The Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games will be the hottest Summer Olympics in modern history. Average July afternoon temperatures in the LA basin sit at 30-33C and the venues — track and field at the Coliseum, marathon on open coastal streets, beach volleyball in Santa Monica — will hand athletes wet-bulb conditions that decide medals as much as fitness does. Two and a half years out, the high-performance staff at every serious federation are already reorganising their training calendars around heat. The shift, while quieter than the equipment news, is the single biggest physiological story of the LA cycle.
Why Heat Has Become the New Altitude
The performance-physiology world spent thirty years obsessed with altitude camps — the live-high-train-low protocols out of St Moritz, Flagstaff and Font Romeu. Heat acclimation, by comparison, was treated as a niche concern for distance runners and tropical events. The 2024 evidence base has changed that. Properly done heat acclimation now produces:
- Plasma volume expansion of 6-12% within 10-14 days, larger than what most altitude protocols deliver.
- VO2 max improvements of 2-5% in cool conditions — meaning heat training produces gains that show up at any temperature, not just hot ones.
- Sweat-rate increases and earlier onset of sweating, which buys 10-15 minutes of effective competition time before core temperature reaches performance-limiting levels.
That last point is what has shifted federation thinking. Heat acclimation is no longer a tactical pre-event measure. It is a base-fitness intervention that runs year-round.
The Protocols Now in Use
The Doha-Style Model (Continuous Heat Exposure)
Adopted by the Norwegian distance team, by the British rowing federation and by parts of the US track squad. Athletes train in 30-35C heated chambers for 60-90 minutes at moderate intensity, 5-7 sessions across 10-14 days, repeated quarterly. The full plasma-volume effect is achieved by day 10 and decays to baseline within 21-28 days, which is why the cycle repeats.
The Post-Session Sauna Protocol
Cheaper, more practical, and now standard across mid-budget federations. Athletes complete a normal training session and then sit in a 80-90C sauna for 25-30 minutes within 30 minutes of finishing. The thermal load extends the heat exposure of the workout itself. Across 10-14 sessions, the adaptations are roughly 70-80% of those produced by full chamber training, at perhaps 5% of the cost.
The Hot Bath Variant
For team-sport athletes whose schedules do not accommodate dedicated heat sessions. A 40C hot-water immersion bath for 30-40 minutes after training produces measurable plasma volume effects in 7-10 sessions and is being used by elements of the New Zealand rugby and Australian cricket programmes.
Where the LA-Bound Athletes Are Training
Heat camps for the LA cycle are concentrating in three locations:
- Doha, Qatar, for distance events that need to mimic the dry, radiant heat of Southern California summer afternoons.
- Phoenix, Arizona, for North American programmes that want LA-like conditions with domestic logistics.
- Singapore and Brisbane, for federations that need humidity dominant rather than dry heat (relevant for marathon and triathlon, which will both be morning events but still warm).
The under-told story is that heat camps are now scheduled twice a year rather than once, with most federations running a January-February block and a July-August block to maintain adaptation through the qualifying season.
The Sport-by-Sport Picture
Track and field, particularly the 5000m, 10000m and steeplechase, will be the most heat-affected disciplines at LA28. The men's marathon course, finalised in late 2025, runs from Santa Monica through Brentwood and back along the coast — a course with limited shade and high radiant load. Federations are training their marathoners specifically for split-pacing strategies that reflect what the Doha 2019 World Championships taught: the second half of a hot marathon is roughly 4-7% slower than the first, and athletes who fight that decay blow up entirely.
Beach volleyball, played on sand in direct sun, will favour the federations with the longest heat-acclimation depth. Brazil and Australia have publicly stated heat training is now their top off-season priority. The US, with home-conditions advantage, has perhaps the smallest adaptation curve to climb.
The Athletes to Watch
Three figures will be quietly defined by this work in the run-up to LA28:
- Jakob Ingebrigtsen, whose Norwegian programme has been the most public adopter of structured heat training and whose 5000m and 1500m performances at hot championships have been notably more consistent than rivals'.
- Eliud Kipchoge's successors in the Kenyan marathon programme, where high-altitude bases have been supplemented with new low-altitude heat phases for the first time.
- The British rowing eights, whose pre-LA preparation block in summer 2027 is publicly scheduled for Doha rather than the traditional European altitude camps.
The Quiet Signal
The federations that win medals at LA28 will be the ones whose heat work looks routine by July 2028. The federations that show up underprepared will be the ones whose marketing material in 2026 still talks about altitude as the marquee adaptation. Two and a half years is exactly the right amount of time to rebuild a programme around heat. It is also the exact amount of time to fall behind if you have not started.