Heat Training for increasing red blood cells?

The temperature has not dipped below 74 here since April. Humidity 80 to 90 percent.

Tip of the hat that you didn't call out the "retardded" bit. Guy probably feels bad enough as it is.

Why do you think he's wrong?

Just google it, dude.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Heat Training Efficiently Increases and Maintains Hemoglobin Mass and Temperate Endurance Performance in Elite Cyclists - PubMed

Both SUIT and CHAMBER can increase Hb mass , and pooling SUIT and CHAMBER demonstrates that heat training can increase performance. Furthermore, compared with cessation of heat training, a sustained increase in Hb mass was ob...

Open link

https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/heat-training-benefits-2020-study/

Heat training is important if you're training for a race in hot conditions. There are a number of adaptations it stimulates. One of those is not hematopoeisis(more RBCs).

I train through hot summers every year in Phoenix. I can tell you it definitely limits fitness. You're cardiovascular system ends up limiting your leg fitness. You just can't sustain the paces you need to because your body is working so hard to cool off.

i appreciate you providing a link, but i just don't put much weight in this study

only 3 athletes in the heat group and 2 in the control group. one of the heat athletes supposedly had a hemoglobin mass increase of 12.9% in 8 weeks?!

12.9% increase in an "elite cyclist"?! come on man, that's around what you could reasonably expect from doing a moderate epo cycle. like increasing hematocrit from 45% up to 50.8% (keeping plasma volume steady)

the other 4 cyclists in the study all experienced fluctuations of about +/- 3%, so there is essentially one outlier in the study swaying this thing

i think as a general rule of thumb one should ask themselves "if this study is true, could current professionals not using these tactics still be competitive with those who do?"

and if the answer is "no", then in a fairly short amount of time we will see all professionals doing this. and do we see all the top endurance athletes doing 5x/wk heat sessions? of course not.

this is not to say i don't think heat training is advantageous, it absolutely is. not because it's increasing hemoglobin mass, but increasing plasma volume (think of that like your blood being very well hydrated)

on woke boards like this one there are certain words you can't say, thus they have to be spelled differently.

and if people want to think that hematocrit doesn't drop when fit v. sedentary, that's their choice.

I have a sauna every time I go outside, weird I'm not faster.

you are basically saying the same thing as the video for cycling. except you are saying no way it is true or everyone would be doing it and the video says there must be some truth because everyone is doing it (pro cyclists).

another poster makes a good point that it may be much more beneficial for cyclists than runners.

I still think there is some related correlation to the successful Arc'ers out there like Parker Valby. She has said a few times that she runs it really hot so a pool of sweat.

Maybe the new training formula should be low impact heat training for cardio (Arc), then a few quality running workouts that you nail for muscular training. In comparison wouldn't traditional LSD approaches short you on both cardio and muscular training?

Flagstaff is out, training camps will be popping up in Houston by the end of the year!

Whenever this topic comes up I get right to the idea of the practicality of heat adaptations. Meaning, if you're running a hot race in the summer, it sort of takes care of itself. You train through the heat to race in the heat, pretty simple. But in that situation you're not using heat adaptations to improve performance over your baseline. You're simply trying to prevent your performance from degraded below a certain level.

Where I think the concept of heat adaptations has better utility in using it like any other aspect of training, to actually improve performance beyond baseline fitness. And that's where things start to get a bit impractical for me. Are you really going to train exclusively in the hottest part of the day so race conditions are more favorable? Or are you going to move to a hotter climate to then race where it's cooler? That all seems sort of silly.

But one practical role might be using indoor training during the winter to provide some acclimation so when spring racing season comes, the body isn't shocked. How many times do we see runners at Boston gripe about a 70 degree day because they weren't ready for it? That at least might be a situation where it would make some sense to run indoors in warm stagnant air a couple of days a week. It's at least a reasonable application of heat adaptations that might actually help you run faster in reality, not just conceptually.

Answering fan emails on the summit of a 14er recruits red cells! That some certified mad science right thur, right thur, right thur!

Our forecast low tonight is 70!

Athletes aren't taking EPO to perform better in the heat. I think many are hung up on heat training for adapting to hot races, which is something different from getting EPO like effects from heat training to perform better anywhere.

I remember seeing a guy on YouTube about 15 years ago that would do heat training runs on a treadmill. He was just you regular hobbyist, probably a 250ish marathoner, no history as a collegiate runner or anything like that. He would wear one or two sets of sweats and run like 12+ miles. He swore by it.

To me it just came off as Bro Science. Just because something is difficult, or hard doesn't mean it necessarily helps you get better.

Dehydration can make it look like you have more red blood cells along with everything else that you have except the blood plasma that you desperately need.

I lived in heat all my life. I train in it and when I go to race in a cooler climate its like I'm on rocket fuel.

If I can sustain my race pace target in heat, race day will feel a ton easier. During summer months it never drops below 80F and humidity between 80%-90%. God help me if it rains just a tad and not enough to cool the ground. The humidity just spanks off of the pavement.

At the beginning of summer its also harder to breathe in but at the end of the training cycle you get used to it. Also, I have cardiac drift a lot at the beginning of summer training. By the end of the cycle (same temps) my HR has leveled or either dropped due to increased fitness.

No brainer HR will be lower when I got to race in colder climate and race pace feels a hell of a lot easier.

Sure, but why do they believe that they don't have enough red blood cells to optimise their performance?