Pole Dancing in Hot Weather
In this episode of 'Science of Slink,' Dr. Rosy Boa delves into what every pole dancer should know about exercising in extreme heat. Key topics include the physiological adaptations to heat acclimatization that typically occur within two weeks, the symptoms and handling of heat exhaustion versus heat stroke, and specific risk factors such as dehydration and medications. She also shares practical tips for pole dancers, such as managing equipment and grip issues, staying hydrated, and taking frequent breaks to avoid heat-related illnesses. Emphasis is placed on listening to one's body, recognizing the varied individual responses to heat, and prioritizing safety over performance.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview
01:45 The Science of Sweating
02:54 Heat Acclimatization in Athletes
06:52 Physiological Adaptations to Heat
11:27 Recognizing and Preventing Heat Exhaustion and Heat Stroke
18:06 Risk Factors for Heat-Related Illnesses
24:34 Pole Dancing in Hot Conditions
29:52 Final Tips and Recommendations
Citations/further reading
Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2023, April 6). Heat exhaustion. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heat-exhaustion/symptoms-causes/syc-20373250
Howe, A. S., & Boden, B. P. (2007). Heat-related illness in athletes. The American journal of sports medicine, 35(8), 1384-1395.
Nobel, G., Tribukait, A., Mekjavic, I. B., & Eiken, O. (2012). Effects of motion sickness on thermoregulatory responses in a thermoneutral air environment. European journal of applied physiology, 112, 1717-1723.
Périard, J. D., Racinais, S., & Sawka, M. N. (2015). Adaptations and mechanisms of human heat acclimation: applications for competitive athletes and sports. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 25, 20-38
Sawka, M. N., Leon, L. R., Montain, S. J., & Sonna, L. A. (2011). Integrated physiological mechanisms of exercise performance, adaptation, and maladaptation to heat stress. Compr Physiol, 1(4), 1883-1928.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to Science of Slink, the Evidence-based pole podcast with me, your host, Dr. Rosy Boa. And today we're gonna be talking about. Heat. It's really hot. As I'm recording this, where I am in Richmond, Virginia is currently under an extreme heat warning, and I thought it would be an appropriate time to talk about heat and exercise.
Some of the things we're gonna talk about today: how our bodies acclimatize to dealing with exercise and heat and some of the physiological adaptations that happen. And also the timeframe for those.
We're gonna talk about symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. What to look out for in yourself and others, what to do. Really important. Everyone should know that especially as you know, extreme weather and heat events become more common.
We're also gonna talk about some of the things that can increase your risk of heat exhaustion or heat stroke.
And then finally, we're gonna wrap up with some specific considerations about pole dancing in the heat and things to keep in mind for us that are maybe not as relevant for other people who are doing, doing exercise.
And as always this episode, like all my episodes, is brought to you by my studio members Science of Slink members. Y'all are fantastic giving you little, little hearts. And if you're interested in joining us I teach online and anyone's welcome to join for a drop in class. But of course, my members get all my classes including in July, I'm gonna add an additional pole class that's gonna be at a time that's a little bit better for Europe.
So that's, that's coming up. Keep an eye out for that. I've already got a freestyle class on Tuesdays that's at a good time for Europe, but I'm adding one more to the schedule because I got some feedback that that would be helpful, and I'm always listening to feedback, always trying to improve for y'all.
So if you're interested in learning more about the science of slink.com, I'll take you right to the webpage and you can yeah, see if it's right for you.
All right. Without any further ado, today's episode is brought to you by it just being real hot. And I've gone down a little bit of a rabbit hole.
Just like for my personal interest on sweating and the evolution of sweat for thermal regulation. I'm sure you know, y'all are science nerds, probably someone at some point has been like, ah, yes. Lactation mammary glands are just modified sweat glands but sweating the way that we think of it as humans for thermal regulation is not common.
Most animals and most mammals don't actually do it. Right. It's like things in the homo genus as far as we can tell, right? Homoerectus homo habilis. Homo sapiens. And then some ungulates, right? Are horses ungulates? Also horses sweat. But like, you know, any farm kids know pigs don't sweat for thermo regulation, so they need other ways to regulate their body heat or like you know, snakes don't sweat.
