Evaluation of artificial sweat in athletes with spinal cord injuries

Document Type

Article

Department or Administrative Unit

Nutrition Exercise and Health Sciences

Publication Date

2-5-2010

Abstract

Athletes with spinal cord injury often experience high heat storage due to reduced sweating capacity below the spinal injury. Spray bottle (SB) maybe used to apply mist for evaporative cooling during breaks in competitions. This study examined the efficacy of SB during rest breaks. Seven participants, four female and three males, (mean ± SD age 24 ± 4.1 year, weight 56.2 ± 7.0 kg, upper-body VO2 peak 2.4 ± 0.6 l/min) volunteered for the study. Participants were paraplegic athletes (T3–T12/L1) with both complete and incomplete lesions. Participants arm-cranked using a ramp protocol in an environment of 21 ± 1.5°C and 55 ± 3% rh once using a SB during 1-min rest between 7-min stages of increasing intensity and once without the SB (CON). Mean total work was similar (p = 0.86) for the SB and CON (2495.7 ± 914.6 vs. 2407.1 ± 982.3 kJ, respectively). Likewise, the mean work times were similar between trials (27 ± 6 and 26 ± 7 min for SB and CON, respectively). Furthermore, there were no significant differences detected between trials for skin temperature, rectal temperature, esophageal temperature (p > 0.05). There were no statistically significant differences detected between trials for RPE (p > 0.05). In conclusion, the application of artificial sweat via SB was ineffective in attenuating the onset of uncompensable heat strain during high-intensity arm exercise in a comfortable environment.

Comments

This article was originally published in European Journal of Applied Physiology. The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.

Due to copyright restrictions, this article is not available for free download from ScholarWorks @ CWU.

Journal

European Journal of Applied Physiology

Rights

© Springer-Verlag 2010

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