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We're talking science. We're talking training.
We're talking about how you can be better right
now. Welcome back sports fans. Today we're going
to be talking about kind of a new topic, I would
say, in research and strength conditioning research
that's about rapid thermal exchange, I think
is the fancy name for it, but basically palm
cooling or sole cooling. That's S -O -L -E, so
foot cooling. Just so we're clear with that.
Tiana actually brought this to me and it's pretty
fascinating and it's made me think a little bit
more about how this could be applied and to really
have creative solutions, maybe to find wins in
the margins, if you will, with this type of topic.
It's pretty cutting edge. It's honestly exciting
to think about. Tiana, bring us the intro here.
Sure. I came across this article through the
NSCA and that's kind of what got me started down
this path. And then I've seen that, you know,
some of the popular podcasters in the science
realm have gone through some of this as well.
So I was listening there and it's super interesting.
You know, we're always looking for performance
advantages at the highest level and especially
ones that do not involve anything illegal. So
this is a great place to start. And basically
what what Zach mentioned here is the the cooling
of either the palms or the soles of the feet.
And the theory here is that it can augment resistance
training in a couple of different areas. But
basically. It allows the CNS, so the central
nervous system, to allow for increased excitation
and motor unit recruitment in working muscles.
So obviously the more motor recruitment you have,
the better those lifts are. So this enhanced
stimulation can create greater force production
and the ability to also perform more repetitions
before reaching that level of fatigue. So basically
the theory here is by decreasing body temperature
overall, we're allowing for the muscles to do
more work. So there's some other ways they go
about saying what the reasons may be behind why
this works. Some of those were possibly limiting
the amount of blood lactate accumulation, but
there's also been studies that that indicate
the contrary. So it's back and forth. There's
a lot here left to be studied and, you know,
we need a lot more research to actually determine
the mechanisms behind why it may be working and
what areas to best apply it. But it's a pretty
interesting subject and something that you could
easily test on your own, you know, and with relatively
little equipment. So something worth exploring
for sure. Absolutely. So one of the things that
I got from this just to give our audience a little
more explanation here was why, why the palm,
why the foot, because there are like special
blood vessels in those areas that are close to
the surface and allow the body to release heat.
They're also in the face was another Source that
I got a hold of that also said that these these
things exist in the face as well So it's like
this special areas of the body where we're trying
to release heat quickly so we can cool the body
down In town. I already mentioned like special
things happening at the cell level There's a
special enzyme that can kind of control You know
the muscles ability to work at certain temperatures
so you would want to cool down quickly in order
to let's say be more efficient at the cellular
level when you're doing physical activity so
i mean there's a lot of different things happening
at play here and that's kind of cool that we
have technology to go into this and to be able
to try to understand it and utilize it for the
profession. Well, and I think even that the palm
and soul cooling as a mechanism to lower internal
body temperature quickly is interesting because,
you know, on the sidelines of games and things,
usually you see people apply the cold pack or
something to the back of the neck of the athlete,
which I had read in the past, you know, that's
not the most effective area is really is the
palms or the soles of the feet. But, you know,
it's just been it's something that's always been
done that way, I guess. And that's why they go
to that area right now. But, and the armpits
is another one you'll see a lot, but generally
not face or hands. Well, yeah. I've definitely
seen the back of the neck one, you know, when,
when it's like really hot stuff outside. I mean,
it's interesting to think about, I think if you
were like, I don't know. Throwing hammer right
in your outdoors and you're trying to cool down
in between throws or something I don't know.
Maybe you're doing multiple throws right and
you're cooling down from one event to the next
I think it's also fascinating for me to think
about if you were to Use an ice bucket, you know
and you directly put your hands or your feet
in there does that mess with your ability to
like grip the same or moved the same, which I
thought was fascinating through the article where
they had one of the groups like put their foot
in an ice bucket, right? And then they did something
lower body related after that. So I also thought
that that was fascinating from like a from like
an ankle perspective. Like, does that change
what you need to do? Right. They're doing this
during rest times and now they've submerged in
cold water. Have they thrown off the readiness,
let's say of the ankle complex or the lower leg,
you know, like do they need to warm up a little
bit going into that, which is something I don't
think was really talked about. It was rest time.
