Keeping Your Cool: Training Smart in the Heat🥵

This week we're talking about something everyone is feeling—summer heat.

Why do workouts suddenly feel harder? Should you expect personal bests when the humidex is through the roof? We discuss hydration, nutrition, pacing, recovery, and how to adjust your expectations without skipping your workouts.

Whether you're a seasoned CrossFitter or just trying to stay active this summer, this episode is packed with practical tips to help you train smarter—not harder.

Are you in the Dunnville, Ontario area? Curious about what Grand River CrossFit is all about? Check out our social links and website:

https://www.facebook.com/grandrivercrossfit/

@grandrivercrossfit

https://grandrivercrossfit.ca/

Book your Free "No Sweat Intro" here:

https://www.wodboard.com/locations/94/services/253/5da6dd0a/calendar?instructor_id=18677

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:14

This is Keeping It Real with Nairi Fiona and Greg. Greg, what you got?

SPEAKER_00 0:19

I'm drinking one of my favorites. It's Innocent Gun, the Caribbean rum cast, the ruby red beer. So yeah, this is a right from Scotland. You know, since 2003.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

And if it's not Scottish, it's a great. It's crap.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

This is actually a really nice, yeah. It's really dark. Yeah, it's dark, nice amber one. So it's uh it's good. Have you ever had that one?

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's good. Fiona and I are in France. We are done this one. Hello. Anton Rodet, Cote de Ron. It's red. It's French. It's really nice. Um, 14% alcohol. Not that that makes a difference, but uh yeah. It's going down pretty nice. It's going down real nice. Um, so it's been um balls hot.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Very much so. Hotter than Satan's butthole.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

That's what I said. It's like Satan's asshole out here.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

That said butthole. You went asshole this time. So you you took it up a knot. I was even thinking Satan's armpit, but yeah, it's probably the asshole yet.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Uh so in southern Ontario, we have a double whammy of not only is it hot, but it is humid.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

You know that's the one that says 24 degrees with the humidity of freaking.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

It has like it's been, but it's been 28, 29, 30 degrees with the humidity.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

The one day I went to work on Thursday, it said, Oh, it's 32 degrees.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

What's the humidex of 42? Yeah. I'm like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah, you tie up your shoes and you start sweating. I gotta change my underwear, I just changed my shoes.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Like, so in the States they use the term heat index, but we use the word humidex, which is uniquely Canadian. But it it ultimately translates to the same thing as an it is balls hot. Um what's it uh our one member, Michelle, was talking about you see when squirrels get hot, they just splay out because they're balls hot cooling. They junk it is balls hot. Yeah. Perhaps it's like, should we check on the squirrel? I mean, and so they Googled, like it's but no, that's what they're doing. They're just kind of cooling off. Cooling their jets, as it were. Cooling their junk. Um, but of course, we still need to carry on with our lives and uh work out in the heat.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Like I said, you know, bad weather makes tough people. Well, you gotta be smart about that. Well, you gotta be smart, but it does, right? Like you got you you just can't stop life because it's hot outside. Yeah. Like, you know, you gotta you gotta move on.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

You do have to move on. But I mean, you s can make some smart choices here. Um, so when it comes to the heat, your body has two competing priorities cooling itself and protect powering your muscles.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

So this is where you know, you're not gonna be making some uh PRs, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:04

So No, and you you gotta realize that going into it, right? The stuff that you did in in the cool last time. We're going on to a workout, like like say the one we just did, right, with a shoulder press. You know, we might have done that one. I I I can't remember when we did it last, but it was probably in the floor.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

I'd still suck in the winter, it doesn't matter for me.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Well, shoulders are I was going by my crossfit total number.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Well, you got a PR on that.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

That's nice and warmed up. A lot of people got a PR. Well, and that's a nice thing too, right? Because in that heat, you do get warmed up quick. But sometimes that heat can be a double-edged sword, right? It could go either way. So you have to have to watch that.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

I think I like that's why I like doing strength even when it's warm, just because you're not the cardio is there, but it's not the same as it would be if it was like a like I like back squats when it's warm.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

You know, I I can squat. I think I squat better when it's warm. You know, I can move through that a lot, a lot better, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Um, well, I mean, there's the reality of that your body is trying to uh cool itself, so it's gonna spend you know more energy sending sweat to your sky rather than energy to your muscles. Um and then of course the humidity is often worse than the heat. So I feel like uh, you know, there's a difference saying, oh, it's a dry heat. I feel like like that's legit. Like it's yeah. You know, a a 28-degree day with no humidity feels way better than a day with uh you know balls humidity.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Falls humidity, yeah, when you got uh making gravy day, yeah. Making gravy.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah, because lately, like I don't it doesn't even you don't even require much activity to start sweating. I know.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

No, like I said, tie them up my shoes. Uh yeah, bend over and tie up my shoes out there, and it's like, oh geez, I'm sweating already. It's like holy crap.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Like it feels like the sweat just stays there. Yeah. It doesn't move.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Well, you're soaked the whole time. Like I know when we're at the at the gym, I laugh like all day. I'm just like sweating the whole time when not even doing anything. You know, after my workout in the morning, I just sweat through the whole time. Crazy, right? It's like yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Um, do you find you eat different in this weather?

