Interesting article. I read once that a pro used a vinyl glove at Louisville one year, filled it with ice.
I tried it the next year and worked beautifully, like the article says, a little radiator for the body.
Great idea.

I used handheld ice packs on the run for an oly triathlon in Kona and thought they kicked butt. I don't remember the brand, they have a velcro strap that fastens around the back of your hand and holds a small ice pack (covered with a good, wicking material) in place on your palm, and I found out about them after reading how Conrad Stolz had used them in a hot, humid race in Alabama. They worked great. I really noticed a difference training and racing with them and they weren't an issue grabbing nutrition from aid stations either (keep the velcro straps just loose enough to flip the ice pack around to the back of your hand to grab a cup).

That sounds really interesting - a quick search leads me here on Amazon - something like this? http://www.amazon.com/...urance/dp/B007MJSVFI

The article makes mention of the studies using the CoreControl system, which has been discussed before here:

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...rum.cgi?post=4495810

My gut says there is some opportunity here but the claims seem to outpace the reality. I would like to find something that works because I find trainer sessions in the summer to be hampered by heat build up, so I'm always on the look out for solutions.

I sometimes run with the arm coolers. I don't necessarily feel the cooling sensation, but I think the value in them is the continuous sun block. For me that can be big over a long run in the Texas sun.

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Isn't the cooling sensation only activated by pouring water over them and the moisture evaporating? This would do next to nothing here in Alabama as it's so humid already.

What kinds of climates have you raced in them? Out in the desert at Lake Mead, where it's dry, they work really well, but as noted they have to be wet. I recall one year after a very hot Rage in the Sage walking towards the lake and feeling like my arms (in the arm coolers) were very cold, despite 90 degree temps. Of course, the drier it is, the sooner they dry and stop working so well. Used water from every aid stations to give them a bit of a wet down

They don't seem to work as well here on the coast where there is more humidity.

my wife bought me some towels that you water down and snap them (no idea why) and they cool you... I use them on the turbo trainer during the winter. They work pretty well. Never taken them outside.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

I dont believe these products can actually work better or even aid our own natural process of evaporative cooling(sweating). I REALLY have a hard time believing that covering your skin with any material will cool better than evaporative cooling during a workout. Sweat needs to leave the body and air needs to pull that sweat away from the skin...and we need to replace that lost sweat to continue the cycle. Anything that covers the skin(even the layers that claim to pull sweat from the body) will saturate and form an insulative barrier of water. This barrier prevents/slows evaporation and prevents HEAT from leaving the body....it insulates. You then have a buildup of core temperature because that heat has nowhere to go. I believe for maybe a short period of time....some of these materials may work....but when saturated with sweat....its insulating the heat in.

Some of the materials may work in a 'relative manner'....meaning that....compared to other products that cover and protect your skin from UV rays ours can keep your skin cooler.
But nothing can beat mother nature without an energy source and some freon.

BTW...I love Desoto products though im only interested in covering the necessities.

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"WHEW...I really regret that workout!"..............Noone

i have the sugoi arm coolers and in races where you can pour water on them they are VERY nice. i also have the sugoi cooler shirt and it is worthless, i mow the lawn in it.

It's the evaporative cooling effect that causes the feeling/sensation and that effect is zero in very humid climates like where I live in Houston, TX. I wear the sleeves for the sun protection but that's about it. It's my n=1000 experience that the sleeves are actually hotter in humid environments but I'm willing to suffer with warmer skin than sunburned cancer skin.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Desoto does make arm coolers that have a hand pocket to stuff ice into.

I have the zoot arm coolers, and while I can tell that they are cool to the touch, the real value is that during a race, I dump ice down the top. The ice keeps them wet with cool water, obviously, and holds the ice in place. I slide a few cubes down to the crook of my elbow, and it seems to have the same impact as the palm coolers. Radiator effect for sure.

I've used the desoto cool wings in races and training but mostly for the sun protection as they were in hot locations with little shade. I felt a noticeable difference as I wasn't baking in the sun and I'm hoping that effect is more beneficial for my full this year.

When I dumped water on myself my arms felt cooler with them, but a bike headwind will do that to tight wet sleeves.

Don't have any "wearable" cooling gear, but I recently got a cooling towel that works in a similar fashion. I'll drape it over my shoulders or head after a hard workout or race. Works great.

Mark

I believe the desoto arm coolers work great but there some tips to get them to work better.

- Soak coolers in water and throw in the freezer before you put them on (they will freeze in minutes).
- Apply sport sunscreen to your arms (particularly where the arm coolers are going to go). This is key. The sport sunscreen will make your sweat bead up more on the skin, enhancing the evaporation effect and help keep the coolers wet.
-Only use while riding, not running. I don't feel they cool at all on the run but they do protect from the sun.

COJO,
You're absolutely correct - natural evaporative cooling is the most effective way to dissipate heat in warm-hot conditions. In fact when temps are above body / skin temps evaporative cooling is the ONLY way your body can cool.
There's a relatively straight forward formula for calculating the amount of heat loss - dissipation in watts [Watts lost = -kA x dT/dx] where k is the conductivity coefficient of the material heat is passing thru, A is the surface area of the heat transfer and dT = temperature drop or gradient across the surface [heat flows from hot to cold] and dx is the time interval.