You do this and then you go and do the activity
again, which I mean, as the one of the studies
showed that they didn't talk about doing that
and it didn't really say that it affected them
in a negative way. So I also thought that was
fascinating because let's say I was. between
events and I have warmed up a little bit right
and like I only I mean Based on the length of
the research that I'm sure we'll get into the
rest times. Like I don't know that I Don't know
how I'd go from ice bucket You know for several
minutes into like I only have a couple more minutes
before I go do this event again You know, like
I think maybe there's a belief like there's a
placebo mental effect to it or not But that was
another thing they talked about We can talk about
that in a little bit as well. How like placebo
effects, you can't really lie to somebody whether
or not they're getting this treatment. So it's
fascinating. Yeah. Hard to control this study
in that way. And yeah, that made me think about
like, obviously with MMA fighters, you see in
between rounds where they would definitely need
to cool the body temperature. They're taking
an ice bag and rubbing it on the chest. But I
wonder how that would affect them if they already
have bare feet if you could stick their foot
in an ice bucket and then towel it dry real quick
and would that affect their footwork or Any of
their striking in any way or would that be like
a huge advantage to cool that way? Absolutely.
Yeah, that's That's probably a better Find a
better solution would be the vacuum system around
the foot, you know Just so maybe there's not
any moisture that could cause them to lose their
footing or something like that Which is obviously
could could be crucial, you know, if you slip
an inch you might get you might be getting knocked
out You know that punch, you know When you'd
have a time protocol issue there because you
only get yeah Between the rounds so there's no
way to extend that yeah so it would have to be
effective whatever it looks very true very true
well let's get into a little bit here about specific
temperature wise um what do you what did you
come across here you know think of as the best
protocol to try and how to achieve that temperature
because i know one of the biggest issues they
ran across in these studies here was the method
of cooling because obviously you could easily
take a bucket of ice water in a gym and try this
out. But some of these studies used an actual
glove type mechanism that they created that had
water flowing through it to keep the palm at
a certain temperature all the way throughout.
And then like you were saying, that wouldn't
actually create any sort of moisture issue. but
it would cool the hand the same way. I don't
know if that would affect your grip still based
on temperature, but I don't know. What did you
come across there when it comes to actual degrees
of cooling and the method of cooling? What I
got from the degrees was probably about 10 to
15 degrees Celsius was the most effective, I
think, in these studies. I personally would think
that some type of controlled water flow glove
or Boot I guess you would call it for the foot
Would probably be the best. I just think if you
if you get an ice bucket and that's all you have
that's fine but when I'm thinking about The practicality
of it or you know when you're gonna use it like
I don't know maybe use it in training and it's
okay for you to have to take your sock off and
Put your foot in and then have to dry your foot
before you put your sock back on and then put
your shoe back on You know and then go do the
exercise which I think there are a lot for me
There's just a lot of steps there and I think
they're gonna be There's gonna be a set amount
of steps that happen out have to happen anyway,
but if you could If you could cool in a more
efficient Fashion where you don't have to dry
off. I think that would probably just be better
for everyone, right? The thing that immediately
comes to mind is game ready Where that controls
water flow temperature I believe you can control
pressure on it as well not like the research
didn't really say anything about pressure so
you wouldn't really need that but just to be
able to Control that have you know, the water
flow going right over at a consistent temperature,
which would I think would be the best Time wise,
what I think I saw, what I remember was about
two to three minutes was what their goal was
for everybody to be within. So when you're going
to actually do the protocol, two to three minutes
of of the cooling and then you're you're out
of there at that point. I think there were some
like less than two minutes and it wasn't very
successful. They had some I mean, I think they
had a couple of like back and forth. Articles
that went between two three over longer than
that, but I think based on the Discussion at
the end about two to three minutes was what what
they suggested So I think maybe that two and
a half mark is probably what you should shoot
for right? I mean, that's a pretty safe safe
estimation right there in between their guidelines,
but That's what I would say, but I think also
thinking about sports and doing this It's hard.
That's a hard concept. I think for every sport
to achieve, right? I mentioned the Between throwing
events, right? Been to some track meets before
where I've seen throwers There's a significant
amount of time that could happen between each
throw if there are a lot of participants But
also like in between events, right? You could
be You could throw one have a whole nother event
go after you and not throw again for like a couple
of hours. So Is it even you know is even beneficial
afterwards or you only focused on you know in
between attempts in Events, you know, like I
mean that's something to think about you're also
gonna be if you're doing an outdoor championship
That probably plays into trying to cool your
body down a little more efficiently What I got
from the study though was a lot more work capacity
related and not necessarily like high force output
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Practicality is a big thing here too, right?
So if you're working with a high level elite
athlete that you're dedicated to their performance
or a handful of them, then that's something too.