Also they, you know don't necessarily maintain homeostasis. The relationship to temperature modulation in their bodies is just very different than it is for us. Anyway, I've just been going down a little bit of, of a rabbit hole.
And one of the things that I ran across as I was digging into this. Was a much more detailed description of the process of heat acclimatization in humans. Especially if you live in a hot place, right? Or a place that has seasonal weather and it gets hot the first couple weeks when the weather starts to get warm, you're always more miserable than like in the middle of the summer once you adjust it.
And I will be honest, I didn't really know anything about the mechanisms of that process. I thought it might be perceptual, right? That you have like a your, your perceptions change about what's hot and cold due to, but there is in fact a series of physiological processes that happen as you acclimatize to heat. That takes about two weeks. And based on my reading the quickest way that that happens is actually if you're doing any sort of endurance training in the heat. So that means anything that's more cardiovascular and that's a little bit longer in duration, so not weightlifting but jogging.
I'm just gonna say right now, I am not telling you to go out and jog in 110 degree heat at 85% humidity. Please don't do that. It is inherently dangerous, but also our bodies have a weight to deal with it.
So I'm gonna read a passage here from period at all 2015. "Adaptations and mechanisms of human heat. Accl, applications for competitive athletes and sports" in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Sports Science.
"The effect of heat of limitation on sub maximal exercise performance can be quite dramatic."
So sub maximal, not like going as hard as you possibly can. Which just as a trainer, I'm working with hobbyist athletes. I'm a hobbyist athlete. We are not going a hundred percent basically ever. We don't, we don't need to. Right. We're keeping it at that moderate intensity.
" The effect can be quite dramatic, such that acclimated individuals can easily complete tasks in the heat that earlier were difficult or impossible. Pandolph and young 1992 reported that of 24 subjects, none were able to complete a 100 minute walk in 49 degrees C and 20% relative humidity on the first day of exposure."
49 degrees C is 120 Fahrenheit, which I would say yeah, I wouldn't be able to do that either. That's wild.
" However, 40% were successful by day three, 80% by day five, and all but one were successful on the seventh implimentation day."
And I'll say again these were, I believe, professional athletes in the study.
You know, closed course, professional driver, do not attempt. RAs et al. That's R-A-C-I-N-A-I-S. Apologies if I'm saying that incorrectly. "2015 also showed that cycling time trials 43 kilometers undertaken in a hot outdoor IE field setting conditions around 37 degrees C" which I think is running around a hundred. 98. " Were initiated at a similar power output to those of a time title condition. Conducted in cold conditions."
So whether it's hot or cold, they're starting out with the same like power and like raw. I'm gonna do it.
" Subsequently however, a marked decrease in power output occurred in the heat, which was partially recovered after one week of heat acclimatization and almost fully restored after two weeks.
According heat, acclimation, acclimatization, mediates improved sub maximal exercise performance by reducing physiological strain and abating a variety of other potential fatigue mechanisms."
So basically all this is saying is that if you are an athlete. And you are suddenly exposed to higher heat than you are used to.
Your performance will go down, your power will go down. Your ability to complete tasks will go down. However, with careful repeated exposure to training in the heat in about two weeks, your performance can again, with these trained athletes, in about two weeks, their performance was back at the level that it was, in colder temperatures.
And again, these are healthy individuals. I'm not saying be like, all right, Rosie's telling me do that you know, jump rope kettlebell, hit circuit outside in Tucson right now. Not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that our bodies do acclimate or acclimatize to doing exercise and endurance exercise in hotter climates over time.
And some of the specific adaptations that they do. And this is summarized from socca at all 2011 "integrated physiological mechanisms of exercise, performance adaptation, and mal adaptation to heat stress and comparative physiology".
Which from my reading, this seems to be the sort of core work that a lot of folks are citing. So I think if you're, if you're interested in reading more on this topic, this is a good one.
And there were some, you know, longer term physiological changes that have been observed. So core temperature actually gets lower, so your overall resting body temperature gets bumped down. And again, the, these adaptations take about two weeks.
So over the course of two weeks, your, your resting body temperature goes down. Body's like, all right, it's gonna be hot. We are gonna keep ourselves a little bit cooler.
