Take it from the experts when it comes to exercizing outdoors in summer heat

You see them at Red Rock and Mount Charleston and everywhere else the impossibly fit and physically active play, those guys and gals who give us ordinary schlubs both the incentive to stay active and the frustration of knowing that we’ll never be like them.

But here’s a secret: Those hard-core exercisers and endurance athletes know stuff — tips, tricks, strategies — the rest of us don’t, but which even we can use to make our own weekend run, bike or hike more effective.

Tedd Girouard was a member of this year’s winning team in the Mojave Death Race, a 24-hour, 24-leg running, mountain biking and road bicycling race. Girouard, director of the athletic training program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has participated in endurance events for about six years, and says the risk of exercise-related injuries probably is “greater for the average person than for the racer.”

That’s because endurance and hard-core amateur athletes plan better, Girouard says. “But I even have friends who go hiking at Red Rock and they’re not prepared.”

That can be particularly risky this time of year, when desert temperatures place added stresses on the body and when, without proper planning, you can get into trouble, Girouard says.

Key this time of year is helping the body acclimate during the week for the rigors it will face on your weekend outing. Most of us avoid exercising during the hottest times of the day, and that’s good enough for us.

But elite athletes take another tack: They exercise during times of day that mimic conditions they’ll face during their event. In fact, Girouard says that was a problem while training for June’s Mojave Death Race.

“We had a mild spring,” he says. “Now, it’s, obviously, hit us with a vengeance. But the Mojave Death Race was really the first really hot weekend we had. So for preparing and acclimating, I was looking to running in the hottest part of the day, and the hottest part of the day a couple weeks before was only 101 or 102 degrees.”

Taking a similar, if less extreme, tack could serve casual weekend athletes, too. Most of us spend the week in air-conditioned buildings and cars, and “if you’re going hiking at Red Rock, you would be better off if, during the week, you walk at noon for 10, 15, 20 minutes, three or four times a week, when the body would have some acclimatization,” Girouard says.

Then, hard-core athletes find it useful to mix up their preparations. Bryan Nelson, co-owner and president of Real Results Fitness, 1201 S. Commerce St., says exercise equipment at his gym — which includes as members marathon runners and endurance athletes — features such nontraditional items as tires, ropes and sledge hammers.

“The reason people fail with an exercise regimen is … they do the same thing for days and end up quitting because they get bored,” he says.

But, at his gym, every workout is different, Nelson notes. “You’re never going to experience the same workout, and we’re constantly changing up our model to try to keep it fresh.”

Staying hydrated is important for casual athletes, but key for serious athletes. Nelson follows the often-heard advice to drink water even before you get thirsty and hydrating before the event begins.

“People generally don’t drink enough water. … They drink soda, they drink coffee, they drink everything else, but they’re not drinking water. So when you go outside and say, ‘I’m gonna go out to Red Rock and hike six miles,’ you should be hydrating the day before,” he says.

However, Girouard notes, too, that there is research indicating that we probably don’t need to hydrate as much as all that.

The research is “very controversial,” he adds, but does underscore the danger of hard-core athletes experiencing hyponatremia, a potentially dangerous condition in which sodium levels in the body are skewed from drinking too much water.

By the way, you probably don’t need to chug the sports drinks the extreme athletes you see are quaffing.

“Most of us don’t need sport drinks,” says Nelson, whose endurance pursuits include competing in the World’s Toughest Mudder competition, a 24-hour team obstacle course event in which his team last year placed fourth overall and first-place among American teams.

But for those who do opt for sports drinks, a 50-50 mix of sports drink and water will work fine, Nelson says.

Endurance athletes also know about the vales of pre-cooling before an event.

“One thing we do for the Death Race and other races — and even NFL teams do this — is pre-cooling,” Girouard says. “You can wear an ice vest. You can just use ice bags in your shirt.”

There’s evidence that drinking a slushie-type drink before an event can improve endurance. Cooling your body from the inside, Girouard says, “can help mitigate the heat.”

But don’t forget to counter the effects of the sun. Girouard says there is research that shows that, even with all else being equal, the feeling of heat on your skin “will actually affect your performance.”

“If you could keep radiant heat off of you, you will perform better,” he says.

Then, take advantage of our relatively low humidity by pouring water on the skin while running, hiking or bicycling. That creates an evaporative cooling effect.

It’s why marathon runners pour as much water on themselves at water stops as they drink. Girouard estimates that, during the Mojave Death Race, his team “probably drank two cases and poured eight cases (of water). And, honestly, the pouring was probably as important as what we actually drank.”

Similarly, endurance runners may use wet sponges placed against their skin. But, for weekend athletes, “spray bottles are a good thing to have,” Girouard says.

Finally, keep an eye not only on how you’re coping with the heat while hiking, running or biking, but on how your exercise partners are, too. Girouard says that during the Mojave Death Race, “we try to be aware of teammates as well. Some of the things that start to happen, athletes don’t recognize at the time.”

Read more from John Przybys at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com and follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.