It is important that you prepare yourself well for winter outdoor activities. The first thing to remember is to properly hydrate yourself. We may not feel as thirsty in cold days, but it is important that you have proper intake of liquid. Hot tea and soup are also good to keep your core temperature balanced during lengthy outdoor activities. When the situation is particularly cold, you need to properly regulate your core body temperature. It is important that you are able to get warm much more quickly.
It is actually easy to become sweaty after undergoing intensive physical exercise. In this situation, it is better if you wear clothing with breathable outer layer, which allows enough warm body vapour to escape, without making your body loses too much heat. Common escape routes for body heat may include ears, head, feet and hands. If they are left uncovered for too long, our core body temperature will be too low. It’s important to wear sports glove that can protect your fingertips from extreme cold without causing you to lose sports performance.
It is also important to keep the circulation flowing well in your feet, by using the right kind of footwear. When choosing a pair of socks, you should make sure that they have good loft. It means that there will be enough extra space in your shoes and boots that allow for warm air to properly circulate. You should take extra care, so your feet will be dry. Damp clothing and sock will suck away body heat very quickly. Obviously, you should avoid splashing through streams, puddles and wet snow.
Headband and hat should also be ideal for keeping your body temperature properly regulated. Turtlenecks, scarves and hoods should be ideal if we want keep enough heat around our neck. A warm neck should have an effect throughout the rest of our body. It means that we need to ditch damp clothes as soon as possible, before they get much too cold. If we need to train and perform outside during cold, winter day; it is important to prepare enough dry clothes.
It is also important that you allocate enough time to stretch and cool down. You may need to take about 10 minutes to properly ramp down your overall activity level, before going home. Heavy wind during cold weather will significantly increase the chill effect. Fast motion activities, such as skiing and cycling will increase the wind chill effect, so it is important experiment with various options of relatively light clothing that can keep you warm during high speed movements.
It is clear that you also need to warm up your body before a training session or an important competition game. In a cold weather, you need to have a slow warm up that provides time for your joints and muscles to loosen and warm up. Actual sports activities can begin only when your body has been properly warmed up. Cold muscles are weaker and they will reduce your overall speed. You should also avoid over dressing yourself, because it’s easy for you to get sweaty and feel very cold afterwards.