Why Fire Shaper hot… and how to control core body temperature in athletes
There is a science to why the heat and humidity in the yoga room must be within certain parameters in order to get the most desirable effect on the body. Your skin acts like a radiator in your car. As blood gets too hot it will go to the skin to get cooled down and then be sent back into the body to go to wherever it is needed the most. During your hot yoga practice you are purposefully manipulating the flow of blood throughout the body in a strategic healthful way. Warmed up blood will still go to the skin to get cooled down but, in a true hot yoga room the evaporative effect is less harsh and you will not feel cool and will not experience the “chill” effect as you would in a warm yoga room. In this hot yoga practice, the warmed up blood is used as a tool to loosen the body and relax the nervous system. In a “warm” yoga room the body has to heat up almost exclusively via muscle exertion and the effects of this process generally does not go as deep and will only slightly affect the nervous system if at all.
What is interesting is that body cooling rules for people, situations, and activities are quite different when given different circumstances and goals. For example, you would not want the high school football or tennis team to play in a hot room while playing a game or having a practice. Certainly the heat would impact performance and of course safety.
Same would apply if you were an aged person sitting back at your local market on a blistering hot day. It wouldn’t be the best environment nor the safest for that person to be in and quite often people in these circumstances can experience heat stress. Yet apply the proper heat and humidity into your hot yoga practice where you strategically and methodically practice yoga asana, and you get an incredible life enhancing experience.
The effects heat and humidity have on the human body are incredible and over the years Dr. John has worked with people from all walks of life like the US Military, USA Summer Olympic teams, huge multi-billion dollar corporations to the friendly grandma down the road all to help them find their best performance or to simply improve their quality of life by improving their body cooling. To find some of the best body cooling products on the market please visit www.arcticheatusa.com in the USA where they sell the Arctic Heat body cooling ice vests. They can also be found on www.icevests.com or when a quick cool down in Australia is required it’s www.icevests.com.au