You may notice that you feel hot during and after exercise. This is normal. During exercise, body temperature can rise to 38 degrees Celsius. However, you should be careful if the increase in body temperature occurs excessively because this can lead to dangerous conditions.

Why do our bodies become hot when exercising and how do we prevent overheating? To find out, let's read the following explanation.

What is the normal body temperature when exercising?

The amount of increase in body temperature when exercising in each person is different. This depends on the type of exercise and the intensity of the exercise. Before starting an exercise, the initial body temperature is generally 36.8 °C, which may raise to 37.8 °C within 5 to 8 minutes in a fairly high intensity exercise. But it will be different in lower-intensity activities such as jogging. People who leisurely jog would experience different temperature increase from people who do sprints.

What you need to note is that there is a safe limit for increase in body temperature when doing physical activity. A relatively high increase in core temperature can be a warning sign of certain health conditions. If your core temperature is over 38.2–40 °C during exercise, this is a sign of heat exhaustion. In this condition, your body can't get rid of the heat which affects your heart’s ability to pump enough blood. It is best if your body temperature does not exceed this level during exercise. You may use products that contain menthol as a way to help cool your body temperature so you can prevent sports injuries from hot ambiance temperature.

Factors that affect changes in body temperature

The increase in body temperature when exercising is not only caused by the type of exercise and its intensity. There are other things that also affect changes in body temperature, one of which is the weather and room temperature when you exercise. If you exercise in a hot room, you may experience faster temperature rise.

It is similar to when you exercise during hot sunny day. The acceleration of your body temperature increase is triggered not only by your own body heat but also by the temperature of your surroundings. That is why, if you exercise in a hot room, you will feel hot faster and sweat more. This would require you to drink more water to prevent dehydration, while assisting your body to later on normalize your temperature.

Apart from room temperature and exposure to sun/heat, the amount of increase in body temperature during exercise also depends on age. For example, people over 65 generally have a lower normal body temperature. The choice of exercises for the elderly is also quite limited due to health issues they usually have, so the amount of increase in body temperature may not be too large.

It is important to know the rise in body temperature during exercise because this knowledge can help you exercise safely. Do exercise properly, correctly, measurably and regularly.

Referensi

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/advan.00126.2014