Heat handling
Dealing with the heat is now easy within TeamNL. Now, when athletes prepare for a major tournament held in warm conditions, the coaching staff knows how best to do so. “This definitely applies to larger programs with a lot of specialist guidance. We support smaller programs from NOC*NSF. We have an online knowledge base, regularly organize knowledge days on different topics, and I have recently loaned a number of cooling vests to surfers who They were participating in the World Cup finals in El Salvador,” says Massey.
Years ago, dealing with heat was a novelty topic. Over the coming years, Maase and his colleagues from the High Performance Team put about 20 to 25 more topics on the TeamNL development agenda, topics that, as far as TeamNL is concerned, have real opportunities for research and development. This development agenda emerged from conversations with trainers, science days for embedded scientists, and sparring with colleagues in various fields. Among these topics, Maas is interested in sleep, performance, sports, and fluid dynamics (aerodynamics and hydrodynamics).
He is currently developing a training package for athletes and coaches on the impact of sleep on performance. It brings together existing knowledge about sleep, its importance and sleep improvement tools, for example, travel sleep and altitude training in an understandable way. “In addition, there is a project underway at the TeamNL North Center on a lighting plan to facilitate a healthy day-night rhythm. We are looking at what we can do with blackout with our supplier M line. Not all hotels have good blackout curtains. How does this work? Soon in Paris during the Games and can we do something about it? This is in addition to the mattresses and pillow toppers that M Line has been providing to TeamNL for years.”
