How can sports brands adapt for the heat?

Performancewear already problem-solves for sweat, but climate change is placing extra demands on innovation. As soaring temperatures transform our lives, what we wear to workout must evolve.

Paris soared to 42 celsius in June, during a week when sports brands from On to Satisfy were presenting their next season collections to buyers from all over the globe. Coffee shops ran out of ice, and supermarkets sold out of hydration-boosting coconut water. The mayor of Paris shut all public gyms and On cancelled its Track Nights. At Dover Street Market’s Rose Bakery, those who turned up for a post-run refuel at 9am were so drenched in sweat, they looked like they’d jumped in the Seine. Many, in fact, were.

Beyond is an insight and strategy company shaping the future of sport and culture. In our fieldwork around the world, we’re watching soaring temperatures push athletes, brands, and cities to their limits. In this piece, we reveal why performance apparel’s old playbook is breaking down, and what brands need to build now to stay relevant as climate becomes a permanent part of the sport equation.

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The weather presented an urgently obvious need: technological innovation in materiality to cope with such demanding temperatures.

Running gear is designed to wick away sweat, but few items on the market currently cater to the challenge. At Roland Garros, meanwhile, Czech player Jakub Mensik collapsed, saying his body “just turned off” amid the heat—the weather has a direct impact on performance and will impact world records, personal bests, and cause injury as well as illness. Across Europe, temperatures hit unprecedented records, with the UK and Germany also reaching 42 celsius and Poland hitting a record-breaking 40.5 celsius.

Changing climates will change the entire ecosystem of sport. Every sector will be affected, from mainstream participation to elite performance and the places and spaces we are able to move our bodies. Understanding the athlete’s experience is key to ensure both performance and safety, and heat impacts the sport from all directions—Coco Gauff kept her tennis racket in the fridge during this year’s Wimbledon, as the temperature affected the strings’ tension.

Not just that: the apparel we wear needs to evolve along with the fuel we need to support movement and the education around it. It will also impact how fans are able to show up; how can fans at Wimbledon endure afternoons spent in direct sunlight? For decades, participation in sport has been plug-and-play. Moving forwards, this is no longer applicable. The needs will also evolve based on the market. For brands, sporting institutes and coaches to stay ahead, insight programmes that stay close to understanding the changing athlete experience are critical—both for elites and everyday athletes.

In this first instalment of our Designing for Heat series, we will dive into the macro trend of performance apparel amid climate change. Throughout the series, we’ll take you through how brands and businesses can respond to the signals of today to have a commercial impact for tomorrow. Our overarching framework is this: how will heat impact the mass population’s mainstream participation? Stay tuned for more.

Context: the challenges of our current exercise regimes

All types of training already need to be adapted during extreme heat. Heart rate and rate of perceived exertion (RPE) need to be closely monitored, which puts greater emphasis on the normalisation for wearables (like Oura, Whoop and Garmin) to allow individuals to track their own physical wellbeing.

In Paris, runners quickly determined that finishing a run any later than 8am was too much. Other sports don’t have the flexibility to decide; tennis courts in the city don’t open until 8am. Heat exhaustion will become something we need to pay attention to beyond the workout itself: even in air conditioned spaces, weights need to be reduced in load by around 10 percent to enable the body to cope with the demands of heat outside. The safest workouts from a physical perspective are likely yoga and Pilates, but studios are typically not built with air conditioning; the current trend sees them instead being equipped with infrared. Will we want to go to a hot workout class when there’s no relief in the open air? Winter offers a different set of challenges, with the extreme cold and increased snowstorms meaning infrared will be in demand. Our prediction: our workout preferences will change based on the seasons.

Changing climates will change the entire ecosystem of sport; the impact of heat is felt from all directions.

In summer, the answer isn’t as simple as switching to indoor facilities. Europe doesn’t have the habit of air conditioning and indoor training facilities like gyms haven’t traditionally been built with temperature control in mind. In North America, where air conditioning is everywhere, the answer is more straightforward. Elsewhere, swimming will come to the fore as the most suitable cardio workout for extreme heat. But we need more availability. In London, the outdoor community lidos sell out as soon as there’s a blue sky, let alone a heatwave. In Austin, Texas, where the city soars to over 100 fahrenheit daily during the summer months, running store The Loop hosts regular ‘run to swim’ events. Finishing a run or a game of tennis with a dedicated dip to cool down will become increasingly common. Apres-swim will be the new contrast therapy.

Tracksmith was early to identify this need and build performancewear around it: its ‘Run to Swim’ collection, titled Run Cannonball Run, comprises bras and shorts made from quick-dry materials that are built to withstand sweat and chafe as well as chlorine.

