From The Straits Times    |

Cool hands may help boost your workoutsA good workout involves a good sweat.

But if you too easily get overheated, and then throw in the towel too early, a new study suggests that cooling your hands may keep you working out harder, for longer.

Study participants worked toward exercising for 45-minute periods at 80 percent of their maximum heart rates.

While the study was small, the findings suggest that cool hands helped exercisers feel better, less sweaty and exhausted, which allowed them to work out longer and harder, and stick to their exercise routines.

Core cooling has been used for years by elite athletes, writes NPR, and “it does seem to help improve their performance and reduce muscle soreness.” 

“Obese women often complain about sweating and getting tired because they’re walking around with extra insulation,” said lead author Stacy Sims in a news release.

Sims, an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist at Stanford University in the US added, “If you can slow the rate internal temperature rises and cool someone who is obese, they don’t store as much heat and don’t feel as uncomfortable. They can do more work.”

The device used in the study is called the Avacore Rapid Thermal Exchange, which, priced at about $4,000 is beyond the reach of many exercisers.

Other cooling options cited by the researchers include holding bottles of cold water to cool your palms, or drinking an icy cold drink and holding the frozen bottle while you work out. — AFP RELAXNEWS