Sorry for the math but the point being and the reason for evaporation is to drop the external skin temperature so that the blood flowing thru vascular bed in the dermis can be conducted across the temperature drop from inside the skin/blood to the outside of the skin. Holding k, and A constant [coefficient of conduction and the surface area of the skin constant] "the driving force for any form of heat transfer is the temperature difference." [Yoav Peles www.ndhu.edu.tw/Enter/html/lab/lab516/Heat%20Transfer/chapter_2.pdf]

Here's a simple experience and a common experience. Next time your riding on a hot day feel your face. It feels hot and dry. But you know you're sweating a lot. Just stop for a few minutes and you'll be dripping in sweat. What's happening. While your body is sweating to cool itself your skin still feels hot. There may be a 2-5 degree difference between dermal and epidermal skin temps which helps but it's not a HUGE temperature difference for heat conduction. In fact when your face is really feeling hot it's likely evaporation isn't dissipating heat at all. Heat is being absorbed.

Now spray your face, ears and neck with some water. Riding between 15-25 mph you'll almost instantly feel a 15-25 degree drop in skin temperature. That's a 7 to 13 fold increase in the temperature gradient for heat dissipation. And it happens on one of the three most thermally sensitive areas of your body - your head, face and ears.

Recently we incorporated this basic thermoregulatory principle and the physics of evaporation and wind chill into a delivery system designed specifically for the bicycle. It allows you to accomplish and assist what nature does [your body] by allowing you to create this temperature gradient anytime you want or need it. The effects are immediate, dramatic and sustainable for rides of any length.

We currently have a field study underway at the University of California at Davis with the Department of Sports Medicine to document the performance and perceptual effects of "Sustained Cooling while Cycling in the Heat." We hope to have this published by the end of 2014.

As you all know there are 3 basic challenges to sustained cycling performance and endurance: Hydration, Fueling and Cooling. We think the challenge of effective cooling is the missing link in these three performance curves you have to stay ahead of.

Meanwhile for anyone looking for a natural, very effective and easy to use solution for "beating the heat" you can learn more at www.spruzzamist.com

The spritzer thing looks highly inefficient relative to the highly optimized (in number and quantity) human sweat gland. Might we be better off just drinking the water and letting the human thermo-regulatory system do its magic?

I could see spritzing as being useful in a situation where you have unlimited access to water. But on a bike there's a constraint. And any liquid you use to spritz (which doesn't look very efficient from the picture on the web page, and only covers the face/neck) is liquid you can't drink.

Trail,

Appreciate the reply.
1. Certainly agree we have an amazingly designed cooling system. Spruzza would NOT take the place of removing our sweat glands. But keep in mind that people all the time suffer from heat related cramping, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. The fundamental physiological principle in play here is, "The harder your body works to cool itself, the faster you fatigue." For example.
A rest in a cool room you have somewhere between 200 - 500 mL of blood / minute flowing through your peripheral circulation. Now start exercising in a hot environment and that peripheral blood flow jumps to 5000-8000 mL of blood / minute. That's blood that's not going to your working muscles for O2, fuel and to remove waste by products. That's why your heart rate increases even at rest in a hot room. Your heart has to split blood flow between working muscles, the brain and peripheral circulation for cooling. If we couldn't cool down studies show we could only continue exercise for about 20 minutes.
2. You can't drink enough / fast enough to completely stay ahead of typical sweat rates. Even a 2% reduction in body weight [water loss] your performance begins to suffer. Once you get overly dehydrated even the ability to sweat becomes impaired.
3. Spruzza, "spritzing" assists your body in it's efforts to cool in two basic ways: 1] It actually does effect faster rates of heat dissipation, 2] It uses an external source of water [NOT your own sweat-internal body water] to do so.
4. Spruzza actually helps most WHEN you have limited access to water. The reason it only takes 3-4 mL of water to result in the 15-25 degree cooling effect. When you dump water over your head from your bottle you will typically use 2-4 ounces or 57-99 mL. Remember it's only the water that sticks to you that cools you down. The water that falls to the ground is just wasted. That's exactly why Spruzza IS so effective - it wastes NO water. You keep your bottles for drinking and your Spruzza for cooling.
5. The Spruzza's 5.3 ounce reservoir holds enough water to give you over 300 sprays, that will last you under "normal" cooling use for up to 2 hours. It refills in seconds and you're back on your way with the ability to stay cooler. It conserves the water you have on your bike. Water is heavy too. A 24 oz water bottle weights about 800 grams a filled Spruzza weighs 284. If you're carrying extra bottles to drink and for cooling that's a lot of extra weight.
6. It only takes 3-4 sprays, each about 0.5 mL of water to cover your face from ear to ear to gain this cooling effect.

I know it's a bit hard to believe. If it really worked this well why hasn't somebody done this before? I suppose we've just gotten used to avoiding the heat, drinking a lot, carry a lot of extra water, dumping water over our heads, wearing heavy cooling vests, using ice socks, tying ice to our hands, stopping to hose down, dip in the river, etc.

Similar to what a couple others mentioned, one of the guys in my tri club had issues with overheating and was explaining how he wears surgical gloves and puts ice in them at aid stations and also in his hat. He said it does wonders to keep him cool. I have an omni-cool hat which I really only bought because it actually fit my big head, and I feel no difference between it and any other white running hat.
As far as the spruzza thing, while it might feel noce to get sprayed, there's a little issue with not wanting to get sprayed in the sunglasses and for those of us with helmets with face shields it won't work anyway. Plus, when it's hot I'm usually constantly pressing my helmet against my heat to squeeze out excess sweat. I don't need to add more water to the equation as I really want my face dry on the bike. We create wind on the bike, so I've never felt like any extra coling is necessary. It's when you get off the bike when it's over 90 and start running that you suddenly feel like you're in an oven.

I use the desoto cooling gear for the sun block, works great for that. hate putting on sunscreen

That's the one!

mshawgo,
actually we made this spruzza thing so its pretty easy to avoid spraying your glasses. But yeah face shields would be a non-starter. You just have to find another way to deal with that.
Thanks