Environment Training

Looking for some advice and resources regarding exercise in a extreme environment, such as the heat of the of the Sahara or the cold of the Antarctic.

The thing is myself and another family member have the chance, to take part in a charity event, which is going to include walking and running in very cold parts of the world, alpine skiing run in Svalbard etc!

The human body must adapt in order to survive in environments where extreme temperatures are experienced and it is my duty to develop our guidelines for training and participation.

Thanks

This isn't really my area of expertise.

There are quite a few good org's out there that you can talk to regarding this, there's information about readily available as they don't like their competitors getting into trouble.

This might help a little more than the generic info I would supply here.

a place you may want to ask this question is on ukclimbing.com many on that forum have trained in extreme temperatures

From the triathlon bods I know, there's faking it at home and adapting onsite.

Faking it at home means trying to reproduce the environment - not all at once, build up to it - and the case I can remember was using a gym sauna to fake somewhere ridiculously hot like Death Valley.
You obviously have to be very careful of heat exhaustion doing this!

Cold-water swimmers have been known to ply up and down the Scottish lochs in speedos, bless their loony selves.

Acclimatisation onsite means getting there as early as possible and then training in the race environment for real.  Budget is the key limiting factor: this is standard for pros, but can be challenging for a normal human budget!

I took part in a study with a PhD student at my university. He was measuring the time it takes for athletes to adapt to extreme heat (for the Kalahari Marathon.)

I had a VO2 max test and DEXA scan prior to the training starting.

I ran 3 times per week for 2hrs at a time at 60% of my VO2 max. Before each test I gave a urine sample, blood sample and was weighed nude. I wore a rectal thermometer during the test, and my fluid intake was recorded during the test also. After each test, I had another urine and another blood sample taken.

The first week was at 20degrees C (in a chamber), the second at 30 degrees C, the third at 35 degrees C and the fourth at 40 degrees C.

It basically showed that the body only takes two x 2hr sessions to adapt to temperature increases of 5degrees C. (By the start of the third session on each temp my hematocrit has increased to the maximum - the amount of plasma in my blood was at the highest here rather than at the end of the third session)

In a nutshell, you should increase the temp gradually and do two x 2hrs at each temp...