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REVIEW article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Environmental, Aviation and Space Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1380645
This article is part of the Research Topic Acute and Chronic Responses to Heat Stress to Optimize Health and Performance View all 6 articles
Customizing Individual Heat Mitigation Strategies to Optimize Performance in Elite Athletes
Provisionally accepted
Yasuki Sekiguchi 1*
Courteney Leigh Benjamin 2
Rebecca Lynn Stearns 3
Robert Arthur Huggins 3
William M Adams 4
Yuri Hosokawa 5
Douglas James Casa 3- 1 Texas Tech University, Lubbock, United States
- 2 Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, United States
- 3 University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States
- 4 United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States
- 5 Waseda University, Tokyo, Tōkyō, Japan
The aim of this review is twofold: 1) provide a brief discussion surrounding the interindividual variability that has been observed within the context of heat acclimation/acclimatization, body cooling, and hydration strategies, and 2) provide the reader with a practitioner-focused approach for creating individualized heat mitigation strategies. Considering individual variability for heat acclimation and heat acclimatization, various body cooling strategies, and hydration assessment/fluid replacement is important to maximize effects of these strategies, which lead to better performance and health outcomes. There are many factors to consider, and comprehensive approaches are required. The evidenced-informed decision is critical when making an individual approach, and data will help to make decisions effectively. It is important to keep adjusting the approach based on observed data as data is useful information to check if the approach is effective. Specific considerations to individualize the plan are discussed in this review.
Keywords: Heat acclimation, Heat acclimatization, cooling, hydration, Athlete performance
Received: 01 Feb 2024; Accepted: 24 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sekiguchi, Benjamin, Stearns, Huggins, Adams, Hosokawa and Casa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yasuki Sekiguchi, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, United States
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