Leverage Palm Cooling for Instant Gains
Leverage Palm Cooling for Instant Gains
Get-Fit Guy is hosted by Kevin Don. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
Get-Fit Guy is hosted by Kevin Don. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Hello, everyone. Kevin Don, the Get Fit Guy, here. This past week, I was reading about something super interesting: the effect of localised thermal cooling on performance. Therefore, I thought I would give everyone a break from philosophy and talk about fitness this week. Aren’t you the lucky ones?!
So, first of all, before we discuss the effects of localised cooling, let's discuss global heating. By this, I mean global as it applies to the whole organism, not to the planet. What are the negative effects on performance of just being too hot?
Our exercise capacity depends upon the ability of the body to dissipate heat and maintain blood flow to the muscles being used during the exercise. As the effort of an exercise increases, so does blood pressure. This decreases blood plasma volume. When we begin to overheat, either via overexertion or by exercising in a hot environment, blood plasma volume decreases even faster due to loss of body fluids through sweating. This means that during overheating there simply may not be sufficient blood flow to adequately dissipate heat and supply the working muscles.
Eventually, one will succumb to thermal distress. This includes dehydration or loss of body fluid, cramping or involuntary spasm of the skeletal muscle, heat exhaustion or weakness caused by the inability of the circulation to compensate for the dilation of blood vessels in the skin. We can also see fainting and heat stroke, which is a failure of the temperature regulation system as a whole. All of these issues can combine and blur into one big failure to perform as the core temperature rises. Cutting out your ability to keep going is really all the body can do here to ensure it avoids any lasting damage and ultimately, your survival. However, those of us who play sports want to prolong the performance of said sport for as long as possible within an event.
This is where palm rolling comes in. It really is exactly as it sounds. Cooling the palm of the hand came about from research into the exact opposite: how warming the palms could aid in temperature moderation in individuals with hypothermia. The original research was done by Stanford University and then further research as funded by the U.S. Military into how best to moderate heat stress in armed forces personnel. They developed what was known as the ‘Stanford glove’, which was worn to facilitate either palm heating or cooling.
Like many protocols with specific developmental uses, it was adapted for sports performance. Further study was conducted into the effects of palm cooling as an intervention in athletes in a hot environment who were performing aerobic exercise. In the study, participants ran on a treadmill and had measurements of performance taken. They then repeated the same test with one palm being cooled and found that palm cooling extended aerobic work capacity compared to no cooling.
In another study on endurance, cyclists in a 30km time trial showed lower core temperatures in the athletes with palm cooling, enabling a higher sustained workload and a faster time to completion of the time trial.
Similar improvements in performance were seen in strength output also. In a bench press study, participants used palm cooling, palm heating and palm neutral. In all tests, palm cooling increased total reps to failure by 26%.
So how does palm cooling work and can you do it yourself? Before anyone goes for a run while holding an ice cube, lets have a look at the protocols. There are a number of palm cooling devices available some use negative pressure, which is a low level vacuum and others use a self cooling system while others need to be cooled first and then re-cooled after a period of use. For most of us at home exercisers or gym athletes we are going to be cost limited and no one is jumping out to buy a negative pressure vacuum glove for their morning bench press session. So most of us will be in the camp of using a device you pre-cool and use for the duration of the session. These devices look a bit like a can of soda and run about 40 bucks.
The next thing is to think about ho to use it in your training. Obviously if you are a lifter, you will have a bar in your hands and if a runner your hands will be empty, a functional fitness athlete may have a scenario where their hands are empty sometimes and using objects at other times.
If you are training strength: Just warm up as usual and mobilise. You wont be in any overheating danger during a warm up. Once you start your working sets, thats where you will hold the palm cooling device between sets. As with all the workout types, start cooling your palm when you start working, there is no point in trying to cool down once you have passed the overheating threshold. You want to avoid hitting that.
If you are training for CrossFit or functional fitness, during the strength or skill component, do exactly as I have said for strength training. Many workouts will not allow you to palm cool but some will. For example a workout with box jumps or running can easily allow you to hold a rolling device. Same thing goes for a partner workout or an EMOM (every minute on the minute) where you can do the reps and then rest until the next set of reps while holding palm cooling.
If you are an endurance athlete, then palm cooling is much easier because typically your hands will be free. Even mountain biking or such can allow for this because you can palm cool during a rest break.
So thats it for this week. Palm cooling is backed by science and multiple studies have been conducted on this. Performance will decrease as you begin to heat up and cooling the palm will enable you to push harder for longer.
Any questions, email me at getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com
Get-Fit Guy is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to the team at Quick and Dirty Tips Morgan Christianson, Holly Hutchings, the director of podcasts Brannan Goetchuss and Davina Tomlin. I’m your host, Kevin Don. If you have a question for me, leave me a voicemail at 510-353-3104 or send me an email at
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