That's you could get a game ready out by the
court fields track, whatever it was, and try
this or in the weight room with that athlete.
But when you've got a team full of football guys,
you know, at the racks, I don't know how easy
it would be to get everyone in a glove or a boot
or whatever type of situation like that that
involves a setup and, you know, a time commitment
there in between on top of just dipping your
hand in a bucket of water. So, like we were saying,
it might not be the best method, but it sure
would be a lot easier to set that up than it
would be with all this, you know, expensive equipment.
Yeah, agreed. I mean, like things that that come
to mind. far as conditioning goes and like team
setting is that I mean game readies have an adapter
setting so you can split off and do two people
up in one bucket right obviously you're gonna
have to be close to ice and water because you're
gonna have to refill that thing at some point
and who knows how frequently you need to do that
so there's a chance of spilling that might happen
hopefully that's not done on a playing surface
for the court setting or that scenario Another
thing I'm thinking about is like let's take soccer
for instance substitutions don't happen Play
is continuous, so you can't really use it in
a game. If you're gonna use it in training, like
in a practice setting, okay, you can do that
because you're gonna have set breaks that you
could take and do that and maybe extend. Some
people, you mentioned if you're just working
with somebody individually, obviously way easier
to do because you don't have to have as many
pieces of equipment to do it or as many ice buckets
or whatever. If you're doing it in only a training
scenario, maybe trying to increase work capacity
that will hopefully translate to the field. Let's
take the yo -yo intermittent recovery test. Not
any time in between for you to do that, right?
So when does that happen or how does that fit
into your protocol? If you're doing other repeat
sprint ability, layouts, assessments, and things
like that. If there's a long break in between,
you could be able to do that. The 300 -yard shuttle
comes to mind. If you're doing multiple of those,
you could do it in the five -minute recovery
that you're going to have. Easy to do. If you're
doing it outside, it's okay. You could probably,
with your team, have a bunch of ice buckets or
one big tub that's to a certain... Hopefully
to a certain degree, you know, if you're outside,
obviously that's going to change and warm up
the longer that you're outside. But if you're
doing it, you can have the whole team and in
the bucket, whatever. And then you don't have
to worry about grip. You don't have to really
worry about a mess happening because it's on
the field or whatnot. So I mean, it could work
in certain settings, but I think that it's got
to be, it's got to be pretty well thought out
and it has to like actually make sense for like
the layout. Again, for the reasoning, if you're
not able to do it in games, then maybe you're
only doing it in practice. Is there a benefit
to even doing it in competitive scenarios? So
who knows? I think there are definitely a lot
of questions to think about and arise from this
topic, but maybe in a good way that makes you
think towards what would be the best scenario
for me to be able to utilize an enhancement like
this. And I do think that starting with, as you
were saying, out on a field where you're doing
repeat training of some sort, that would be a
great way to test this because you have the environmental
factor there and they know that, you know, for
endurance purposes, cooling the internal temperature
is going to allow you the increased work capacity.
So picturing a team out in a field, you know,
on a field doing repeat sprints of some sort,
and you're using that rest time to have everybody's
hands in some ice water and seeing how that affects
it, especially in an in an outdoor setting where
you're dealing with heat. I think, you know,
heat exhaustion is is super common. And I'm thinking
about, you know, football, summer workouts or
track fall training or where it's still really
hot outside, but you're out there for a while.
I could picture there being a pretty good application
there for for that being effective. Yeah. I mean,
especially if you're out there running the track,
typically you have like a satellite athletic
training facility that's nearby you know maybe
it's only a tiny building that has water and
ice in it right but like you're doing 150 repeat
150s you know like you're gonna have a little
bit of time in between you know if you're doing
repeats of any distance really for like short
sprinters or even long sprinters but you're gonna
have time to do that. And I think the hand would
just be such an easy thing to do is like, go
sit down, you know, put your hand in the bucket
for this amount of time. And then, you know,
take the risk, your recovery, come back up, you
know, whatever. So I think definitely it fits
in certain scenarios, but I'm sure I mean, like
as, as all these research things say, like more
research is needed, you know, there are different
applications that weren't tested in this review,
like we talked about this was mostly resistance
training, which I think is good. I think I would
use it less in resistance training versus performance
training, if you will, or like conditioning,
I guess. I would lean towards that, to be fair.
I don't know if you could speak on a little bit.