Also sweating increases. So the temperature at which you start increasing gets lower, the rate of sweat gets higher, and then the sensitivity gets higher as well.
So you sweat more and you sweat more easily once you're starting to acclimatize which also means you're gonna get dehydrated more easily. So definitely making sure to drink lots of water.
Your skin temperature goes down, you actually get a little bit cooler to the touch, like overall, right.
Blood flow to the skin improves. So sort of just like elephants, right? I think this has also been proposed for a lot of archosaurs. Or like you know, demitriodon possibly like had the, had afin for thermal regulation purposes. But we bring a lot of blood to the surface of the skin and we can do heat exchange with the environment and then, you know, sort of move it back towards the center of the body. So helping. Release heat a little bit more easily.
We also see increased stability in the cardiovascular system. So overall heart rate reduces. This is also coupled with an increase in blood volume, right? So you are, you are more efficient in being able to move blood around your body and also you just have more blood to move, right? You're retaining more water because again, you need that 'cause you're sweating it out.
The individual strokes of the heart, each one actually starts moving more. Bloods you again, increased efficiency and even your blood pressure, right? You, you see less big swings in blood pressure.
There's also changes on the level of your skeletal muscle. So skeletal muscle, this is like your biceps, your triceps, your quads, right? Like the big movers that we're thinking about when we're exercising. This isn't, this is different from like smooth muscle, like in your gut. So you know lactate threshold is gonna in improve.
So what that means for you as an athlete is you're, you're not gonna burn, you're not gonna feel that like muscle burning as quickness. You get less. You get increased force production in your muscles like that study with the cyclist, right? Once they acclimatized, they were able to maintain power over time. Before that, they were only able to maintain that power in the, the cooler temperature.
So overall, getting better at moving your body your heart's getting better at moving your blood around. You have more blood your. Thirst improves. You lose fewer electrolytes. This is actually like at the physiological level. You retain more water. You just sort of like juicier. You're just juicier. And overall you get better and more efficient at moving and better and more efficient at cooling yourself off. And again over about a two week period.
So a couple takes ways for us as athletes.
A this process does take time. Like I said, it takes about two weeks and it takes repeated exposure. So if you are, say somebody who is not exercising in heat for whatever reason maybe you're on a medication that makes it particularly dangerous, you're not necessarily gonna see this acclimatization. Or you may see it, but not to as great a degree. So just because your body is hot, if you are not also making physical demands of your body in the heat you're not necessarily going to see the same degree of acclimatization as someone who's doing like professional athlete training out in the heat is going to.
This also means that a sudden heat change suddenly getting hotter, especially if we're suddenly training in a environment that is hotter than we're used to. Expect to have reduced power. Expect to have reduced strength, expect to have reduced endurance. And you know, I think this is really just a mindset thing, right?
Be like, okay, I'm doing something really hard now and I'm not gonna push myself. Why do we not wanna push ourselves? Because the flip side of this coin, the reason that we're not all like, oh my gosh, it's a hundred. I gotta get out there and do some laps so that I can get, you know. Super buff heart is because it is dangerous, right?
Because we have all this acclimatization. To be able to handle thermo regulation better, because if we don't it can be very dangerous to our health and potentially even lead to long-term consequences, including death. So let's talk about heat exhaustion. Heat stroke.
So heat exhaustion is more mild. If you do get heat exhaustion, it's probably still gonna be in the realm of where you can ask for help yourself. Once you get to potentially heat stroke, that's the point at which someone else is probably gonna have to help you out. You're probably not gonna be you know, able to, to seek care for yourself at that point.
Heat stroke is very, very serious. And I really genuinely hope you all can avoid it. But I think it's important to know the symptoms of both heat exhaustion and heat stroke both for yourself and also for others. So if you see it happening, you're like, ah. This looks like heat stroke. I gotta get emergency medical services here right now because it is a medical emergency. And I'll, I'll put a link in the, in the down layer to Mayo Clinic has some really helpful informational pages about this, that, that summarizes this information.
So some specific things to look for that are symptoms of heat exhaustion. If you start getting goose bumps and your skin starts getting cold to the touch in the heat that is a very clear cut sign that you need to stop exercising, move to someplace cool, hydrate and start to reduce your body temperature bring your body temperature down. You're, you're having a hard time thermoregulating.
