Any good research on running shirtless

I agree. I have heard the argument over and over that you actually stay cooler while wearing a shirt, but over and over my own experiences have shown that not to be true. Wearing a shirt in hot and humid weather feels arduous, heavy, and stiflingly hot. If I begin a run with a shirt on a particularly humid day, I will usually eventually pull the shirt off in frustration after a few miles and carry it or tie it around my waist for the rest of the run.

To the people saying that training shirtless will hinder performance when you put on a singlet to race...that effect is negligible at most. A singlet is thin and minimal by design; it's not made of thick cotton. If anything, the training advantage and comfort of training shirtless outweighs the supposed disadvantage of not being used to wearing a singlet when racetime comes. On the same token though, training in a lightweight singlet doesn't seem like the biggest hindrance. I mostly just despise wearing a t-shirt when it's hot.

I mean, seriously, are we acting as if training shirtless is unheard of among runners in warm weather? That it's a dumb idea that will hurt your race performance? That's the vibe that I'm getting from some people. The vast majority of elites run without a shirt even in moderate temperatures. Yes, many Africans prefer to wear a shirt, and you can make the argument that "they" are faster. But running shirtless is common practice around any serious group I've ever been around.

Not that I don't agree with you, but have you worn a wicking compression shirt, that claims to be for heat activities? I'm just curious whether there's any merit to their claims.

And you completely missed my point...my point was that what they do in practice and what they do in meets arent and shouldnt necessarily be connected, whether its LESS or MORE. The examples I used werent serious counters to your point in any fashion EXCEPT in that they brought about the fact we dont do the same thing in practice and races, thats ALL they meant. Yes wearing no shirt is less than what they wear in a race, but wearing a shirt for 10 miles is an entirely different situation than wearing a singlet for three and you know it.

Steven Brule wrote:

I agree. I have heard the argument over and over that you actually stay cooler while wearing a shirt, but over and over my own experiences have shown that not to be true. Wearing a shirt in hot and humid weather feels arduous, heavy, and stiflingly hot. If I begin a run with a shirt on a particularly humid day, I will usually eventually pull the shirt off in frustration after a few miles and carry it or tie it around my waist for the rest of the run.

Your experience, over and over again? You took your shirt off, so you never allowed yourself to reap the benefits of heat training. It takes at least 10-14 days to fully adapt. You have to get over that hump of being uncomfortable and then you adjust and it feels fine. The physiological benefits of heat training are significant and not negligible and will make race day next fall in a singlet feel more tolerable. Also, running shirtless is a phenomenon amongst sub-elite Americans who want to be elite but never get there. Then they wonder why. Don't write it off until you've actually tried it.

An elite who heat trains wrote:

Your experience, over and over again? You took your shirt off, so you never allowed yourself to reap the benefits of heat training. It takes at least 10-14 days to fully adapt. You have to get over that hump of being uncomfortable and then you adjust and it feels fine. The physiological benefits of heat training are significant and not negligible and will make race day next fall in a singlet feel more tolerable. Also, running shirtless is a phenomenon amongst sub-elite Americans who want to be elite but never get there. Then they wonder why. Don't write it off until you've actually tried it.

I've tried it and running shirtless is cooler.

If you can get to school to budget mesh singlets, that would be kinda cool. I like when teams dress the same in practice. I know UVA and Providence do it.

Man. black shorts and a white mesh singlet all in a pack? that is pretty cool.

Fleet o Foxes wrote:

mesh singlets, that would be kinda cool.

those classic 70s mesh singlets....that would be great.

Most spectators have found that they prefer women to run shirtless over men.

However, when asked about men running shirtless, they preferred men that are below 35 years of age, and have a tight body. Not, a body with alot of jiggles.

OK, so I've heard back from two experts in the field. One from England and one from the US Army research center in Natick, Mass. OP if you want their contact information I can email it to you, but I'm not posting names on here - I at least have to protect upstanding individuals from our little dysfunctional community here.

Anyway, unfortunately for you and this stupid rule, both actually say that a t-shirt is not enough to significantly raise core temperature over running shirtless, even inhot humid conditions. It does however greatly affect the COMFORT of the individual from their work. The athlete/subject FEELS cooler but the core temp is not the same. In fact, one did mention that depending on the severity of the sunshine, a white shirt can actually contribute to lower body temperature over running shirtless. Now, interestingly, both mentioned that some of the new wicking clothing acctually does work to slightly, but significanly, maintain a lower core temperature while exerting in hot environments. They work better than cotton shirts, and they work better than being shirtless (even though the shirtless stuff is not published yet).

