With the temperature heating up, so are Redwood Athletics. Athletic trainer Alex Ramos, two football athletes, and two cross-country runners look over how high heat puts them at risk.
By: Jaden Gordon
Ranger Athletics have been on fire recently, but so has the weather. Athletes and Trainer Alex Ramos talk about the Central Valley heat and how it affects Redwood Sports.
Redwood athletic trainer Alex Ramos believes hot weather affects athletes’ overall performance as, “It decreases some of the athletes’ abilities; for example, dehydration due to heat can decrease their ability to focus. It can increase muscle fatigue and cramps, which can then lead to decreased performance on the field,” said Ramos.
For Ramos, one of the biggest things that athletic trainers worry about is heat stroke. Heat stroke is when the body starts to shut down due to the high heat; the central nervous system gets shocked by the heat. Organs inside the body start to fail, and sweating stops as people don’t sweat profusely with a really high pulse.
Heat exhaustion is the complete opposite; athletes will sweat a lot when suffering from heat exhaustion, and then they won’t be as disoriented. It is a feeling of dizziness and faintness, but the things that athletic trainers like Ramos look for, and the differences between heat stroke and heat exhaustion, are the sweating and the temperature. So whenever they suspect that an athlete may be dealing with heat exhaustion versus heat stroke, the temperature of the athlete is always checked.
If their temperature is a, “Normal temperature, which is anywhere between 97 and 98, then that’s a good sign. That’s just more heat exhaustion than stroke, so we can kind of remove them. We remove them from practice, we put them into a shaded area, and we like to put ice around the neck or even the armpits because that’s what cools them down the fastest.”
“And then for heat stroke, however, like if we suspect someone is having a heat stroke, again, going back to what I said earlier is that your organs will literally start to cook and you can have kidney failure, that kind of stuff, and you can potentially die. So it becomes a medical emergency.”
At Redwood, there are a couple of dump tanks, which are large-capacity containers used to rapidly drop an athlete’s core body temperature. There is one in Ramos’ office, and there is another one over on Vista. Typically, for football players that they use it for, if they ever suspect someone has a heat stroke, after taking their temperature and if their temperature is high in the 101s, the 102s, or higher, then they will call 911.
Ramos has luckily not had to dump anybody into the dump tanks during his time at Redwood so far.
He also mentioned something called the WBGT, or the Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature, which essentially is an environmental index used to monitor heat stress in direct sunlight.
Freshman varsity tackle football tight end Exavier Jackson ’30, believes heat affects overall athletic performance by, “Making players slower because the sun will drain our energy. Overall, it just throws the momentum down,” said Jackson.
The main component to Jackson’s play that is affected by the heat is his, “Hands, because my hands are getting sweaty under the gloves, so it makes me feel slippery, and my helmet feels off, because it’ll blind me due to the sweat that keeps running down my face.”
Cross country runner Shayne Navarro ’29, believes hot weather affects athletic performance, as it “Makes you sweat out a lot of electrolytes you need to run, and it honestly really deters you mentally, and it just isn’t good for race days,” said Navarro.
During races, the brightness and squinting the whole time makes the race seem way harder than the race really is.
The heat affects Navarro’s practice as well, “I just feel like I have a crash, especially during warm-ups through those laps; the heat just really gets to you.”
Navarro also says “I feel like winter cross-country vs. summer cross-country are two completely different sports; it’s so much more mental in the heat than in normal weather just because of the pure feeling of having the sun on you during your runs really deters you a lot.”
Jaden Gordon
Jaden Gordon, '30, is a journalist and a proud member of the Redwood Gigantea team. He is passionate about telling meaningful stories, highlighting our community, and bringing curiosity, creativity, and energy to every piece written.
Tags: rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, redwood sports, rhs, visalia ca
Super cool story, I like all the voices that you got!