Really heavy sweating. And you know, as pole dancers, I think we tend to have a pretty good bead on like what our normal sweating is. If it's more than normal for you again, another sign. Take it down a notch.
If you're faint, if you're dizzy, if you're getting tired really quickly. 'cause remember when we are exercising in the heat, reduce power output, reduce endurance.
If you start to notice a weak rapid pulse, like it sort of feels like your heart's fluttering a little bit take a break. You're done. You do not need to keep pushing yourself. It's not worth it.
Low blood pressure upon standing. So especially my POTS folks, you're gonna be extra susceptible to this. You're probably not gonna be able to, to handle temperatures as high as folks who don't have POTS. So really being mindful a lot of times.
Fitness instructors will ask you to like, roll up to standing like starting in a forward fold and rolling up your spine. And partially that's because final articulation is a very useful skill to have. It's something we use a lot in pole, but also it's so that you are slowly letting your body adjust to being upright and you don't get a head rush and feel faint. So definitely something that you, you can add to your movement priorities when you're dealing with the heat.
If you're starting to get a lot of muscle cramps, nausea and headache. So any of those symptoms, a couple of those symptoms, right?
Do not keep pushing yourself. So the first thing you wanna do is you want to stop all activity and rest. And if this happens like in the middle of a song that you're dancing to, I am giving you 100% permission right now to just stop dancing, right?
If you're doing doubles, don't drop your partner, obviously, but like signal that it's time to come down. Take a break, be done. Don't keep pushing yourself through that, that's not how, how heat exhaustion works.
The only way it's going to improve is if you can get your core temperature down, so moving to a cooler place. If you're in a studio with fans, maybe you move to in front of a fan. 'cause then you can start to evaporate some of that sweat drink cool water or a sports drink. Something to, again, help get your body temperature down a little bit. You know, wet clothes can help. Ice packs can help just start to bring your core temperature down and don't do anything else to raise it.
So don't keep moving. Don't keep exercising.
And the reason is because. If ignored the symptoms of heat exhaustion can exacerbate and we can get to heat stroke. And this is basically where your core temperature is over 104 degrees, Fahrenheit, 40 degrees Celsius. You are basically not able to thermoregulate at all anymore and this is a life-threatening condition. So if you see somebody with any of the symptoms, I would call emergency medical systems. So that's like 9 9 9, 9 1 1. Whatever it is in your country. I know it varies from, from place to place because this is, this is an immediate, life-threatening, medical emergency.
And probably that person is not gonna be able to do that for themselves.
The biggest symptom is, again, that high body temperature. So core body temperature of 104 FA and height, or 40 degrees Celsius or higher. And this is the, the temperature at which body systems start to break down.
Often you'll see change in sort of like mental state you know, so confusion, agitation, slurred speech, irritability. People may, may not want you to help them, but it's still a good thing to do. Possibly seizures, possibly coma. If it gets it gets really bad. So definitely very serious.
No longer sweating. So if a person was sweating and then they just stop and their skin starts to feel hot and dry to the touch, that's a really important symptom not to ignore.
But especially in an exercise situation, you still might see sweating. So don't just be like, well, they're still sweating, so it's not heat stroke, even though, you know, they're, you know, clearly kind of out of it. Nausea and vomiting. Skin that's really flushed. Obviously this is gonna be easier to see on somebody who has paler skin like me. Someone who's very dark skin. You may, you may not notice the flushing. But again, you know, if you, if you're sort of seeing other symptoms as well, definitely something to keep in mind.
Really rapid, shallow breathing. A, a really fast heart rate, right? Trying to move the blood around, trying to get like any, any sort of temperature regulation and also like a, an intense headache.
So any of those symptoms. And you know, the, the main one, of course, is like a heightened internal body temperature is a medical emergency.
This person needs to, to get to emergency medical services. So what to do a, you know, get them to emergency medical help. Get them into a cooler environment. If they're in the sun, get them into shade indoors, if it's air conditioned. Something to help, again, reduce this body temperature.
And cool 'em down, whoever you can, right? So cool water spraying down with a hose misting fans, ice pack, whatever you can do just to like, make their body be less hot.