I know that they talked about one of the problems
with these different studies so far is the way
that they were measuring muscle activation. post
this cooling protocol and the fact that it was
different across different studies. So do you
have kind of an idea or a way that you think
measuring the results of this would be best in
order to figure out if it's really effective
or not? I mean, I think when you get studies
that or systematic narrative or a meta analysis,
you're gonna pull in a lot of different studies
that meet the main criteria, but also like kind
of vary on the protocol and equipment used, even
though all of it may be verified in scientific
research. I think it's just kind of hard to,
you have to take it at a certain value because
it's not all the same. not everyone have the
same protocol, the same time of day, the same
whatever, different conditions are happening.
So you have to manage your expectations, I guess,
and think about it like how could this be beneficial
to my setting? I think sometimes if you only
have topical. EMG stuff, then that's what you
have to do. If you have EMG capabilities that
are intramuscular, then even better, right? If
you can stick a prong between somebody's muscle
there into someone's muscle and actually read
some of those electrical outputs, it's even better.
But again, I think that I would use this outside
of the weight room more often than inside of
the weight room. Mean I Just don't know Not often
like I'm thinking about game readies right from
my set scenario right now game ready seems to
be the best option for us probably not as common
or Feasible for me to just move game readies
into the weight room and have to worry about
going to get ice and water and stuff right typically
When you have like a practice there's already
water and ice that's already been put into a
big cooler right so you could just have another
cooler that's specifically dedicated to those
game ratings right so maybe you usually have
one cooler with water and ice and it's up on
you know whatever so you can get you know fill
up your cup or whatever and take a drink well
maybe you have another cooler that the spout
is i don't know turned upside down or something
and you uh have it on the floor or have it a
little bit lower so you can scoop ice and water
in and out of this thing more readily or something
like that. You know, I think just for the logistics
of it, if you will, it doesn't make sense to
me to bring that stuff in and out of the weight
room. Sure, it's cool in the lab. And I know
that the vacuum one, I've seen the version of
a vacuum one which looked like a game ready,
but had some other stuff on top of it from Stanford
from a few years ago. That one like that looks
like a lab setting piece of equipment to me,
you know, it's different. There's different like
everyday weight room equipment is not the same
as laboratory equipment. You know, it's sometimes
a little bit different and either takes more
time or more knowledge and skills. And you don't
necessarily always have the means to do all that
stuff all the time. So I would I would personally
probably use the information from the study more
for fitness qualities. Yeah. So I think same
applies to, as you're saying, like specific equipment
for measurement and things inside of a study
versus, you know, practical nature of it out
in the wild in athletics. And there is something
to be said for the fact that this is easy to
try. And if you try it out and it works great
and you're getting good results in your training
from your kids, uh why not maybe it's not the
exact same temperatures as it's supposed to be
throughout the entire workout the buckets warming
up out in the sun or whatever it is but if it's
working um and it's getting you some good results
every week why not you know it's not going to
hurt anything in this situation agreed agreed
um if it's okay i want to i want to lay out my
thoughts of like how i would use this like immediately
what I thought of when I read this and how I
could use it in sports setting like practically
that other people you might be able to use it
you know you might be limited on how many people
can participate at once but so I get that it's
probably more conducive to need rapid thermal
exchange or cooling outside rather than inside
however Sports that we deal with don't necessarily
have the timeframes that match up with what could
be Beneficial based on what I read from the literature,
right? So my thought was to use it with basketball
Reason being is that the game readies could be?
located Really close to where the athletes couldn't
would need them Media timeouts happen about every
four minutes And they last a couple of minutes,
right? I mean, they're not they're not extensive,
but I think you could get to two minutes of using
of cooling, at least. I don't think it would
take. It wouldn't take much, right? So media
time out, you go sit down on the bench, you've
got game readies, right? Like behind those seats
that maybe they could be under the seat, you
know, where it's kind of protected by like where
you rest your feet and whatnot, you know, all
that jazz. athletes could get hooked up and they
could still listen to the coach. They've got
one hand free where they could hydrate if they
needed to, right? So like there's an opportunity
to do multiple things at once. You could have
team managers, assistant coaches, athletic trainer,
hook those people up, you know, as they get to
the sideline. So once it's, you know, dedicated,
immediate timeout, boom, you know that, hey,
all right, we're going to get hooked up here.
It probably doesn't take very long to Set them
to a certain temperature and you can certain,
you know set them So I don't even know if they
have Bluetooth Capabilities to like hey I've
turned them on and you can program it to do it
like from your phone So you don't have to like
sit there and do it. I don't know what those
capabilities are but I feel like, and you can
do that multiple times throughout the game, right?