SPEAKER_00 5:15

I I find sometimes I don't eat as much when I'm when I'm super hot. I just don't have the you you feel like you don't have the energy to eat a lot of time. So yeah, you do cut down a little bit, I think. I think f for me anyways.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

What about you? Well, like say for yesterday. Um normally I would have a snack either on my way home or when I got home if I was going to 4 30 or 5 30. Um, but I totally missed that yesterday. But then we had gone out for lunch, so I had a pretty good you know, had a chicken wrap.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

You got yeah, you got everything in.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

I was good and sustained, like I guess satiated, right? So I didn't really need. And I was kind of worried. I thought, oh shoot, should I have had something before I went? But I don't think it really affected me too much.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Clearly, because you got a PR. Uh no, I feel like you tend to crave you don't want the heavy stuff. No.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

So you just don't Yeah, you're a little lighter.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

You want like the salads or maybe you know yeah, like definitely the lighter fare. Like you know, you don't want to maybe rather barbecue rather than cook inside. But uh but yeah, I mean like I think if it in terms of nutrition for the heat, you still need to eat because I feel like people get more nauseous with the hotter weather than they would in the cooler weather.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Because they're drinking a lot, right? They forget about it.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Well, I hope they're drinking a lot.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Well, they're drinking, and I think that happens a lot, right? People drink a lot and then then they forget to eat, and then all of a sudden they'll come in to work out and it's like, oh my god, I forgot to eat. Like I ate at eight o'clock this morning, and I haven't ate anything since then. It's 3 30 in the afternoon. It's like, whoa. Yeah, I like food too much, too. Oh goodness. Do I ever Yeah, my belly would be going, ooh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

But I guess you know, that that's that thing where they say you're when you're drink when you say you feel you're hungry, have some water first. Yeah. So it kind of does that.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

But that's only good for so long before not all day. Your gut starts rumbling and saying, What the hell's wrong with you? No.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

But I find like so we mean talking about hydration, like obviously if you're thirsty, especially when it's hot, it's too late.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

It's too late. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

And uh the color of your urine is not if it's brown, like you need to start drinking a whole lot. But even if it's light colored, it doesn't necessarily mean anything because I mean, you could be sweating profusely and still have very dark urine just because and this is where the electrolyte things comes in the you don't need Gatorade, you can kind of make your own.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Make your own. You're you're better off making your own because there's less junk in it. Yeah, right. You know, and we did that, like I I did that before. Like we we had with maple syrup and some, you know, some lemon juice or lime juice, I think it was. No, probably lemon, whatever I have in the fridge, and water and that's a little bit of salt, right? Yeah, big time salt, and yet made it better than you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

I've used that on a 30k hike that had with the yeah, but that was like years ago in October when we hired it.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

October and it was super hot and everything, and I had muscle cramps, and the next day I said, you know what? I need to take some electrolyte to balance this out a little bit. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

I I mean, you definitely can acclimatize to this hot stuff because I mean the reality is we're gonna be in it off and on for the next two and a half, three months.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

The problem is it had happened so early this year again.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

There was it was so extreme, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

We had a beautiful spell, it was wet the week before, like the last two weeks have been phenomenal 20 degrees, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Cool, you know, gorgeous, and then bam yeah, 40 you walk out and get slapped in the face, just knock your legs right out from underneath you.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

It's like holy jeez. Yeah, because like last week was like 20, 22 at the most. Cool, like some days you had to wear a sweater, and then all of a sudden, like, holy crap, you gotta go naked.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yeah, nobody wants to see that.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

No, nobody does.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

But I know myself, I definitely when it's like say that one we did with step-ups and the Oh yeah, Monday. The fact I did the wall uh the medicine ball with the step ups, I'm kind of amazed at because I didn't think I could even pull it off, but um, you know, it's just about pacing, right? Absolutely. Like when it's something like that where you can't, you know, you're not gonna go your normal tempo, your normal speed that you wouldn't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Well, you gotta know your limits too in that in that heat, right? And I think everybody's a little different where you know you can push yourself a little bit. Like I did one yesterday, like that mile run, the freedom mile, which was like your your heaviest mile, so you had to load up. So I had like a like 60 pounds on my back running the mile.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

He's something.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

And you know, you know, and I had to know my limit. Okay, what's my limit and where I where where do I need to stop? But I made it through in 14 and a half minutes, which was good. So that was in that that range that I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

14 and a half minutes for how long? Sorry?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yeah, it was 60 pounds, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

So he had his ruck and then he carried a 40-pound sandbag too.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

So but it was hot, like it was hot, and I was I was sweating. Oh like better.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