I don't wanna like scare you, but I think it's really good for just everybody to know what these things look like so that you are prepared for them if they show up. And also you can notice them in yourself. 'cause if you're like, "Hey, I've been pole dancing, and like, Ooh, I'm a little bit dizzy, I'm a little bit nauseous, I've got a little bit of a headache. I'm really sweating heavily. Maybe I should take a break. Maybe I should take a longer break. Maybe I'm done for the day." Rather than continuing to push through and get to the point where, you know, it becomes a medical emergency. So. Heat exhaustion, heat stroke, both really important things to keep an eye out for, especially in the summer months, wherever summer is where you are.
I know the Australians listening, just being like, Hmm, must be nice. I'm chilly.
So in addition to knowing what these signs are, knowing that you should take breaks, not really push ourselves, what are some other things that may be at play in terms of our risk factor for heat related injury or illness?
A big one is dehydration. Humans use sweat for thermal regulation. It's super important for us. It does use up water, right? Anyone who's ever, anyone who's ever taken a pole class in the summer and just like had to like constantly wipe themselves down like that, that water came from going in your mouth originally, and you gotta, you gotta keep replenishing it so the sweat can keep happening.
So, any degree of dehydration obviously gonna put you at greater risk for heat exhaustion or heat stroke. And just as an aside, I think there's a little bit of a myth that caffeinated beverages cannot be hydrating. Caffeinated beverages can be diuretic. That effect is more pronounced if you are not already regularly consuming caffeine.
I am not saying only drink, you know, coffee and Mountain Dew, and that'll be fine. I am saying that like if you have a cup of coffee, it counts towards your, your eight cups of liquid a day, right?
What doesn't is alcohol. Alcohol messes with your body's ability to control temperature. You know, some people get like, really flushed, right? That's related to that mechanism. So I would just recommend abstaining if it's gonna be really hot. You know, really being mindful, taking care of yourself.
Also as you age, your body gets less good at dealing with thermal regulation. So you know, maybe it was fine when you were 40, but now you're like in your sixties and you're starting to notice, you know, extreme temperatures a little bit more. Good to be a little bit more mindful take a little bit more care.
This is a big one that we actually have been talking about in class recently. Certain medications can make it harder for your body to handle big changes in temperature and in particularly being hotter. So especially things are used to treat high blood pressure or heart problems. Things like beta blockers, diuretics obviously because that's going to help your body remove liquid more efficiently and you need that liquid, so you're gonna need to drink a lot more.
Antihistamines can actually make it harder for you to be able to do your thermal regulation. So definitely something to keep an an eye on. I know, especially where I am, a lot of people are antihistamines 'cause we have like a heavy allergy and poleen load. Any sort of tranquilizer, any sort of depressant, any sort of thing that like helps bring your heart rate down.
The more efficiently your heart is pumping, the more your blood's moving around, the better your thermal regulation, so that can make it harder for you to handle high temperatures.
Also a lot of psychiatric drugs, anti-psychotics, SSRIs in particular make you much more susceptible to heat. And I think a lot of these are very common. A lot of folks are on at least one of these. And really good to keep in mind that it's gonna make you more at risk for heat exhaustion and heat stroke. So you're gonna wanna be extra vigilant, extra good about taking breaks, make sure you're hydrating and you know, just take care of yourself. Be nice to yourself.
Another thing that can be a contributing factor, if you do have a higher amount of body fat it's an insulator. It means you're gonna be better at handling lower temperatures, but it does make you a little bit worse at handling higher temperatures. So you may feel you know, some of these, these symptoms of heat exhaustion, it may be a lower temperature than other people around you. And just know that, just look out for it. Be, you know, be aware of it and make sure again, that you're, you're being nice to yourself, that you're taking breaks, that you don't feel like you have to push yourself more and recognize, you know. There's a lot of factors that we talked about here. There's a lot of like degrees of individual acclimatization, the between individual difference in sweat gland placement and density, also might have something to do with the environment that you grew up in possibly. There's a lot of variation in how well people can handle heat. Don't be mean to yourself. Don't be like, well, person from Singapore who grew up there and is like super used to training in a hundred degree heat and 80% humidity is doing all these cool tricks when it's super hot and sticky. I feel like I have to too, even though, you know I am from Minnesota and have pots and I'm on SSRIs and I'm just in a larger body and I have much greater degree of susceptibility to heat related injuries and illnesses than this other person, right? Don't, don't compare yourself. Don't use other people as a, as a barometer of how you're feeling. Really check in with yourself and be like, Hmm, hmm, okay, because no one's gonna like it if you have a bad time due to, due to heat exhaustion, but you're the one who's gonna have to deal with the bad feelings in your body. So really worthwhile to just be mindful of that and give yourself grace an err on the side of caution.
