Fifteen members of the KSI research team headed down to Fayetteville Arkansas this month to conduct a field study with 2 local area high school football teams Bentonville and Rogers High School. The purpose of this research was to examine the Core ControlTM hand cooling device developed by Avacore Technologies in an effort to examine if the device reduced core body temperature during football practice sessions. Approximately 30 players from each team were asked to participate in the study. Players were matched for position, age, height, and body mass and were randomly allocated to either the cooling group or the non-cooling group. Those in the cooling group were asked to place their hand in the device to cool their body during breaks and between plays. The other group continued with practice as they normally would. Each day players in both groups ingested temperature pills developed by HQ, Inc. so that KSI could monitor the body temperature during practice. In order to monitor the players’ speeds, accelerations, and total distance covered they were also asked to wear Catapult MinimaxXTM GPS units during their practice. It is hypothesized that players who cool during breaks may increase performance by reducing body temperature and heart rate.
KSI’s Rob Huggins a 4th year PhD student in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Connecticut was the team leader on this project as this project would be a part of his dissertation. Each day the KSI team would arrive at Bentonville High School at 5am and Rogers High School at 3pm and have players conduct pre-practice measures before donning their GPS device and football gear for practice. In addition to the hand cooling, player perceptions about how hard they were working, their level of thirst, and thermal sensations were recorded during practice. KSI also examined players’ sleep and muscle soreness daily to further describe the players’ normal habits. After practice the same measures conducted before practice we obtained such as urine sample for hydration, body mass, and perceptual measures. More on this story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Article
KSI would like to extend a sincere thank you to the players, Athletic Trainers and the Coaching Staffs at both Bentonville and Rogers High School for their assistance and efforts to help KSI.
Korey Stringer Institute 