“Fighting overheating is about finding the balance between effort, environmental conditions, and cooling. This is an important part of the challenge and using the right tools is essential.”
Trek-Segafredo and CORE have reaffirmed their partnership which brings heat management technology and expertise to the Team.
Both men’s and women’s team riders started using the wearable CORE sensor in 2022 to accurately measure core body temperature, data that is displayed live on their bike computer. The information provided from the sensor is a valuable tool for riders and coaches to drive continuous performance improvement.
“There’s no doubt that one of the critical aspects that each rider faces when dealing with peak performance is core body temperature,” says Josu Larrazabal, Trek-Segafredo’s Performance Manager. “When the body gets hot, the performance goes down. That’s something that coaches have always known, and now we have the opportunity to understand it even better.”
Lucinda Brand during an indoor test in winter (©SeanHardy)
“The temperature threshold at which the body gets stressed is very individual. To address this, our first step is to define the profile of the rider; how does he or she react to different heat levels. We compare long steady efforts against shorter or more intense efforts to see the impact. Identifying what happens in the key moments of performance is fundamental to truly understand the rider.”
Following the data collection and analysis phase, the work begins to find effective, and often individually determined, methods to counteract the drop in performance generated by the increase in body temperature.
“The final step in heat management is focusing on strategy,” Larrazabal continues. “The way to counteract overheating is to help thermoregulation through cooling. A specific strategy is devised based on the individual response of the rider to cooling. For example, we account for the cooling of the clothing and the best ways that the rider can use water for cooling and pre-cooling with fans, as is often the case for time-trial races. Effective preparation also relies on heat training for adaptation of the body and continually monitoring the progress of the rider.
“Fighting overheating is about finding the balance between effort, environmental conditions, and cooling. This is an important part of the challenge and using the right tools is essential.”
Josu Larrazabal, Head of Performance at Trek-Segafredo
When Larrazabal talks about using the right tools, he is referring to the CORE sensor. But, what exactly is it?
“It’s a non-invasive wearable sensor that measures thermal energy transfer and provides accurate core body temperature and thermal measurements,” explains CORE performance manager, Chris Blomfield-Brown. “The discrete and comfortable sensor clips to the heart rate monitor strap during sport and delivers live data directly to the Wahoo bike computers. For post ride analysis, rider data can be synchronised with the CORE App and TrainingPeaks.
“Our partnership with Trek-Segafredo has provided excellent opportunities to better understand each individual rider and to use these insights to improve cooling and racing performance. Our goal is to support the Performance Team with our technology to transform data and insights into results.
“It is rewarding working together with the Trek-Segafredo coaches and seeing such a high level of engagement among the riders in understanding their own individual temperature behaviour and applying heat management in their training and racing.”
CORE is built with the advanced, Swiss-made, Calera thermal energy transfer sensor which provides medical grade accuracy. It is the only wearable solution that allows athletes to continually monitor accurate core body temperature data without the need for an ingested or inserted thermometer. The CORE technology is made by the Zurich-based greenTEG AG who also supply the medical sector and photonics industry with the thermal energy transfer sensors that are used in CORE.
Discover more visiting https://corebodytemp.com/
