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Published on: June 8, 2017
The effect of additional skin wetting on physiological strain and exercise performance: systematic review and
Mitchell Anderson1, Clint Bellenger1, Georgia K Chaseling2
1School of Allied Health and Human Performance, College of Health, Adelaide University, Adelaide, Australia.
Objectives:
Skin wetting is a low-cost, feasible cooling strategy in most resource settings. Therefore, the objective was to determine the effect of skin wetting on physiological strain and exercise performance.
Methods:
MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus and SPORTDiscus were systematically searched. Random-effects meta-analyses were used to determine the effect of skin wetting methods on core temperature (Tcore), skin temperature (Tskin), sweat loss, heart rate (HR) and thermal sensation during exercise. The effect of skin wetting on Tcore during pre-, and post-cooling, passive heating, and exercise performance were narratively reviewed.
Results:
Twenty-six studies were included in the review. Skin wetting did not mitigate the rise in Tcore during exercise (p = 0.207). During exercise, skin wetting mitigated the rise in Tskin (p < 0.001), and sweat rate (p = 0.02), and improved thermal sensation (p < 0.001) however, end-of-exercise HR was not significantly impacted (p = 0.372). Five of seven studies favoured skin wetting for improving exercise performance.
Conclusion:
Skin wetting does not attenuate the rise in Tcore or HR during exercise, however, there was wide variation in study design such as, exercise intensity and duration, and skin wetting volume and frequency. However, skin wetting mitigated the rise in Tskin, whole body sweat rate, and improved thermal sensation during exercise. Skin wetting appeared to improve exercise performance, possibly mediated by an improved thermal sensation.
Registration:
https://osf.io/aed64/.
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