Basics of Heat Training
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Heat training is used for two purposes: to adapt for a hot race; and to make long-term haemoglobin gains that increase performance in both cool and hot conditions. For long-term gains, see the article Building Haemoglobin through Heat Training.
Physiological Changes
When you do regular and repeated heat training, your body adapts so that it can cope better with heat stress. These changes include increased blood plasma and greater vascular coordination – meaning the body becomes more efficient at directing blood to the skin for cooling. Some results of being heat adapted:
- Higher sweat rate
- Decrease in the threshold for the onset of sweating (ie. sweating begins at a lower core temperature)
- Lower core temperature, Heat Strain Index and heart rate for a given workout
- Decrease in the amount of sodium lost to sweating
- Greater comfort during heat stress
- Greater power and faster pace during hot and/or humid conditions.
Basic Heat Training Protocol
To become fully heat adapted, you’ll need to complete 10–14 heat sessions within a 2–6-week timespan. Each session should include 45–80 minutes in the Heat Zone (Heat Strain Index between 3.0–6.9).
The quickest gains will come from heat training every day or every other day. However, even 2–3 sessions per week will gradually build adaptations.
Even 5–6 heat sessions within 3 weeks’ time will give substantial and noticeable adaptations.
Maintaining Adaptations
Once you are adapted to the desired level, you can maintain those adaptations by performing 1–3 heat sessions per week. Failure to continue heat sessions will result in the loss of adaptations. Those gains decrease in a linear fashion by about 2.5% for every day without heat training, disappearing entirely within 5–6 weeks.
If several weeks pass without any heat sessions, adaptations can be regained simply by resuming heat training in a regular and repeated fashion.
How To Do a Heat Session
For specifics on how to heat train, please see the article How to do a Heat Session.