Capital Area Swim Team

1. WEAR SOME FREAKIN' PANTS.  And a hat.  And shoes.  Remember that body temperature thing I was just referring to?  Riiiight.  Look, you guys are coming out of a pool that is warmer than air temperature and WAY warmer than outside temperature, especially with given wind-chill and whatnot.  The warm water and your warmed skin is going to cause that moisture to evaporate , thus cooling your body.  It's why you can see steam coming off of yourself when you walk outside after practice, and why we get the foggy effect when we open the doors briefly (or, say for Halloween kick sets).  Incidentally, this precise cooling mechanism is why we sweat. Due to your body's ability to sweat, moisture appearing on your skin can evaporate and large amounts of heat can be dissipated from your body.   Incidentally, apart from convective and evaporative heat loss from the skin, these types of heat loss also take place from the lungs by respiration, as inhaled air is usually cooler and dryer than your lung's internal surface. By warming and moisturizing the inhaled air, the body loses an amount of heat as the air is exhaled, which can be up to 10% of the total heat production of the body.  By virtue of breathing outdoors, therefore, you're cooling down.   And if you're cooling down that much just by breathing, think of how much more you're cooling down with all of that evaporation going on.  We appreciate the fact that you want to get home quickly to attend to homework and whatnot, but the extra five minutes it takes to bundle up and protect yourself could save you weeks of immobility.  Also: it just [insert verb-form expletive here] me off to watch you walk outside with a towel wrapped around your waist.  I'm sorry, but you're just asking for it and that's so not cool.
2. Vitamin C is awesome.  No joke.  Almost all of the doctors that I have seen (and I've seen a lot of them) have been pushing the vitamin C with me since I was a kid.  I'm not going to lie, I did not listen as often as I should have mostly because I hated taking extra pills.  If only I had known the beauty of Halls Defense or generic chewable tablets, I may have had a healthier youth.  You don't even have to take supplements (I do anyway though; I am pretty sure I get about a million percent of my daily recommended allowance of vitamin C): there is a ton of vitamin C in fruits like strawberries, oranges, kiwi, cantaloupe and grapefruits and a ton of others.  So why the vitamin C? It increases the production of infection-fighting white blood cells and antibodies and increases levels of interferon, the antibody that coats cell surfaces, preventing the entry of viruses.  Also: people whose diets are higher in vitamin C have lower rates of colon, prostate, and breast cancer, so pass that tidbit on as well.  When you're adding C to your daily routine, it's best to space it out a little and not take it all in one dose - C is a water soluble vitamin and anything not absorbed on the first try will be wasted when you pee. (Yes, I'm juvenile enough to grin at the fact that I got to use "pee" in a Coaches' Corner).
3. In other supplemental news...   Zinc is a pretty sexy item during the cold season, and there have been a lot of studies that show that it helps boost T-cells and the release of related antibodies.  Here's the deal though: too much zinc can actually inhibit your immune system.  I had no idea about this until last Saturday.  Apparently it's safest to rely on zinc you get from your diet and aim for the 12-20 mg/day range.
4.  Go to bed, yo.  You are all at a critical growth period that may require up to ten - yes, TEN - hours of sleep per night to allow for proper growth, digestive, hormonal and psychological changes (don't believe me?  Check this out. Or this.  I have a whole host of other resources, just ask me). Without it, you end up with not only suppressed immunity, but with whacked-out food cravings, depression, constant fatigue, anxiety and stress.  Note this indelibly: ONCE YOU MISS SLEEP, YOU CANNOT MAKE IT UP.  Don't get the notion in your head that you can "catch up on the weekends," because it's just not true.  You have to schedule your week to allow for the proper amount of sleep or you'll be sick, crabby, unhappy and complaining all of the time.  None of that is healthy, physically or mentally.  I realize that we live in a culture in which it is a status symbol to profess how terribly busy and important we all are ("oh my god, I have swim practice and a student council meeting and 97 hours of homework and I'll have to pull an all-nighter" Subliminal message: see how amazing I am?)  All I'm saying is, better forward planning throughout any given cycle tends to nip these things in the bud.  I know this because I was the one pulling all-nighters in order to fit my social schedule in.