Heat and sweat management by a cycling garment impact thermal sensations during exercise in hot and moist conditions

The Role of Sports Clothing in Thermoregulation, Comfort, and Performance During Exercise in the Heat: A Narrative Review

“…Significant reductions in skin temperature were identified for synthetic fabrics during exercise of light [19,43,61,63] and moderate [45,49,61] intensities in mild to warm temperatures (14.5-30 °C). But of the 17 studies identified in this review that assessed skin temperature during light-to-moderate intensities, ~ 50% of them did not identify significant differences in skin temperature when comparing different clothing designs and fabrics [14,15,18,20,21,27,32,33,36]. Though skin temperature is universally measured in clothed and nude areas across the literature, it should be noted that some of these studies only assessed skin temperature at ≤ 4 individual sites on the body [14,15,21,32,33] compared to ≥ 6 sites in those that identified significant differences [19,43,45,61].…”

“…In contrast, studies that used hot and humid conditions (29-35 °C, 50-71% RH) have reported significant differences in core temperature [14,30], skin temperature [22,30,49,54], sweat loss [30], thermal sensation [18,49], and exercise performance [22] when comparing across multiple fabrics and designs. The contrasting results between studies using hot and dry compared to hot and humid conditions may be expected given that RH plays a more crucial role in dictating the level of heat that can be dissipated via sweat evaporation [8,35,47].…”

“…Large knit sizes and open warp knit structures significantly reduced skin temperature [49,50] and microclimate humidity [50] as well as improved thermal sensation [49] and comfort [50] in polyester clothing. Additionally, sweat absorption and thermal sensation were significantly improved in weaved cycling clothes compared to knitted cycling clothes during exercise, suggesting fabric construction plays an important role in managing thermal sensation and the transfer of heat from the skin to the environment [18]. Air permeability is dependent on fabric structure [10] as improved air permeability enhances heat exchange between the body and the environment via convection and evaporation [35].…”

“…This lack of specificity may originate from the variation in assessment parameters and methodologies used across many studies in this space which has contributed to a lack of conclusive evidence. Studies assessing the effectiveness of sports clothing to maximise thermoregulation, comfort, and performance have examined a variety of fabrics and textiles including natural fibres [14][15][16], synthetic fibres [17][18][19], natural and synthetic fibre blends [16,20,21], and chemically treated fibres [22,23]. The clothing examined is characterised by several material properties that encompass varying levels of insulation, mass, and air permeability, as well as different types of knit structures and fits (i.e.…”

Temperature and Humidity Data Evaluation of Tight Sportswear during Motion Based on Intelligent Modeling

“…In recent years, scholars [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] have gradually analyzed the influencing factors of tight-fitting clothing comfort. Scholler et al used an infrared camera to measure the skin temperature of people wearing cycling clothes during riding [20]. Awais et al proposed a process for the thermal simulation of sportswear by considering the human thermophysiological model and important thermal properties of fabrics to measure the core body and mean skin temperatures [21].…”