But also 7 a.m., which is better than yeah, and that's that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Doing it at that compared to doing it at 3 30 in the afternoon was a way better choice for sure, right? So that's what I'm excited about. Yeah next week. Yeah, getting to do mornings.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Yeah. Um, I had a thought here. Um so sometimes when I say compare to, I'll make note of the ones that we've done in the summer and then compare it to say, so we'll do it maybe in July and we'll try it again in January. And it's always interesting, like you probably will squeeze out another rep or another round or whatever it is, depending on the workout. But uh yeah, I mean, you can't expect to hit PRs, maybe strength PRs, because you are already the heat does help.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

I think it the heat lends more to strength than it does to endurance workout for sure. Like big time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

So should I just do strength all summer? No, sure. Yay, it's my time. Um yeah, you know, uh everybody sweats differently too, so just because you're sweating a lot doesn't necessarily mean that uh you're adapting well to the heat either.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

No, and and a lot of times when you're not sweating, that's when you have to look at it a little bit because that means your air conditioner is not working too good in your body. That's right. So it's not regulating too, right? It's not regulating too well. And there are some people that don't sweat well, you know.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Um this might also be a time when talk when it comes to nutrition to add more carbohydrates to your diet.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Because that's kind of a nice way to get water into your system without drinking more water. So this is why, again, like about earlier, how your diet changes, you do crave more carbohydrates, more salads, more of that kind of thing. So um, you know, you could have watermelon, yeah, all those good things.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

How about your vegetables? Because you look at peppers and tomatoes and things like that. They're you know, so much water in them that are gonna help out. Cucumber.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Or he doesn't like cucumber.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

No, I'm not a cucumber, dude. No, you like celery? Nope. Nope.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Nope. Celery's gross.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Yeah, celery I can't do. Yeah, too stringy. Yeah, it's it's it's weird.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

I just remember having it like with cheese whiz back in the day. Yeah, peanut butter. I was like, never done that.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

No, yeah, we had peanut butter too. Peanut butter or cheese whiz, and I was like, nah, I don't like either one. It's like you lick out the friggin' okay stuff out of the froth, and then that's it.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

You know, just skip the celery and just go for the peanut butter. Yeah, exactly. What the hell? Our we have a significantly older population, and they still show up regardless of the weather. For sure. So obviously we tone things down for them. But uh when it comes to aging, unfortunately, we're all reaching that. We don't cool down as efficiently as we used to. So you do need to be mindful as you get older that Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

You it's gonna take a little the time's gonna be a little different.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

You're gonna sweat less.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

You're gonna sweat less, probably. You know, they they well, it's like when you see an old person with a sweater on and 83. They just don't feel it's because their their their bodies don't regulate the heat as much. So that's where we have to monitor that a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

So yeah, like Lorraine and a tank and a turtleneck to come to the gym. She's been wearing no, she's been wearing t-shirts. Okay, she's good. It's a little concerned with the with the hotter weather. I'm like, oh, please don't be worried about it.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah, you gotta ditch that turtleneck.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Although she's been smart and not been like, usually she walks most mornings and she hasn't been out.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah, the hot stuff is um this morning.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

I saw her, but she had shorts and a t-shirt on, so that was good.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Yeah, she's always dressed, ready to go. Um, you know, we just you gotta just be smart. And I mean, if you can schedule those workouts, like you said, you know, you're looking forward to mornings for the next eight weeks.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

You know, well, and and that's it. You you gotta look at the weather. The weather's it's gonna be screwed up all summer. There's gonna be thunderstorm this day, that you know, hot, cold, like up and down all over the place. Just do your workout. You have to adjust accordingly.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

And don't expect a PR.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Don't expect a PR every day that you come in. Like, if you're expecting that every day when you come in, anyways, then there's a that's another discussion. That's a whole other episode. Just consistency. Yeah, be consistent, get the workout done to the best of your ability, and away you go, right? You know, it's not about being yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

I mean, and you can adjust, like wear light, loose clothing. You know, we all do drink high, drink a lot, yeah. Watch the alcohol consumption, unfortunately. Uh as we say as we're not right now. But we're an AC. We watch it, we watch that bottle. Watch it. Yep. Anyway, so I'm sipping. You're sipping? Okay. Um, so the heat isn't a reason to stop working out. You just need to be smarter with your uh with your expectations too. So we're not crushing PRs unless it's a strength workout. Yep. So maybe I'll program some more strength workouts for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

You know what? Strength is great, but you still gotta have those those hard ones in there. Even though the heat, you gotta work. You just know that you know that you can lower and compare it to and say, hey, you know, when I did this one, it was 40 degrees. The last time I did it, it was like, you know, minus 20. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

It was just keep moving.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

You gotta keep moving. Just keep going.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Yeah. So there you go. Don't let the heat uh stop you from coming to the gym.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

It'll be a heat miser.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Okay. That is uh keeping it real with Nari Fiona and Greg.