Hottest Feeling Day of Year SO FAR

Today, I can hear the cadence of coach Bob Lutz’ whistle on the Ironton Fighting Tiger gridiron perfectly! You don’t get to be a perennial football power without a regimented practice schedule that is pinpoint perfect when it comes to optimizing time.

But on days like Tuesday, when the heat index (combination of temperature and humidity on skin) tops 100, the most important person on the Tanks Memorial Stadium field is not a player or a coach. It is the Certified Athletic Trainer (Cat). It is the CAT’s job to monitor the heat index closely and how it affects the players. One sign of heat stress and it’s time for a water break.

We learned the importance of that when the Minnesota Viking’s Corey Stringer succumbed to heat stroke and died on the practice field in 2001. Since then, a host of football players at the high school, collegiate and professional levels have battled heat stress and made news headlines, some more tragically than others.

What we know in this era of modern sports medicine is that the body copes with heat much like a car. Think of the heart as the engine, the focus for any strenuous action by a human being. It’s role is to pump blood (fluid as in a car) to the rest of the body. Proper nutrition plays a key role in having our hearts behave optimally.

Think of the skin as the car radiator. It’s role is to permit us to sweat when it gets really hot. This is important since sweating promotes the cooling of the body. Just as when we get out of the pool or the shower and the first sensation we feel is cooling, so the sweating we do on a hot summer day promotes the necessary cooling for our bodies to cope with the heat.

Of course, it is a warning sign when the body stops sweating, since the body’s ability to cool will be compromised. This is why CATs at all levels of athletic training will monitor athletes for signs of heat stress. This is done by documenting the actual heat index on a minute by minute basis. When that measure of heat exceeds 100 (where it is on Tuesday for the first time this summer), water breaks are mandatory and practice schedule’s should be curtailed. In weather like this, 2-a-days are best held early in the morning and again in the evening to avoid the worst of the heat.

For the record, Tuesday’s air temperature topped out in the mid 90s. a few degrees lower than the June heat wave which produced highs of 97 officially at both the Huntington and Charleston airports. But unlike that “desert” heat of June when humidity levels were bone dry, this week’s heat is the jungle variety, like the Amazon and Congo. And that tropical nature to the heat index is a whole new ballgame when it comes to the heat index.

HIGH TEMPERATURE DEWPOINT HEAT INDEX

Today 95 70 101
June 97 55 97

So pick your poison! The blast furnace heat of June or the jungle like heat of our current outdoor sauna. Both are uncomfortable, but the steambath is more taxing to the body.