And of course acclimatization takes time if it's suddenly a lot hotter. If you're in a heat dome, if you've recently changed location to a place that's a lot hotter. If you're training in a new studio that maybe doesn't have air conditioning it's gonna take a while for you to acclimatize especially that first little bit is probably gonna be challenging.
So ease into it. Say no, say no to whatever you need to say no to, to keep yourself, yourself, and healthy.
And then of course, humidity is an issue as well. So you know, dry bulb, wet bulb basically the more water's already in the air, the less efficient sweating is as a method of bringing your body temperature down, right.
Because the sweat is going to have a harder time evaporating. If you're, say from Arizona and you're used to a very hot environment, but one that's very dry and you come to, let's say Georgia, the United States state, not the country I'm pretty sure Georgia, the country's also fairly dry.
Georgia, the state, and it's still hot, but it's also very humid. It's gonna feel much different. And again, that climatization I talked about does seem to be potentially dependent on the humidity of the environment specifically what, acclimatization processes occur.
Just because you're used to dancing in something that is hot and dry doesn't necessarily mean you prepare to dance in something that is hot and wet. So keep an eye on the humidity. I really recommend, especially for my, like my southeast folks and my fellow southerners if you can get a dehumidifier in your pole space, I would highly recommend it.
It does increase the temperature, it does make it hotter. But it reduces the humidity, so it makes sweat better at cooling you off. So it may reduce your core temperature a little bit better. Something to play by ear depends specifically on what you're doing. And if you happen to be in a hot, dry place, you can actually use a swamp cooler which does reduce the temperature through evaporative cooling. And also will increase the humidity a little bit. Swamp coolers do not work in swamps. That's not why they're called, that the humidity is high. It's not gonna make it any better. It only works when the humidity is low.
Alright, so we've talked about acclimatizing to heat. We've talked about heat stroke, heat exhaustion, what that looks like, what to do. We talked about some factors that might increase your risk for heat stroke or heat exhaustion. Some things to just keep in mind, keep an eye out on what are some things that as polers, we specifically should keep an eye on and we should think about.
So one thing that I really recommend, particularly if there's a big increase in temperature, is check your pole tension. Most poles are metal which means they're, they're pretty sensitive to changes in temperature. When it gets hotter, they will expand. You may need to reduce your pole tension. A good way to check if your pole tension is too tight is if you have a pole that can go on spin, put it on spin. If it spins less smoothly than it used to, you probably need to reduce the pole tension, assuming it's a tension meta pole.
Also on the, on the topic of sweating we need a little bit of sweat to stick, but not like a lot of sweat to stick. So I would really recommend having a body towel, something that you can use to remove the sweat from your body.
So like where you would put the pole for a stronghold, for an invert, I would definitely wipe that down in between sets. I find that particularly for shoulder mounting, the top of the shoulder doesn't get particularly sweaty, but slightly behind it. More on the shoulder blade. Does. So definitely a good place to, to wipe down any place you're gonna be touching the pole. Knee pits, elbow pits
Generally, you have fewer sweat glands on the legs, so the legs might be a little bit less slippery than other parts in your body. But you know, you know yourself. I would definitely recommend wiping it down. And if you are at the point where you can see like visible sweat on the pole, wipe the pole down just because that's gonna be too much liquid to to help you be, be sticky.
Also if you have hyperhydrosis, if you're somebody who sweats a lot that's something I might talk to your doctor about. There are some, some medication options there, but, you know, flip side you know, it's probably gonna make you less good at thermal regulation and definitely like risks to consider and that should be discussion between you and your medical provider.
Grips when you're sweating a lot. Grips that make you sticky. Grips that have resin in them grips that are hydrating, grips that have glycerin in them are not going to be as effective if you are sweating a lot.
