{"id":796,"date":"2022-02-17T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/?p=796"},"modified":"2022-02-17T10:30:02","modified_gmt":"2022-02-17T10:30:02","slug":"winter-olympics-how-cold-is-too-cold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/winter-olympics-how-cold-is-too-cold\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Olympics: How cold is too cold?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Author: Dr Brad Elliott<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Cycling into work in a chilly -1\u00baC morning in London got me thinking about this year\u2019s Winter Olympics in Beijing. You see, this Olympics has been cold. This may sound like a silly statement, but stick with me. Yes, it\u2019s winter, there\u2019s snow on the ground, etc<\/em>. But at the Alpine Zhangjiakou venue for skiing and snowboarding events, it\u2019s been colder than a lot of athletes are used too<\/a>. Windy, cold, dry races on the Zhangjiakou Zones have been causing skiers some problems.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Exercising in cold weather can be enjoyable, just follow some simple guidelines.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Human beings are remarkably successful species in a number of ways, and our ability to regulate temperature in the wide variety of global environments is one example of this. Physiologically, we regulate our internal body temperature very carefully despite what\u2019s going on outside, keeping our cells pretty close to their optimal 37\u00baC.  Heat production is primarily a by-product of mitochondrial metabolism: little tiny sub-cellular factories burn oxygen and nutrients to produce energy for our cells to function. Heat loss from our bodies occurs via a number of different mechanisms. Radiation is the most obvious. When our body is warmer than outside (a pretty typical situation), we radiate heat into the environment like a heater. Conduction is another obvious one, and works throughdirect contact. If we touch something that\u2019s warmer, we gain heat from it, and if we touch something colder, we lose heat. Convection is similar, the flow of air over our body makes us gain heat if the air is warmer, and lose heat if the air is colder. I like to think of these two as cooking: conduction is like cooking in a pan, convection like cooking in an oven. Finally, evaporation, or loss of heat when fluids evaporate off our skin. Does this sound familiar? This is why we sweat, small amounts of water on our skin evaporate, making this a much more effective way of losing heat than other methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evaporation is why getting wet, either in cold water or in rain near zero degrees, can become dangerous quickly. As long as we stay relatively dry and it\u2019s not too windy, exercising in cold isn\u2019t physiologically that hazardous. In fact, as we approach zero degrees, some types of endurance exercise can become more physiologically efficient. Marathon runners make their record attempts early in the morning, partly because that\u2019s when the air is cool, and a typical guideline for endurance sports is to start your day feeling like you\u2019re one layer under-dressed for the current temperature, because you\u2019ll soon warm up. Between zero and -20\u00baC with no wind or rain, one or two layers of clothing will keep the air close to your skin warm and minimise convective heat loss, keeping most people comfortable for extended periods of time exercising. Layers are important; depending on exercise intensity, you may even overheat during exercise in cold environments and want to de-layer, but when you stop moving\/skiing\/running, you\u2019ll cool down rapidly and want to layer back up and move into a warm environment if you can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it\u2019s windy, however, you get increased convective heat loss. This is known as wind chill, which is why cold weather climates often report two temperatures (e.g., \u201c-12\u00baC today plus a mild breeze, so it feels like -18\u00baC\u201d). \u00a0When considering events in cold weather, we need to consider both the \u2018absolute\u2019 temperature and the windchill-induced \u2018feels like\u2019 temperature. This is what the athletes in the alpine venue of Zhangjiakou are struggling with, temperatures that don\u2019t seem too cold at first – \u201conly\u201d -10 to -20\u00baC or so – but with the addition of wind speed and the speed that racing athletes are moving, serious risks of frost bite on exposed skin occur within minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When exercising in the cold, consider both air temperature and wind speed. don\u2019t forget relative wind speed is affected by both the actual wind and how fast you\u2019re moving.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, it\u2019s cold. What can we do about this? Biathletes in particular have been struggling. Outdoors for extended periods, moving quickly and exposed to the wind. Remember, if there\u2019s a 20km\/h wind that you\u2019re skiing at 20km\/h into, you\u2019re experiencing 40 km\/h of wind speed on your face and suddenly -20\u00baC feels more like -35\u00baC. Some strikingly non-streamlined scarfs, fluffy neck gaiters and gloves have been cropping up in practices and even races. Rumours have it heated socks and gloves are also being used to help warm vulnerable extremities. Athletes have even been seen with tape on their cheeks and noses to try and stop windchill causing frostbite on this remaining exposed skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Biathletes in particular have been struggling with the cold, racing in warmer gloves and scarves than normal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Frostbite is a particularly awful experience, trust me. As the water in the cells of your body freezes, it forms crystals that rupture and kill the cells. If it\u2019s \u201cjust\u201d superficial skin layers, it\u2019s painful but not so serious, but deep tissue frostbite leads to lost fingers, toes and ears through a delightfully named process known as \u2018auto-amputation\u2019. The tissue dies, turns black and falls off. I’ll refrain from linking any pictures here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The message here isn\u2019t avoid exercising when it\u2019s cold. Far from it. Be smart, know how cold, wet and windy it\u2019s going to be and plan to manage it. Have a warm \u2018out\u2019 option in case temperatures change quickly. Going back to my case this morning, as I reached campus on my bike, I was plenty warm enough, very pleased it wasn\u2019t raining, and as it was only -1\u00baC no face tape for me today.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Author’s biography<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Dr Bradley Elliott <\/a>is Senior Lecturer in Physiology at the University of Westminster, where his research focuses on the translation of basic science into human clinical practice. He specialises in understanding and minimising the effects of ageing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author: Dr Brad Elliott Cycling into work in a chilly -1\u00baC morning in London got me thinking about this year\u2019s Winter Olympics in Beijing. You see, this Olympics has been cold. This may sound like a silly statement, but stick…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":639,"featured_media":799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,18],"tags":[168,165,27,24,79,106,26,71,156,70,25,166,167],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology-biomedical-sciences","category-life-sciences","tag-brad-elliott","tag-cold","tag-college-of-liberal-arts-and-sciences","tag-difference","tag-different-conversations-podcast","tag-exercise","tag-las","tag-life-sciences","tag-olympics","tag-school-of-life-sciences","tag-we-are-different","tag-weather","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/639"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":804,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions\/804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}