Expert comment: Competing in the cold — how can science help Winter Olympians?
The 2026 Winter Olympics are almost upon us. How should elite athletes prepare to compete in freezing conditions in northern Italy?
Dr Mark Hines, Senior Lecturer in Exercise Physiology at Oxford Brookes University, and a specialist in endurance sports in extreme environments, explains how cold affects performance — and what athletes can realistically do about it.
How does prolonged cold exposure affect muscle function, energy metabolism and performance?
From a physiological perspective, performance generally deteriorates as athletes become cold. Research using cycling time trials and jump tests shows that cooling of the muscles slows key physiological processes, making it harder to generate power and speed.
While warmer clothing helps, athletes are typically required to wear sport-specific kit rather than clothing optimised for thermal protection. As a result, the most effective strategies are to minimise cold exposure before they compete, wear additional layers until the last possible moment, and undertake thorough warm-ups.
Cold also increases energy expenditure, as the body uses more fuel to generate heat. Athletes may feel more comfortable eating more, although in practice this is usually a matter of comfort rather than necessity, as most time is spent indoors in heated environments.
Cold, dry air presents a further challenge. It can cause airway inflammation and oxidative stress, potentially triggering exercise-induced asthma in susceptible athletes, and may increase the risk of respiratory infections.
What nutritional strategies matter most for endurance winter sports?
The key factor is the duration and intensity of cold exposure. Athletes who remain warm indoors or through appropriate clothing, and are exposed to cold only during competition, are unlikely to experience large energy losses from shivering, which is highly demanding metabolically.
Eating food generates heat as a by-product of digestion, and in cold environments this heat production can be more important than fuelling exercise itself. Hydration is a particular concern, as the body’s ability to sense thirst and regulate fluid and electrolyte balance is reduced in the cold.
For this reason, athletes are generally advised to eat and drink according to a planned strategy rather than relying on sensations of hunger or thirst.
How should athletes adapt their training to prepare for cold conditions?
Adaptations to heat or altitude are relatively predictable in both timescale and effect. Responses to cold, however, vary widely between individuals, making them much harder to plan for.
One specific challenge is manual dexterity. In cold conditions, the body allows the fingers to cool, which can impair coordination and speed. Some studies suggest repeated exposure may improve the body’s ability to rewarm the fingers, for example through cold-water immersion of the hands. However, the evidence is inconsistent, and some findings suggest such approaches may even be counterproductive.
At present, there is no clear prescription for cold adaptation that can be recommended with confidence.
Does cold increase injury risk in winter sports?
Cold affects how the nervous system activates muscles. Nerve conduction slows, as does the speed of muscle contraction. While muscles are always involved in stabilising joints, this stabilising role becomes more pronounced in the cold.
Muscles on one side of a joint can restrict movement generated by those on the other, leading to increased activation of stabilising muscles and reduced force production in those responsible for movement. This combination can impair performance and increase injury risk, reinforcing the importance of comprehensive warm-ups and maintaining body temperature immediately before competition.
How useful are wearable and field-based monitoring technologies at major events?
A range of technologies is now available, including devices that measure sweat composition, which can be particularly useful given how poorly the body regulates hydration in cold conditions. Dehydration and fatigue both affect performance, and movement-monitoring tools can help detect subtle changes that indicate emerging fatigue.
Skin temperature can also be monitored to assess how effectively clothing and warm-up routines are maintaining body heat. These tools are most valuable during training and preparation, where the data can inform individualised plans for competition.
One limitation is that sensors may be less accurate in cold environments, and battery life is often reduced at low temperatures.
How do endurance winter events differ from explosive or technical events?
Endurance events such as cross-country skiing and biathlon place extreme demands on aerobic capacity, with athletes sustaining high workloads and producing large amounts of lactate. In biathlon, aerobic fitness is particularly important, as athletes must rapidly reduce heart and breathing rates for the shooting phases. These demands are compounded by cold, dry air, which makes breathing more challenging.
In contrast, alpine skiing, bobsleigh and snowboarding rely on rapid bursts of muscle power and repeated short, forceful contractions that enable acceleration and rapid changes of direction.
Despite these differences, all winter sports are affected by muscle cooling, which slows metabolic processes within muscle cells. Studies in cross-country skiers have shown that time-trial performance declines when muscles are cold.
What are the challenges in translating laboratory research into Olympic performance?
This question goes to the heart of applied sports science. If laboratory research does not translate into practical benefits, what’s the point? Laboratory studies allow researchers to examine responses such as finger cooling, compare training protocols involving different levels of cold exposure, and evaluate strategies for promoting any potential benefits of cold adaptation.
They also allow systematic comparisons of warm-up routines and clothing strategies, helping to identify approaches that prepare muscles effectively without inducing fatigue. Almost every performance factor relevant to winter sport can, in theory, be measured and evaluated in the laboratory.
The major constraint is infrastructure. Maintaining sub-zero testing environments is expensive, and there are ethical considerations around exposing both athletes and researchers to conditions that increase injury risk. Progress therefore tends to be incremental, building cautiously on previous work. Even with these safeguards, there are very few facilities worldwide capable of conducting this type of research, due to the cost and complexity involved.
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