| Moisture-wicking sportswear as a kind of high-performance sportswear has become verypopular with both athletes and sports enthusiasts. It has attracted the wide attention ofresearchers because of its special influence on exercise physiology. It has been reported thatwearing moisture-wicking sportswear during exercise may contribute to moisture absorptionand sweat discharge throughout the clothing promptly, thus keep individuals drier, cooler, andmore comfortable, and enhance athletic performance, reduce the risk of heat injuries and so on.In this study, special nylon moisture-wicking tights (TA) and ordinary nylon tights (TC)were chosen as sample clothing, and their influence on physiological state was investigated.7male undergraduates majored in physical education volunteered to participate in this study.The experiments were conducted in a climate chamber of two different conditions: constanttemperature22(±0.3)℃and the relative humidity30(±3)%RH, and constant temperature32(±0.3)℃and the relative humidity55(±3)%RH. Subjects were asked to wearmoisture-wicking tights (TA), ordinary tights (TC) or normal shorts (Nude), and pedaled on thecycle ergometer at mid-high intensity (150W). During the exercises, the heart rate (HR) andthe temperature at skin surface of11sites were measured simultaneously. The comfort testswere then carried out to simulate the cycling exercise of a real human subject cycling whilewearing two tights respectively as mentioned above. The core temperature, skin temperatureand the sweat rate of the manikin were monitored.Through analyzing data of HR, skin temperature, pedaling time of real human subjectscycling and the core temperature, skin temperature and sweat rate of the manikin, the results were obtained as follow:1）According to the thermal resistance and wet resistance test, there were no big differencein thermal insulation and other fabric parameters of two tights, but the evaporative resistance(RET) of TC was higher than that of TA4.75Pa.m2/W, that is to say the differences of thethermal physiological parameters were caused by the difference of RET.2）In22℃environment condition，duration time was longer when wearing TA thanwearing TC, HR when wearing TA was quite close to wearing Nude and slightly lower thanthat of TC; there was no big difference in skin temperature between wearing TA and TC, buthigher than that of Nude.3) In32℃environment condition,the average duration time was longer when wearing TAthan wearing TC nearly4.8min; the average skin temperature of Vastus lateralis muscle whenwearing TA was quite similar with that of Nude, and lower than wearing TC0.82℃; whilewearing TA, the sweat rate was obviously lower than wearing TC in thermal manikin comforttests.4) In same environment condition, HR was slightly lower when wearing TA than wearingTC. Compared with the HR of subjects wearing the same clothing during pedalling under thedifferent environment of22℃and32℃, it was found that when wearing TA, HR was quiteclose between32℃and22℃, but when wearing TC, HR in32℃was obviously higher than in22℃condition.The results of this study showed that wearing moisture-wicking sportswear could notonly help to reduce the sweat and cool down the skin temperature, but also it may effectivelycontribute to alleviate the increase in heart rate caused by the ambient temperature rises, relievethe stress on the heart, prolong exercise duration, improve exercise performance. |
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