The need for a new kind of performance apparel

It’s urgent that our apparel continues to meet the growing needs of customers: brands know that fabric development is critical. UV protection will need to become an entry-level requirement for all clothing, not only performancewear. Currently, Soar, Tracksmith, Janji and Decathlon all offer tops with UV protection, while Nike, lululemon and Bandit offer lycras that don’t show sweat—the latter is more of an aesthetic preference than a heat solve but consumers have responded positively, Nia, a Hyrox lover from London, told us she purposefully looks for no-show fabrics. “Living in London, you’re leaving class and commuting home, or to the office—it’s embarrassing to see sweat.”

We’re excited about the technical offerings some brands are already proposing in the market. Pulco, the padel brand, has an exclusive license on an Italian fabric that the brand calls Aircon; it features “inside-out technology”, which means the shirt stays dry on the inside and doesn’t cling to your body. Satisfy’s new HeatCrush fabric cools your body down using your own sweat. Upon contact, the performance mesh fabric draws heat away from the surface of your body; as airflow increases with movement, the cooling effect supposedly deepens.

Cooling technology is a primary concern, and District Vision has also developed an ultra light woven fabric designed for hot weather desert races. Both brands may have targeted these collections at endurance runners in more extreme environments, but it’s likely they will see just as much interest from urban runners given the heat. In Dubai, for example, temperatures reach 27 celsius by the end of the marathon. Pulco’s top will have relevance to those going to the gym, on a run, or playing tennis.

Nike debuted its ACG Airflow innovation during UTMB in Chamonix in the summer—a fabric “built to maximise airflow,” according to Nike, with strategically placed cut-outs that enhance breathability. Buyer feedback suggests it delivers on the promise: “WET IT UP!!!,” wrote one customer, in their Nike review. “This thing turns into an A/C unit when you throw water on it and run! I took it on a 90 degree day with 85% humidity and my run was quite pleasant!” It’s already being rolled out to other sports. Serena Williams and Jannik Skinner recently wore Airflow gear during Wimbledon, as London’s temperatures hit 36 celsius.

As with all forms of innovation, what’s new today will eventually filter down to the mainstream.

This next era of performance wear needs to be innovated and wear-tested like never before. Trail is an interesting formula for brands to wear-test products—and for brands to think about strategic wardrobe systems that cater to changing climates. Daytime heat is a very different challenge to dress for than the sharp drop in overnight temperatures, so gear needs to do more without weighing more.

Satisfy athlete Max Joliffe sampled its HeatCrush fabric during Atacama’s altiplano—a 1000 mile-long desert plateau in Chile that’s known as the driest and oldest non-polar desert on the planet. Here, there is no shade or shelter, and sweat evaporates before it can cool the body down. Upon launch, the collection sold out. Demand proves that these collections have more relevance to the everyday runner than they might initially think: brands should approach the heat-solve category expansively. There is already a solid use case for all of this gear well beyond the environment it was designed to be in.

Exercising during extreme temperatures places huge demands on the body. While gear is a solution to help cool us down, the heat and physical exertion puts fuelling at the centre of the conversation. Running a marathon or an ultra marathon or playing a game of tennis already induces sweat, but in extreme heat, physical activity can become unsafe. The hobby athlete and everyday practitioner needs to become better versed at how to fuel and supplement around heat to properly support the body. Electrolytes are a huge trend already, but they will continue to play a bigger role as the constraints of heat are felt more viscerally.

How to store fuel on the go is another consideration. Further innovation within hydration vests will be required, with a need for increasingly lightweight materials and craftsmanship and, for women, the ability to carry water comfortably. Bandit’s sport bras are a cult favourite for their pocketing system—women are enabled to easily carry gels, phones and electrolytes without compromising comfort—but they are not currently designed to store water. Currently, most hydration packs are designed on a man’s frame, with exceptions found at MileOff and lululemon—both offer hydration vests that are designed for and wear-tested on women. Increasingly, inner-city runners need to carry water to cope with the demands of the heat.

To summarize: it’s apparel, its fuel, it’s safety, it’s ultimately about making critical progress with relevance at the forefront. As we dig into this topic more, both in our fieldwork and from our personal experiences, we will examine how we interact with sport and fitness currently, and how heat and the changing environment is already creating friction.

The rapid pace of increased heat versus extreme winter cold is putting extra pressure on the timeline of innovation to problem-solve. Brands need to think not just seasons ahead, but years ahead, in order to be ready to meet and rise to the challenge.

We work at the intersection of sport, culture and innovation. If you’re grappling with what heat means for your brand, your athletes or your customers, we’d love to compare notes. Get in touch with Nicola, Beyond’s insight director, at nicola.strange@studiobeyond.co.