| Keywords |
Clothing weight ; Cold stimulus ; Subjective sensation ; Temperature inside clothing ; Wear training |
| Abstract |
This study was performed on humans to investigate the effects of wear training for developing cold tolerance on comfort zone of microclimate and subjective sensations. Twenty male subjects participated in the investigation and they were subdivided into two groups consisted of each 10 participant: experimental group (EG) and control group (CG). EG dressed lightly to feel little cool or cold that is, temperature inside clothing of them was lowered than before wear training, but CG dressed as usual to feel comfortable during wear training of 4 weeks. Clothing microclimate and subjective sensations were measured during life time and subjective sensations in a cold environment was measured for evaluating cold tolerance. The results were as follows. EG during wear training maintained lower temperature inside clothing in day time and sleep than before wear training, respectively 1.7oC and 0.8oC. Total clothing weight and total clothing number of EG during wear training were 547.2±136 g/m2 and 3.43±0.6, respectively. EG felt more comfortable at low temperature inside clothing during than before wear training (p<.01). Also, EG felt less cold, less uncomfortable and more tolerable after than before wear training when it was exposed in the same cold environment (p<.01). In conclusion, through these results, it can be seen that wear training, the way of lowering the temperature inside clothing by 1.7oC during 4 weeks in a cold season, positively affected cold tolerance. |