When The Athletic was invited to spend the day at Silverstone, for a brief moment I thought my dream of driving a Ferrari was about to come true. In reality, I had been lured into a trap, at the home of the British Grand Prix, which would push my body to its limit.
The Porsche Human Performance Centre is based at Silverstone and they use state-of-the-art technology to discover new ways to maximise the performances of elite athletes.
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Jack Wilson, their lead sports scientist, has worked with Formula One drivers, footballers, boxers and people who participate in endurance events to help them understand and improve their fitness levels. There is a heat chamber on site that reaches temperatures of up to 40 degrees (104 Fahrenheit) and it plays a crucial role in helping sports stars acclimatise to extreme conditions.
Back in December 2010, Qatar was announced as the hosts for this year’s World Cup and the original plan was to follow tradition by holding the tournament in the summer, even though temperatures in the country can range between 35 to 45 degrees celsius on average. Hassan Al Thawadi, the chief executive of Qatar’s bid committee, said at the time “heat is not and will not be an issue”.
That statement was ignored by March 2015 when FIFA’s executive committee moved the World Cup to the winter for the first time due to concerns around how players would cope in the heat.
Temperatures are still expected to be around 25 to 30 degrees with the eight host stadiums having been designed and built with special cooling technology. It remains to be seen how effective that will be.
The tournament kicks off when Qatar play Ecuador on Sunday, November 20, so The Athletic checked out the heat chamber at Silverstone to discover the difficulties players will face, blissfully unaware I was about to be put to the test.
When The Athletic arrived at Silverstone, Wilson and his colleague Tristan Reed shattered any remaining hope I had of flying around the circuit in a Formula One car by revealing the gruelling challenge I had foolishly volunteered for. I had anticipated undertaking some light activity in the heat chamber, but I would actually be running at a high intensity for 45 minutes without any breaks.
I had made my debut for a Sunday league side 24 hours earlier, in my quest to bounce back from being rejected by Hitchin Town, so my immediate concern was whether my body would last. The only positive was that it would give me a more accurate representation of how it feels to compete at a major international tournament where games take place every few days and players have a limited amount of time to recover.
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The first part of the challenge involved urinating into a small vial so the sports scientists could analyse my hydration levels. Being complimented on the quality of my pee has to go down as one of the strangest moments of my life.
Reed then recorded my height and weight before explaining I would run on a treadmill in the heat chamber and they could choose to increase or decrease the speed. They would measure my core temperature every five minutes by putting a thermometer in my ear and monitor how much water I drank, as well as my sweat levels, to get a clear overview of how my body reacts in hot conditions. I smiled as I walked into the heat chamber but was grimacing inside.
The first few minutes were the most difficult as I struggled to settle into a rhythm. It felt like time was dragging and I could not stop glancing at the clock every few seconds. There was an option on the treadmill’s small TV screen to show a scenic running route through a lush woodland area in Vermont. Random facts about the production of maple syrup would pop up on the screen to keep me distracted, yet they didn’t help me ignore the fatigue my body was already feeling.
The Athletic has a small confession to make. After the first 10 minutes, I went for a tactical toilet break because I was in such discomfort. Wilson revealed it is common for that to happen as people panic and consume an excessive amount of water before the test. I composed myself and returned to the chamber with my phone so I could play some music. The dulcet tones of Mariah Carey helped me to relax, before Buggin’ Out by A Tribe Called Quest prompted me to increase the tempo.
As I reached the halfway point, the heat became more uncomfortable. There is no air being circulated in the chamber so it is humid and sticky. After purposefully waiting until I was desperate before drinking water, I started to guzzle it down.
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The physical aspect of the challenge was demanding, but it was trickier managing it from a mental perspective. Every time I picked up speed, sweat would drip from my hair into my eyes and I would wipe my face with my shirt, causing me to momentarily lose focus. It is easy to imagine players becoming unsettled by the high temperatures during the World Cup and failing to concentrate in key moments. For example, how are you supposed to mark a striker who has just come off the bench when your body is being pushed to the extreme?
We dropped the speed down to a brisk walk for five minutes before I finished at a pace of eight kilometres an hour. My legs stiffened as I left the chamber and walked into the sports science laboratory. Tests revealed I had lost just under a kilogram in weight through sweat and I drank 884 millilitres of water. My core temperature was 36.4 degrees before I exercised and it peaked at 38.1 after 35 minutes, which is when my heart rate rose to 168 beats per minute, too. I threw off my shirt, which was drenched in sweat, and went for an ice-cold shower.
After crying in the shower for 10 minutes, I was ushered into a room with Raff Hussey and Chris Harris, who work for Precision Fuel & Hydration. The company was founded in 2011 by former elite endurance athlete Andy Blow, and it has developed personalised fuelling strategies for thousands of athletes around the world. NFL franchise Green Bay Packers are one of their biggest clients.
To put it simply, everyone reacts differently to intense exercise, so we need to follow the right hydration plan for our own individual needs. When you sweat during exercise, your body loses sodium, which is an electrolyte that plays a key role in muscle contraction and cognitive function.
By analysing my performance in the heat chamber and conducting a test which measures my sweat rate, Hussey and Harris can gain a better understanding of how my body functions. The average person loses 949milligrams of sodium per litre of sweat. The lowest score Precision Fuel & Hydration have ever recorded is 204mg and the highest is 2,314 mg. The Athletic was slightly below average at 798mg. But what does it all actually mean?
“Sodium depletion is known to cause and affect muscle cramps,” Harris says. “The lack of electrolytes means your muscles cannot communicate with the brain properly, which is essentially what causes them to contract uncontrollably.
“If you’re a goalkeeper, you might reach half-time and have barely produced a drop of sweat. If you then drink half a litre of water you will just end up needing to go to the toilet. This premise is about replacing your losses. You don’t need to be drinking loads of water and taking on electrolytes if you’re not sweating it out.
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“This is why it’s important to have individualised plans with education behind it. A scientific journal published papers that showed the average sweat rate of a professional sports team they investigated was around 1.1 litres of sweat an hour. Some people lost 1.7 litres and others only lost 0.3 litres. No one should drink 1.1 litres, it needs to be scaled to their needs.”
Due to the intense heat in Qatar, players will produce more sweat and need to drink lots of water. Understanding the right amount of hydration a player requires will help prevent fitness issues and a potential drop off in their performance levels.
Harris adds that “with the right structured protocol, most people typically take anywhere from 10 days to three weeks” to adjust their body to a new environment — using heat chambers will help speed up that process.
The problem is that there are only eight days between the final Premier League fixture before the World Cup and England’s opening game against Iran on Monday, November 21.
With such a short turn around it seems like, instead of intricate tactics, the secret to winning this year’s World Cup could be about being physically and mentally prepared for the scorching conditions.
Follow along with the World Cup 2022 bracket throughout the knockout stage
