Heat Management for Summer Training
I just completed a session with our Saturday Night Elite goalies, and while very enjoyable for me as a coach and fan of goaltending, I'm certain is was extremely taxing for the goalies in attendance. One of the issues that compounded the extreme drill menu was that the outside temperature was approaching the mid-twenties and the ambient temperature in the arena was probably very close to 12 to 15 degrees. This situation brought back memories of my Roller Hockey days in Japan where temperatures quite often approached 35 degrees with very high humidity. The hot environment would often cause many athletes to be overcome with heat exhaustion or even heat stroke. As a result, I had to adopt several heat management strategies while playing. After our session, I noticed many goalies were well into their 2nd water bottles and I thought I should share some ideas to help manage the heat this summer while working out on the ice.
1. Hydrate-hydrate-hydrate. Hydration is very important to help the body to manage core temperature. Hydration starts well before hitting the ice, so make sure that you drink water throughout the day prior to getting to the rink. Once you hit the ice, it may be too late to stave off severe-dehydration, if you come already under-hydrated.
2. Water is excellent, but bring at least one water-bottle filled with gatorade or other electrolyte containing sports drink. With the amount of sweating that a goalie will have go through during practice, the goalie will lose a large amount of electrolytes (body-salts). These body-salts are essential to allow the body to retain water. Once the body flushes all of the salts out of the body via sweat, an athlete will not be able to properly hydrate with water alone.
3. Avoid high protein like meat or fish foods 2 or 3 hours prior to hitting the ice. High protein foods require a lot of water to digest and take time to clear the stomach. You need the water in your body to work the heat control management systems and not to digest your food. Be careful!
4. Sip your water or drink consistently during every break. Never turn down a chance to drink. Drink with sips or small swigs. It is much better than guzzling your drinks.
5. Cold water/beverages are better than luke-warm beverages for you cooling. I used to add water to my half-filled frozen waterbottles, so that by the time I hit the ice, my waterbottles were near ice-cold. Some people have difficulty drinking ice-cold beverages without getting an upset stomach. Try it with small sips or waterdowned gatorade. Chugging ice-cold water is a sure way of getting stomach that feels like it is loaded with concrete.
6. Once you have started to get a hot during the practice, you can cool yourself by ventilating. How does a goalie ventilate? During your breaks, skate backwards slowly. Goalie equipment has all the padding and material on the front of the body, so if you even skate hard forward, air will not be able to flow over your body to aid cooling. However, a goalie's back is basically lightly padded, so if you skate backwards, you will find that you can create a cooling breeze that hits a large surface area, like your back.
7. During your breaks, once you catch your breath skate around lightly as described above. Do not crunch over or curl up. Not only will this make it harder for your body to dissipate its heat, you will also cramp your core muscles which could lead to dangerous injuries to you core muscles once you jump back in the net.
8. Bring a towel to your net or bench to wipe your face and keep the sweat out of your eyes. In my Roller Hockey days, I used to wrap a cold-pack or ice-pack in my towel to keep it cool. I don't know how much it helped bring down an overheated goalie, but it sure was refreshing!
Most importantly, listen to your body and know what the symptoms of heat exhaustion:
- profuse sweating,
- weakness,
- muscle cramps,
- headache, and
- nausea and vomiting
If you reach this point, stop all activity and engage your heat management strategies!!