

-Dr. Lee Taylor, exercise and environmental physiology, Loughborough University, and expert on the effects of heat in elite sports

You need to cool your internal core temperature, not your skin temperature.

Heat dumping uses cool (not cold) temperatures to leverage the specialized blood vessels in your hands, which act as radiators of internal body heat, to cool your core temperature.

Ice bags simply chill the surface of your skin.

If your car is overheating on the side of a road on a hot day, taking icy towels and cooling down the touchpoints of the car (the door handles, the seat, the steering wheel) might make the car FEEL cooler to you.

But the car? Still overheated and sitting on the side of the road.. until you cool off the engine and the car itself is cool.

And so, as with most things in life, BEING cool > FEELING cool

photo credit: AP Photo/Kristy Wigglesworth