August came early this year. Unfortunately for those of us in Texas, that means we have a long, hot summer in store for us. With triple digit temperatures becoming the norm, I have been receiving workout reports from clients that, I can safely summarize as saying, “who turned on the furnace? I’m melting out there!”

Trouble is that when it’s hot, it’s hard to look forward to a workout, much less enjoy that actual workout. Here are some tips for beating the heat without having to leave the state:

• It’s best to train early in the morning, or late evening. If you can manage to get up extra early, that is ideal. Late evening is also better. Try having a really early dinner, 5 pm or so, and head out at 7pm for your ride. Pay attention to the weather report and know when your best windows of opportunities are.

• If you can’t ride until it’s really hot, switch the workout to an indoor workout or scuttle it entirely. If it’s too hot, you will not be able to achieve the intensity, and there is a substantial risk of overheating. Our current temperatures are classified as a very high exercise risk by the American College of Sports Medicine.  One day of not riding won’t make or break your season.

• Train indoors with a group to stay motivated and to keep cool. Use shorter, harder intervals to maximize your time and to keep from getting burned out on indoor training. If you have to train indoors alone, mix up your routine to help stay focused. Watch a favorite movie or t.v. show while on the trainer or rollers to help the time go by.

• Drink properly. At a mere 83 degrees, the average sized man can sweat as much as 1.25 liters/hour. As temperature, humidity, and exercise duration and intensity increase, so does sweat rate, and dehydration. There is no magic formula for the amount that you should drink, but intake should match excretion rate. You should carry at least 2-3 large bottles with you, and some money in case you need to purchase more water  and sports drinks on your ride. Partially freeze the bottles, and keep the fluid as cold as possible on the ride.

One way to figure out whether or not you are drinking enough is to weigh yourself pre and post workout and determine how much weight you’ve lost—this method has some caveats, but is mostly practical and reliable. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that athletes avoid anything greater than a 2% loss in body mass over a ride. Generally, performance does not suffer until this amount of dehydration occurs. That said, from a practical standpoint, when it’s really hot, it’s hard to perform, hydrated or not.

• Drink properly: avoid hyperhydrating. This time of year, that’s a hard thing to do, however, if you find out that you’ve gained significant mass over your ride, might be taking in too many fluids. There is no benefit to hyperhydrating, and can, in fact be dangerous as it can dilute needed solute concentrations in the blood (such as sodium and potassium concentrations). Which brings me to the next point:

• Use Electrolytes. Everyone has different salt concentration in their sweat. The International Olympic Committee recommends approximately 1 gram of sodium/Liter of water/hour for exercising in the heat. This is the concentration most often found in commercial sports drinks. You might personally require a more, particularly if you are finding white lines on your clothes from sweating large amounts of salt. You can either add a salt tablet (or half of one) to your existing drink, or mix the drink more concentrated than normal. Eating salty snacks during long rides can also help stave off electrolyte losses, and the potential for muscle cramps.

Sara Krause, M.Ed. is an exercise physiologist and owner of Krause Sports Performance in Austin, Texas.

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