Affiliation:
1. School of Design and Architecture, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia
Abstract
Cooling sportswear products have been used to improve the comfort of individuals exposed to hot–humid climate conditions; however, these products were not explored adequately in the outdoor sports context. Moreover, it is not known if these products meet the needs of athletes in developing and tropical countries. Therefore, this study presents the design and exploratory evaluation of affordable cooling sportswear (T-shirt). Eight Sri Lankan athletes tested the sportswear prototype over three-weeks, undergoing a 30 min cycling trial that covered 15 km. The results show that the cooling sportswear improved cooling comfort, sweat evaporation, and overall comfort of the athletes by increasing ventilation and reducing body temperature. The developed prototype assisted in identifying suggestions for designing cooling sportswear products, including aesthetic, cost, functional, and sustainability considerations. These suggestions may guide researchers to develop affordable and sustainable cooling sportswear for endurance cycling athletes living in developing and tropical countries.
Subject
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law,Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment,Geography, Planning and Development,Building and Construction
Reference113 articles.
1. Heat illness in athletes;Coris;Sport. Med.,2004
2. Toosty, N.T., Hagishima, A., and Tanaka, K.-I. (2021). Heat health risk assessment analysing heatstroke patients in Fukuoka City, Japan. PLoS ONE, 16.
3. Life-threatening events during endurance sports: Is heat stroke more prevalent than arrhythmic death?;Yankelson;J. Am. Coll. Cardiol.,2014
4. Thekkayil, N. (2023, February 02). Why is Japan’s Olympic Marathon Shifting Cities to Avoid the Heat? A Sports Physiologist Explains. Available online: https://theconversation.com/why-is-japans-olympic-marathon-shifting-cities-to-avoid-the-heat-a-sports-physiologist-explains-126189.
5. Outdoor thermal comfort in various microentrepreneurial settings in hot humid tropical Kolkata: Human biometeorological assessment of objective and subjective parameters;Banerjee;Sci. Total Environ.,2020