Neuro Athletes,

Many of you reading this are going through a rough patch this week. My heart goes out to Ukraine and anybody affected by this, one of our fighters at Neuro Athletics is Ukrainian and I cannot stop thinking about his family and how devastating this is.

Without bringing too much doom and gloom, I hope this email uplifts you and does it purpose which is to get you the tools necessary to perform at your peak.

The concept today comes from my week in Miami training Ömer Yurtseven who is a rookie on the Miami Heat team. My team and I have been developing a number of protocols for him so he can play and train at his best and one particular protocol is cooling.

Being at the top of your game involves becoming so efficient with your training so understanding a protocol for cooling could mean that you can increase your strength gains by 200%

In this email I am going to talk to you about cooling and how you can start to use it in your daily practise to get the results your need.

Btw...if you were forwarded this newsletter, or you’re not a current subscriber, join 35,000+ individuals who subscribe to Neuro Athletics. It takes 3.2 seconds to click here and subscribe. Every week, I go deep into a topic that you can use and implement into your routine to upgrade your mental performance.

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Primer:

When it comes to muscles performing optimally, heat is often an underrated component. An excessively hot muscle has a diminished capacity to produce force. The body can reduce a muscles temperature by circulating blood to it, extracting the heat and dispersing it around the rest of the body. However, this cannot continue forever. As the overall body temperature rises the circulating blood to the muscle becomes ineffective at heat removal, simply because the circulating blood itself is high in temperature.

Glabrous skin regions, particularly the soles of the feet and palm of the hand, due to having a unique vascular structure are an effective region to cool the overall body temperature, simply cooling the palms of the hand or soles of the feet can decrease the temperature of circulating blood.

Based on all of this information, cooling these glabrous skin regions during exercise can cool down the circulating blood, allowing it to be more effective at removing heat from the muscle, thereby potentially facilitating an increase in muscle performance.

An extremely fascinating study by Grant et. al examined how much heat impacts performance, as well as if cooling your palms could improve performance and long term strength gains.

What they found:

Seven men with at least two years of pull up training experience were recruited subjects performed 10 sets of pull up repetitions to failure - the point at which the subject cannot bring his chin over the bar - with three minutes of rest between sets two times per week for six weeks.

Some subjects throughout the three minute rest interval durations, cooled their palms using the special equipment. Other subjects rested passively.

The results?

The subjects who cooled their palms between sets managed to perform an average of 13 more repetitions across the 10 sets, every session. In contrast, the subjects who rested passively managed to perform only an average of six more repetitions across the 10 sets, every session.

What does this mean?

Cooling in between pull up sets just over doubled subjects repetition performance 🤯

Protocol:

As you may have noticed, all the protocols and studies exposed subjects to a 15–16°C temperature.

Exposing your palms to excessively cold temperatures may not work.

Excessive cold temperatures will likely result in constriction of blood vessels, preventing the cool blood from circulating throughout the body.

A 15–16°C temperature is likely cool enough to reduce circulating blood temperature while avoiding blood vessel constriction, successfully allowing the circulation of cool blood to the muscle.

You can use:

• Ice packs

• Grab a bucket of cold water (measuring the temperature to gain precise temperature)

If getting cold is something you are interested in to reach maximum strength gains, then you will be happy to know that cold exposure also benefits your brain.

You can read more about that here

That’s it for this week! I really hope you enjoyed this newsletter, if you did please feel free to comment or share this along to someone who you think could benefit.

Until next time,

Louisa x

This Week On The Neuro Experience Podcast

It's well known that F1 drivers are some of the fittest athletes in the world, but how do they train and what do they eat? What I didn't know was that necks, shoulders, and an athlete's overall core is under tremendous strain through every turn on every lap for the entire 90 minutes of a race. Drivers must therefore be strong athletes with high stamina reserves.Daniel Ricciardo’s workout regime is a carefully constructed assortment of physical challenges designed to push his body to the limit, most notably through the core and neck. With the immense strain and pressure placed on the body during races, drivers must be at the absolute peak conditioning, and Ricciardo is a shining example of what happens when you get it right. The McLaren driver recently took out the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, his first top-of-the-podium finish since 2018 and the English marque’s first GP in nine years.In this episode we will learn what it takes to be a peak Formula 1 driver.

Improve Your Fitness Through Sleep

Good sleep is the ultimate game changer and nature’s best medicine. Consistent good sleep can help reduce the likelihood of serious health issues, decrease the risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure and even reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease…

Yet, still more than 30% of Americans struggle with sleep and temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep.

The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for

thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. You can add the cover to any mattress, and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F.

The result?

Eight Sleep users fall asleep up to 32% faster, reduce sleep interruptions by 40%, and get overall more restful sleep.

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