Physical, Physiological and Health Markers Responses to Exercise Performed under Heat Stress

Dear Colleagues, 

Exercising in the heat induces thermoregulatory and other physiological strains that can lead to impairments in endurance exercise capacity. When exercising in the heat, skin blood flow and sweat rate increase to allow for heat dissipation to the surrounding environment. 

These thermoregulatory adjustments, however, increase physiological strain and may lead to dehydration during prolonged exercise. In fact, during sports practice, the scenario may be severe, due to the natural increase that exercise can cause in body temperature. 

For this reason, many studies have been carried out in recent years with the aim of investigating the effects of heat stress during sports practice. In addition, several sports institutions advanced in recommendations for sports practice based on thermal stress indices, such as Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), and warned that temperatures above 28 °C can cause harmful effects on human performance. 

For instance, during the football World Cup inBrazil, the play was interrupted to allow players additional cooling and hydration breaks when the temperature exceeded 39 °C. The combination of exercise and environmental heat stress has been shown to impair aerobic and intermittent (i.e., team sport) exercise performance. 

However, given the lack of data from real competitions, the International Olympic Committee recently highlighted the necessity for sports federations, team doctors, and researchers to collaborate in obtaining data on the specific population of (elite) athletes exercising in challenging environments. Moreover, there are only a few studies carried out in soccer players (male and/or female), which justifies further investigations in this topic. 

Therefore, this special issue aims to analyze and provide novel information about physical, physiological, and health markers responses to exercise performed under heat stress, in youth and adult male and female athletes from individual and team sports.

Dr. Júlio Costa
Guest Editor

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• youth/adult sports
• performance and health
• testing
• training
• competition
• skill level
• training and competition load
• thermoregulation
• heat acclimation and acclimatisation
• hydration and electrolyte
• cooling strategies