Stanford's New Power-Glove Lets Athletes Push Harder, No Chemicals Needed

You’ve just run a marathon in the sweltering August sun and you’re body is overheating. While other runners are gulping down cups of cold water, you calmly plug your forearm into the Glove. Not only does it cool your core temperature down in minutes, it erases muscle fatigue, which enables you to push even harder.

Sounds like magic. Not quite: the Glove is a new development to come out of a Stanford biology lab.

The Glove, as it’s called, is a stiff plastic mitt fitted with a hose that runs to a small box. When you stick your hand in, the Glove gently suctions on, and the box pumps cool water through the Glove’s lining. It makes for a cold hand but it can do wonders for a person’s muscle recovery. When a self-described “gym rat” Gloved up in between reps of pull-ups, he went from topping out at 180 pull-ups per session to, wait for it, more than 620, six weeks later.

“That was a rate of physical performance improvement that was just unprecedented,” said Stanford Biology Professor Craig Heller, in a recent announcement. The Glove cooled the gym rat’s core temperature, which effectively neutralized his muscle fatigue, allowing him to push his body much harder.

“What we were able to do was to compare the rate of conditioning improvement whether strength or work capacity [of] our technique with what’s been published on steroids,” Heller said. “Our rates are much higher.”

If only the Glove were available to Lance Armstrong.

Temperature is a limiting factor in athletic performance. As you exercise, the cells in your muscles heat up. A critical enzyme that helps muscles produce chemical energy remains active at normal body temperature, 98.6°F, but stalls when the body reaches 104°F. The process functions like a the whistle on a steam pot and, when it blows, your muscles weaken.

“Your muscle cells are saying, ‘You can’t work that hard anymore, because if you do you’re going to cook and die,” said Dennis Grahn, a Stanford biology researcher under Heller.

The Glove is a simple means of cooling core body temperature, allowing your muscles to chill out before they overheat. An ice bath wouldn’t do the trick, the researchers say, because being too cold causes blood flow to slow too much.

The magic of the Glove is that it targets special heat-transfer veins for “rapid thermal exchange.” For humans, these vein networks are located in the palms of our hands, the soles of our feet, and our faces. Most mammals have these types of heat sinks on their bodies that act like radiators, typically in areas with a lot of veins near the surface of their skin. Rats have them in their tails, rabbits in their ears, dogs on their tongues.

The idea for the Glove is actually predicated on studies of black bears. Bears don’t shed like dogs do, so how can they survive the same furry coat they wear to bed in the winter on those hot summer days? Through powerful body temperature-regulation spots on their noses and feet.

Heller and Grahn are touching up a version of the Glove they intend to sell commercially. Imagine how useful this kind of cooling station would be on a high school football field during summer practice?