In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, I discuss the critical role of temperature regulation in optimizing athletic and physical performance. I explain why overheating can hinder performance and endurance and how techniques like palmar cooling can help extend physical effort by aiding temperature regulation. I also highlight how specific body areas, such as the palms and face, are key targets for regulating temperature, allowing heat to dissipate efficiently. Lastly, I discuss how temperature can support training recovery while cautioning that extreme cold, such as ice baths immediately after training, can block adaptations. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Huberman Lab Essentials are short episodes focused on essential science and protocol takeaways from past full-length Huberman Lab episodes. Watch or listen to the full-length episode at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Huberman Lab Essentials; Physical Performance & Skills, Temperature 00:03:03 Sponsor: AG1 00:04:07 Temperature Homeostasis, Vasoconstriction & Vasodilation 00:06:42 Elevated Heat & Performance Barrier 00:08:26 Regulating Temperature, Glabrous Skin, “AVAs” 00:12:20 Sponsor: Eight Sleep 00:13:49 Strength Training & Heat Effects, Tool: Palmar Cooling 00:17:21 Endurance, Temperature & Willpower 00:20:54 Tool: Resistance Training, Running, Palmar Cooling & Water Temperature 00:24:23 Sponsor: Function 00:26:09 Ice Bath & Blocking Training Adaptations; Tool: Glabrous Skin & Recovery 00:29:31 NSAIDs (Tylenol) & Training 00:31:56 Recap & Key Takeaways Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. This podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring you zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. We just closed out the episodes on hormones. Now we are going to talk about how to optimize physical performance and skill learning. There are so many variables to physical performance.
and we can manage physical performance and skill learning from a variety of contexts. I made just a short list of some of the things that come to mind that can powerfully impact physical performance and skill learning. Some of them are what I would consider foundational. They allow you to show up with your current ability. And if you were to disrupt those, you would perform less well.
So things like getting a good night's sleep, things like being properly hydrated, things like being well-nourished, there are supplements, there are drugs, there are different ways to breathe. There are so many tools related to mindset visualization. It's just a vast space, but it's not infinite.
And there are a few things in the list of things that can impact and even optimize physical performance and skill learning that have an outsized effect that any of you can use. So today we are going to focus on what I believe to be one of the most powerful tools to improve physical performance and skill learning and recovery. And we'll talk about why that's important. And that's temperature.
Believe it or not, temperature is the most powerful variable for improving physical performance and for recovery. There are two aspects to temperature, of course. There's heat and there's cold. We are mainly going to focus on cold as a way to buffer heat. We're going to talk about cold from the standpoint of thermal physiology.
This is a literature that's rich in scientific information that goes back very deep into the last century. where physiologists and neuroscientists figured out that there are different compartments in your body that heat and cool you differently, and that you can leverage those in order to double, even triple or quadruple your work output, both strength, repetitions, and endurance.
So this is not weak sauce as they say, this is the stuff that can really shift the needle quite a bit. And it's not just about performing well once, It's about being able to perform well and recover from that performance so that you do even better when you're not incorporating these tools. On days where, for instance, you can't access cold or an ice pack or an ice bath or things of that sort.
I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, AG1. AG1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that also includes prebiotics and adaptogens. As somebody who's been involved in research science for almost three decades and in health and fitness for equally as long, I'm constantly looking for the best tools to improve my mental health, physical health, and performance.
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