I think anyone who's tried to use like a, a resin based grip and just been sweating it. You're sticky and slippery now, it doesn't actually fix the problem of having a lot of sweat on your hands, so you can try an antiperspirant grip. These are usually ones that you need to apply before you spend time on the pole. A lot of the grips for tennis players tend to be more, more antiperspirant.
And then also my favorite is chalk based grips. 'Cause that will absorb some of the liquid from your sweat as you are sweating. We have the most sweat glands on our, our palms and our feet. And actually for, you know like monkeys, that's the only place they had that type of sweat glands palms in our feet. So I use, I pretend to prefer chalk grips. You can actually just straight up use climber's chalk. I personally am, right now I'm using enviro grip, which is like a, a chalk and a an alcohol gel base. So when you apply it and it dries down, you have like a little bit of dryness.
If you are using a chalk based grip, this is important. Do not rub it in you wanna apply by padding it in, that's gonna make the product more effective than if you sort of rub it in. Which again, is a different from something like a glycerin based grip.
Also hydration. You definitely wanna be hydrating. That's just not, not just for polers, that's for everybody. But I'm gonna remind you again and just. This is gonna sound dumb, but I was never taught until I went and I did my, my personal training certification. What hydrating will you exercise should look like? So like, when I first started out, I'd like go and I'd drink a bottle of water, like a whole bottle during our first break.
And then I'd just feel bad 'cause I'd be like, oh, I'm so full of water. I can feel it's s sloshing around. That's not how you hydrate during exercise often.
So little and often, right? Every, let's say five minutes while you're exercising a little sip of water, just like a mouthful, right?
You don't wanna be, be chugging anything in the middle of an exercise program just enough to wet your mouth and then go away. And then come back, right? Because if you think about it, you're sweating, right? But you're not sweating more than like a mouthful of water every couple minutes, I hope. So you're just trying to keep that homeostasis. And then after you're done for the day, you can of course, like go ham. Drink as much as you want.
So I talked about dehumidifiers getting that you know, ambient humidity down that's gonna make sweating more effective. You can also use a fan and stand in front of a fan, so this will help dry sweat, of course, make you less slippery, but it will also help you cool down, right?
Because sweat works for evaporative cooling. So if you evaporate the sweat that takes heat and that'll cool your body temperature a little bit. So if you don't have a fan, I would really recommend one. Unless you're in a place where like. The indoor humidity is like 80%, in which case it's not gonna do anything. It's not gonna help. I'm so sorry. At that point I probably wouldn't, wouldn't recommend actually exercising at all. I'd probably say that's a, that's a laying around and sort of groaning, kind of a kind of environment to be in.
And one final thing to keep in mind is that particularly if you're doing floor work and it's hot and you're sweating, you're gonna, you're gonna leave little puddles of sweat on the floor and then they are probably gonna be more slippery, particularly if you're in shoes.
So I would have not only a body towel to wipe your body down, but also a separate floor towel to get the sweat off the floor so you're not slip and slide in on your, your little sweat puddles that you left earlier.
Just my recommendation again, particularly if you're in heels, 'cause those tend to have a little bit less good of friction with the floor. I know it sounds gross, but it does genuinely help. I guess you could use the same towel for both, but if you're like me, I've got really sensitive skin that would gimme acne immediately. So I, I use separate towels and that would be my recommendation for you as well. But you're an adult, you get to choose what you wanna do.
All right, so that's all I've got for you today. It is, it is hot. My recommendations, again, just top level things. Hydrate, drink your water. Don't be a hero, don't push yourself. Know what heat exhaustion and heat stroke look like. If you are noticing that you are starting to get some of the heat exhaustion symptoms, take a break. Let yourself cool down If you're noticing that, that in somebody else, maybe you mentioned to them. If you notice heat stroke symptoms definitely make sure that you get them medical attention. That is a medical emergency. Take care of yourself, take care of others, be nice to yourself. There are more important things in life than making sure that you do, you know, the pole choreography all the way through 'cause that's what the teacher tells you to do. And I, I think any, any pole teacher would hopefully more than agree with me on that particular point.
I hope y'all have a wonderful couple weeks until I see you next time and I'll talk with you soon. Bye.
