Thermoregulation during exercise in hostile environments represents one of the most complex physiological challenges for the high-performance athlete. Often, attention is focused exclusively on the preservation of core homeostasis, assuming that performance is only compromised when internal temperature undergoes significant variations.

However, recent research published in the Journal of Applied Physiology provides a fundamental technical perspective by dissecting how different levels of cold stress condition physical capacity, even before the body core is affected.

Through a constant exercise protocol until exhaustion, researchers observed that the simple decrease in skin temperature causes a 31% decrease in performance compared to thermoneutral conditions. This finding is particularly disruptive for sports sciences, as this deficit occurs while maintaining a stable internal temperature, suggesting that peripheral thermoreceptors and cutaneous vasoconstriction induce an increase in the perception of effort and an alteration in neuromuscular efficiency independently of core temperature. When thermal stress intensifies and succeeds in reducing the internal temperature by 1°C, the decrease in performance reaches a critical 72%.

From the perspective of infrared thermography, these data validate the importance of monitoring surface temperature as a performance criterion in cold environments, since keeping the skin warm will improve performance. Thermography allows for the non-invasive quantification of local perfusion and thermal variations in the most vulnerable regions of interest (ROI). The detection of a significant drop in skin temperature in critical areas such as the extremities allows for the anticipation of that first performance loss threshold of 31%, allowing the professional to adjust technical clothing strategies and protective layers before thermal compromise affects the athlete's core.

In conclusion, thermal protection of the extremities and the preservation of an optimal skin temperature are not mere matters of comfort, but determining factors for the integrity of sports performance. The implementation of infrared thermography as a control tool during warm-ups could allow for precise management of cold stress, transforming surface temperature into a predictive indicator capable of informing about the athlete's endurance capacity.