Post-exercise, passive heat acclimation with sauna or hot-water immersion provide comparable adaptations to performance in the heat in a military context

Abstract

To mitigate the effects of heat during operations in hot environments, military personnel will likely benefit from heat acclimation (HA) conducted prior to deployment. Using post-exercise, passive heating, 25 participants completed a 5 d HA regime in sauna (70 °C, 18% RH) or hot-water immersion (HWI) (40 °C) for ≤40 min, preceded and followed by a heat stress test (1-h walking at 5 km.h−1 in 33 °C, 77% RH in military uniform (20 kg) before an incremental ramp to exhaustion). Fifteen completed both regimes in a randomised, cross-over manner. While performance did not significantly improve (+14%, [-1, 29], p = .079), beneficial adaptations were observed for mean exercising core temperature (-0.2 °C, [-0.2, −0.2], p <.001), skin temperature (-0.2 °C, [-0.2, −0.2], p = 035) and heart rate (-8 bpm, [-6, −10], p<.001) in both conditions. Post-exercise, passive HA of either modality may benefit military units operating in the heat. Practitioner summary: Strategies are required to prevent health and performance impairments during military operations upon arrival in hot environments. Using a randomised, cross-over design, participants completed five-day passive, post-exercise heat acclimation using sauna or hot-water immersion. Both regimes elicited beneficial albeit modest heat adaptations. Abbreviations: HA: heat acclimation; HST: heat stress test; HWI: hot-water immersion; RH: relative humidity