Supercharge Exercise Performance & Recovery with Cooling | Huberman Lab Essentials

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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. Huberman Lab Essentials are short episodes—approximately 30 minutes—focused on essential science and protocol takeaways from past Huberman Lab episodes. Essentials will be released every Thursday, and our full-length episodes will still be released every Monday. Read the episode show notes 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

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable
0:05.8	science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm Andrew Huberman,
0:12.8	and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. This podcast
0:18.5	is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is,
0:22.0	however, part of my desire and effort to bring you zero cost to consumer information about science
0:26.6	and science related tools to the general public. We just closed out the episodes on hormones. Now
0:32.7	we are going to talk about how to optimize physical performance and skill learning. There are so many variables to physical performance.
0:40.3	And we can manage physical performance and skill learning
0:44.3	from a variety of contexts.
0:46.3	I made just a short list of some of the things that come to mind
0:48.3	that can powerfully impact physical performance
0:51.3	and skill learning.
0:52.3	Some of them are what I would consider foundational.
0:55.9	They allow you to show up with your current ability. And if you were to disrupt those, you would
1:02.1	perform less well. So things like getting a good night's sleep, things like being properly hydrated,
1:08.8	things like being well nourished.
1:10.9	There are supplements, there are drugs, there are different ways to breathe.
1:13.9	There are so many tools related to mindset, visualization.
1:17.7	It's just a vast space, but it's not infinite.
1:22.1	And there are a few things in the list of things that can impact and even optimize physical performance and skill learning
1:30.4	that have an outsized effect that any of you can use.
1:33.9	So today we are going to focus on what I believe
	...

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