Bringing the Heat
When the temperature rises, make sure you ease into exercise
As temperatures rise, gym junkies and couch potatoes alike start hitting the sidewalks and park paths for exercise. But fitness fanatics should temper their enthusiasm for warmer weather with an emphasis on safety.
Exercising in the summer heat puts extra stress on the body—and, if you’re not careful, can lead to a heat emergency. The “no pain, no gain” approach doesn’t apply to working out in the sweltering sun.
“You really can’t push through the pain without making some sort of a change in your workout,” says cardiologist John Higgins, MD, an associate professor of medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School. Problems from exercising in the heat range from mild muscle cramps to heat exhaustion and potentially deadly heat stroke, he says.