Running head: CASE STUDY 1
Case Study Question 2: Athletes
Kanani Jackson
Liberty University
EXSC 510 Advanced Exercise Physiology
Dr. Kilian
CASE STUDY 2
Case Study Question 2: Athletes
The body regulates temperature like a furnace. It is constantly producing heat and then
dispersing it through various processes. Heat can be lost through the processes of evaporation,
radiation, convection, and conduction (Powers et al., 2021).
The first heat loss mechanism is the most common and it happens every day whether
someone knows it or not is Evaporation, also known as sweating. For example, when one is
hiking or working out, clothing starts to collect sweat and the body starts to produce a thin layer
of moisture on the skin, but when that moisture starts to evaporate, the human body tends to lose
heat. This is not necessarily a bad thing if one is in the heat or a hot climate, but if one is in the
cold and one continues to sweat, it will make them colder and harder to retain that heat back.
Now on to the second heat loss mechanism is called Radiation. The simplest term for radiation is
when one is by a campfire, they feel warmth because that heat is radiating from the fire.
Radiation does not just happen when the skin is exposed but it can happen when one is dressed.
Heat radiates from your body to your clothing to your surrounding environment. Next, the third
heat loss mechanism is convection, a material surface, and a moving floater gas it encounters.
The air closer to the skin is warmed by the body, if this air is allowed to move away from the
body, more heat will be lost warming the cold air. Finally, the last way the body loses heat is
through conduction. The body loses heat through conduction when it comes in direct contact
with cold surfaces or objects. Therefore, when one touches something and if it is cold that person
then becomes cooler than the surface or object they touched because that object is drawing heat
away from their body.
The many individuals (fans) who attended the “very windy and cold” Virginia High
School State Football Championships complained of being extremely cold last year simply
CASE STUDY 3
because these fans experiences three various reasons why they were so cold last year. The three
various heat loss mechanisms may have been evaporation, convection, and conduction. The fans
firstly experienced evaporation as one of the ways they possibly lost heat, simply due to the fact
of their attire. It was a cold and windy night, therefore they dressed for the occasion, meaning
bringing out the scarfs, jackets, beanies, blankets, and many more. Dressing like this allows them
to possibly be way warmer than if they would dress another way. Although dressing warmly is a
perk, one can also over-dress causing them to slightly sweat, which aligns with the heat loss
mechanism evaporation. If the fans were slightly sweaty from jumping up and down cheering at
this intense game along with sitting close to one another and having the attire they did, it could
have caused slight moisture on their skin and clothes, and when it starts to evaporate it tends to
pull the heat from their bodies. The next heat mechanism they encountered would have been
convection. It was a windy and cold night, which is perfect conditions for convective heat loss.
Unless the fan’s clothing was windproof, the cold passing over the body would have removed the
warm air and the body warmth away from them. Therefore, the fans could have possibly not
been wearing the correct type of weather to adapt to the windiness they experienced at the game.
Finally, conduction could have been the last heat loss mechanism the fans endured at the
championship game. Back to the windy and coldness of the game, it would have made the
bleachers the fans were sitting on all game super cold and not durable, especially if there was not
a layer in between that object and the fan making it less cold. Moreover, when a fan sits directly
on the cold surface with no protection in between, it is a direct way of losing heat from the body,
whereas if they may have put something down like a blanket in between them and the bleachers,
it would have made it take longer for it to draw the heat from their body, keeping them warmer
for a longer period.
CASE STUDY 4
In conclusion, the dedicated fans who attended the “very windy and cold” Virginia High
School State Football Championships complained of being extremely cold last year simply
because they went through multiple phases of losing their heat through certain heat loss
mechanisms. The process of losing heat through physical contact with another object or body is
known as conduction (Powers et al., 2021). If one were to sit on a metal chair, the heat from
your body would transfer to the cold metal chair. Radiation is a form of heat loss through
infrared rays. This involves the transfer of heat from one object to another, with no physical
contact involved (Powers et al., 2021). For example, the sun transfers heat to the earth through
radiation. Convection is the process of losing heat through the movement of air or water
molecules across the skin. The use of a fan to cool off the body is one example of convection.
The amount of heat loss from convection is dependent upon the airflow or in aquatic exercise,
the water flow over the skin (Powers et al., 2021). Now, there is always some confusion between
conduction and radiation but there is a big difference. To break it down more, radiation is the
heat that comes off the body whereas convective heat is the heat that is around the airspace of the
body, skin, and clothing. The last process of heat loss is evaporation. Evaporation is the process
of losing heat through the conversion of water to gas (evaporation of sweat).
Kanani Jackson
