| This experiment investigated the physiological effects of cranial cooling during recovery from fully-encapsulated exercise with fire protective ensemble. On two separate days, twelve males completed 2x20 minutes of treadmill exercise (EX1 and EX2) at 65 +/- 4 % of VO2peak, each followed by 20 minutes of encapsulated recovery (R1 and R2). During recovery, either active (AC: hood perfused with 10°C water) or passive (PC: head exposed to ambient conditions) conditions were randomly assigned. Core temperature (Tc) increased significantly and by a similar amount from rest to the end of EX2 in both conditions. Both AC and PC conditions led to a similar decrease in core temperature during R1. However, a significant interaction between conditions occurred during R2 (p = 0.035) which suggests that AC was more effective than PC at the end of the protocol when core temperature was highest. Despite decreases in Tc during recovery, heat storage was cumulative. |
