Olympic athletes cooling down with the CoreControl

We keep hearing that steroids are totally not cool at the Olympics, but apparently some British and American athletes are going to be enhancing their performance at this month's Olympic games with a gadget called the CoreControl. It looks like a food processor turned on its side, but the CoreControl, which was developed by researchers at a company called AVAcore, actually cools blood passing through the hands and through the process of circulation manages to cool down the entire body within about five minutes or so. You'd think that holding a block of ice would have more or less the same effect, but it's probably hard to charge several hundred bucks for that (or then again maybe it really does help).

[Via The Athens Olympics Blog]

[Morgan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

I saw a brief news spot on this the other day (they're using it at NFL games as well)

Supposedly it works a great deal better than holding onto a block of ice. If you hold onto something TOO cold your capilaries shrink up and you don't cool as much blood. This gadget keeps the coolant at an ideal tempeture then creates a subtle vaccum that draws more blood to the surface for cooling. What other bits of your anatomy you decide to introduce to this sutble vaccum is your decision.

[joelfinkle @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

Holding a block of ice depends primarily upon conduction of heat from you to the block to cool you off: rather inefficient transfer.

However moving cool air can chill you much more rapidly than a solid cold item.

It's the same principle as wind chill, and using running cold water to thaw a frozen turkey. The heat-carrying capacity of a moving medium is much higher than a solid one.

[Hideki Watanabe @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

Sounds like a case mod for the human body!

[Megan Holland @ Dec 19th 2005 12:03AM]

Although a unique idea, Core Control does not cover enough body surface to be effective. Cool Shirt(tm)(www.coolshirt.net) is currently used by Hospitals, Industry, Fire Fighters, NASCAR and Athletic Trainers in the fight against Heat Fatigue. Even the most physically fit human will fall victim to heat exhaustion. Heat exhaustion results in a decreased ability to sweat, slowing of the reflexes, and impairment of thinking. Simply put: you are going to make mistakes when your core temperature is elevated. Heat will affect your performance. Ice or ice cold water directly on your skin causes your blood vessels to vasoconstrict preventing warm blood from flowing to the skin surface. You have to have temperature controlled cool water between 50 to 65 degrees covering over 30% of your skin surface to effectively maintain normal core temperature.