So, I guess for your team, stress that they wear tank tops, or running singlets, or have your school pony up for the tech shirts. Kinda sad that not every school will, but that's the current world we live in.

Sorry I couldn't be more of a help to your plight. I still think it's a ridiculous rule.

correcging typo above:

"The athlete/subject FEELS cooler [running without a shirt] bu the core temp IS the same."

Thanks for doing the research "Stache", that's kind of along the lines of what I had read in the literature available online. But I also agree that it is a pretty ridiculous rule, however. It is interesting that is is an issue of comfort, or perceived coolness. Personally, I prefer to wear a shirt if I am running in the sun. I just find that the direct sunlight beating down on me is actually more uncomfortable than the sweat-soaked rag I'm running in.

An elite who heat trains wrote:

Your experience, over and over again? You took your shirt off, so you never allowed yourself to reap the benefits of heat training. It takes at least 10-14 days to fully adapt. You have to get over that hump of being uncomfortable and then you adjust and it feels fine. The physiological benefits of heat training are significant and not negligible and will make race day next fall in a singlet feel more tolerable. Also, running shirtless is a phenomenon amongst sub-elite Americans who want to be elite but never get there. Then they wonder why. Don't write it off until you've actually tried it.

I think that training in Mississippi year round has provided plenty of heat training adaptation. And I feel like my times are respectable.

Also, you are full of shit about it being a phenomenon amongst sub-elites. First of all, elites in warm weather areas do it as well. Secondly, you honestly want to pinpoint that as as a significant reason that these sub-elites aren't making the jump to elite status? That is beyond absurd. At most, it makes a tiny, tiny, tiny difference.

I think the answer here is to come to a sort of compromise and have the team train in dri fit singlets. My team trains in singlets almost every day. We are in NC and it gets extremely hot and humid here (though not as bad as Florida). The team does not complain and neither does anybody else. You can go get some really cheap ones at Target or WalMart that are still moisture wicking and would work well. I don't see how anybody could say that you weren't being compliant if the team wore singlets.

Do you have any research you can point to on heat training?

Also, I don't know about this elite "sub-elite" stuff. I've seen lots of videos of Ryan Hall running without a shirt and he's elite by any standard. I dont know how your defining elite but plenty of good college teams do their long runs without shirts.

You can get a lot of (all of?) the benefits of heat training just by living in hot weather. It's probably best to be in the heat 24 hours/day, but I doubt anyone's dedicated enough to try it.

Stache, wouldn't the convective heat from the air actually be going INTO, not out of, your skin at high temperatures? Since the equation is h(Tinf-Ts), at 100+ degrees the air is actually heating you.

Have any of you other hot-weather runners ever noticed how cool your stomach becomes, even as your body overheats? I think they're even inversely related. The hotter I become, the colder my stomach gets. I think it's because your body sends extra blood to your abdomen, since it's in the front of the body and it can be cooled by the wind as you run. Much like how an elephant's ears fill with blood when it needs to cool itself. I've always thought that my body cannot cool as efficiently with a shirt on because the shirt is blocking the wind from my stomach. The stomach acts like a big radiator for heat!

NotaDoc, you're right IF the temperature is hot enough. But it has to be HOT. Body core temp can easily rise to 40C during intense exercise, while intramuscular temps have been measured as high as 44C! Resting core body temp is 37C. Translated that's 98.6F for resting core temp, 40C=104F, and 44C=111.2F!!! I only know of one paper that showed 44, though. Most report 42c regularly, or just under 108F.

Anyway, for convection to add heat to your body, the air temp has to be hotter than your body temp AND has to be so hot that it can overcome the heat dissipating effects of evaporation of sweat. Generally the only places you find temps that hot is where it is also very dry, so evaporation is going at a fast rate, removing a lot of heat from your body, so the temps really do have to be very high. That's why humidity, which impedes evaporation, compounds the heat problem so bad. It's worse to train in 90degrees and 80% humidity than 105 degrees but really dry, for example.

A couple of years ago I was at a Track/XC camp in the summer. One of the college kids running with the camp was from Egypt. He always laughed at us Americans for our philosophy of taking clothes off when we get hot. In Egypt they add more clothes. Light colored loose fitting clothes. I figured being from Eqypt, he knew more about dressing for heat than we did.

Egypt is a desert. America's summers are generally humid unless you're in the desert southwest. You can't really compare these climates.