Like you're going to have multiple media timeouts
and you're going to have an opportunity to do
it. So they're going to go all out for around
four minutes or so with intermittent bouts. And
then they have the opportunity to cool. I think
that maybe that could increase the work capacity
of those players, you know, within those timeframes.
And honestly. Having the 10 to 15 degrees Celsius.
Obviously I can convert it if I need to have
it's in Fahrenheit the time frame I think the
availability as far as like when your players
could use it how often could they use it and
We could test it right? I think that that's awesome
that we would be able to do it I think that for
our situation though our sample size would be
very small we're gonna be limited to like two
hand coolers and two foot coolers. Now, my thought
on the foot may be different and it may not align
with any results, but I talked about taking the
sock off and then have, you know, so shoe off,
sock off, you know, apply thing, get done, sock
on, shoe on, probably have to retie your shoe.
So like there's some time that comes with it.
My thought was just to wrap up with the like
ankle strap that Game Ready has, keep the sock
on because it's not going to you know, create
any like outside moisture to the sock. And then
maybe that would be an easy way to just put the
sock on, still get some cooling happening at
the, you know, at the sole or at the foot and
then be able to put your shoe on more easily
and not have to worry about anything else like
that. I mean, like, I don't know if your foot's
sweaty, you take your sock off and you're going
to put the same sock back on. One, it's it's
like unappealing, right? Two, it typically is
a little bit harder to put that sock back on
because your foot was a little like sweaty. So
maybe we can minimize some of that. I don't know
some of that situation that where people are
uncomfortable, you know, or maybe it's just a
little more difficult than it needs to be. That's
that's my thought is it could be you're going
to scrimmage in practice. Maybe you're going
to scrimmage a team, you know, like another team.
and it's just for preseason or something. Easy
to test out at that point, right? If you've got
game readies, easy to test out of whether or
not that person actually did better. Maybe their
RPE was a little bit better. If it's a fitness
assessment, like we've got a protocol of repeat
sprintability, excuse me, right now where I've
gotten that from research. We're able to apply
it. It's got a long rest time. It's got five
minute rest time in between the three bouts of
sprints. And that's a perfect time for us to
do it twice and see if the coinciding assessment
or reps were affected positively or negatively
or not at all. So I mean, I'm definitely planning
to. to do a small very small study with some
of my returners you know two randomly are going
to use the hand cooling two randomly are going
to use the foot cooling and then i'll have four
people who won't be doing it again or doing either
of them so obviously there's there's going to
be potentially placebo effect for the people
who are cooling hopefully not Hopefully it's
not like drastically, you know, I mean what if
it is and maybe I want it to be drastically better
But I don't know that there's just something
I'm gonna work through that I think could be
beneficial right if it again if it gives us Not
necessarily purely leading to a win, but let's
say Somehow it could Calculate or equate to one
win. I think it's worth it, right? Everyone's
trying to get one more win Yeah, any little progress
is progress. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, so I mean,
I think there's some further research as always
that could be done to really solidify this method
as one that's going to enhance performance and
there's always things to consider in standardizing.
the protocols and getting larger groups of participants
to test with and controlling the cooling and
the amount of time we're cooling. But and as
you said, the placebo effect. But, you know,
we all can be little scientists when it comes
to this and do our own studies and see what works
for everyone. So agreed. I mean, I would just
say, look, I really am serious about the looking
into it and actually Putting forth some research,
so I'll be talking to people that are smarter
than me in research and try and put together,
you know, like a plan to actually get this out
to see if it actually works. So somebody beats
me to it. You heard it here first. Yeah, I'm
here to get the I'll get credit. Yeah, the patent
out for your Bluetooth. game ready if they don't
have it that way already? I would assume they
have something that can do that already though.
Okay. Yeah, that was this awesome article and
really really thought -provoking for me in general.
It's like how this could really be beneficial
and how could I use this? Definitely. Thanks
everybody for listening. I hope you found something
out of it. Let us know your thoughts on how you
would use it, whether or not you think it's actually
beneficial. Tiana did a great vlog. on the article
so check that out acesnation .org backslash blog.
You can check that out of her thoughts initially
on this and here we are again just kind of sharing
more thoughts about it on the podcast. So Tiana
thank you for bringing that to light and bringing
that you know across my desk if you will so that
I was able to see it and really kind of run with
the idea. It's awesome. Yeah I love your insights
and can't wait to see what you do with the research.
Thanks, everybody. We will catch you on the next
one.