Adjusting to Hot Surfaces

As part of my general reading, I came across something called the "Seri Boot". No, it's not footwear, it's part of the process our feet go through when regularly exposed to hot temperatures (short of blistering). I've written it up at my blog.
seri03.jpg


The Seri Boot
So, how hot can you stand when you go barefoot? How about 180°F? Neither can I.

But if our feet had developed a “Seri Boot” we might be able to.


The “Seri Boot” is named after the Seri Indians of the Gulf of California. Specifically, they live/lived on Tiburón Island and the mainland shore adjacent to it. And they did so barefoot, in that desert environment.

Read more here: http://ahcuah.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/the-seri-boot/

(Note that the Seri live fairly close to the Tarahumara, with a similar penchant for long-distance running—but barefoot.)

By the way, regular readers of my blog will notice that I often have information or analyses available nowhere else.

 
As part of my general reading, I came across something called the "Seri Boot". No, it's not footwear, it's part of the process our feet go through when regularly exposed to hot temperatures (short of blistering). I've written it up at my blog.
Great find. I continue to be surprised by how adaptable our bodies are.
 
We shouldn't be surprised really as life is very adaptable and can be found in the most extreme conditions. Birds are quite happy to walk around on hot surfaces, ants carry on regardless when the air temperature is over 40C (imagine how hot it would be at the level that they are walking around at, 70C?)
Having recently come back from Spain where I spent a week with my family I noticed how I could quite happily walk around barefoot on the pavements while my folks were jumping around looking for shade or burning their feet, so we have the beginning of that heat tolerance.

Neil
 
I am a bit surprised by how much people whine about this or that. In comparison to our ancestors, who overcame great adversities, people nowadays just seem like big weenies who complain about everything.

[beware, my English is bad]

We have the same body as our ancestors but we don't expose us anymore to the environment as they did. We rely too much on technology. The result is a body and a mind less resistant.

[/beware, my English is bad]
 
[beware, my English is bad]

We have the same body as our ancestors but we don't expose us anymore to the environment as they did. We rely too much on technology. The result is a body and a mind less resistant.

[/beware, my English is bad]

Clear enough. Merci!
 
I read the blog post, and it sounds interesting.
https://ahcuah.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/baking-a-seri-boot/

I haven't tried hot dry sand, mostly because I don't want to take the time and electricity to bake sand. However, I've tried hot water footbathes and hot air from a blow dryer, and neither was very helpful.

I was at the beach recently and noticed that my skin was tougher. It got me thinking that maybe the saltwater worked as a desiccant. Perhaps, hot sand works similarly.

Over the last couple of days, I've been dipping my feet in a shoe container full of salt. It seems to keep my feet drier at night and during the day, despite wearing shoes and socks for work.

One problem is that the table salt that I have sticks to my feet like wet sand, and it's challenging to remove. I've ordered pretzel salt, so we'll see how that goes!
 
I read the blog post, and it sounds interesting.
https://ahcuah.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/baking-a-seri-boot/

I haven't tried hot dry sand, mostly because I don't want to take the time and electricity to bake sand. However, I've tried hot water footbathes and hot air from a blow dryer, and neither was very helpful.

Instead of using an oven, I've switched to an electric hot plate. Uses a lot less energy but still heats up the sand.

And you need the sand for its high heat density. Hot air from a blow dryer just doesn't penetrate sufficiently. (Not sure about the hot water.)

I was at the beach recently and noticed that my skin was tougher. It got me thinking that maybe the saltwater worked as a desiccant. Perhaps, hot sand works similarly.

No, it's not about being a desiccant. The heat actually stimulates skin growth (similar to the formation of calluses) and stimulates keratin production (again, like calluses) in that skin growth. In fact, when doing it you want to keep your skin moist so that the growing skin remains flexible and doesn't crack.
 
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Instead of using an oven, I've switched to an electric hot plate. Uses a lot less energy but still heats up the sand.
The hot plate is a good idea. I might consider getting an induction burner at some point.

wet it then nuke it? careful with it. i burned my fingers on hot sand in chem lab. sucked.
I was careful to heat it up slowly. At first it was too hot to stand on for more than a few seconds, but eventually my feet acclimated. Still, very little improvement, if any, after over a week. Tried it several months ago.
 
The hot plate is a good idea. I might consider getting an induction burner at some point.

I was careful to heat it up slowly. At first it was too hot to stand on for more than a few seconds, but eventually my feet acclimated. Still, very little improvement, if any, after over a week. Tried it several months ago.

I suspect a week is not long enough.

Even for extended hiking (which I did this past June/July), I did not see real sole growth (and then it was extensive) for about a month.
 
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i've had mixed results as well. i have an unsubstantiated hypothesis that pressure helps, too. my sand bath is in an electric skillet that is just big enough for my feet to fit into and i don't entirely trust the legs on it. so, i set my feet in it while sitting in a chair and typing away. my feet can get pretty tolerant to the heat. but, i don't think i develop as much mechanical toughness as, say, that month that i was working in florida and would walk on the super-hot pavement to where i was working and back a mile or so every day. i haven't yet come up with a good plan for being able to stand in the heated sand. i think i might need one skillet for each foot so i wouldn't fall over, but then we'd have to keep the temperature roughly consistent between them or rotate or, oh, so complicated! :) obviously, the mechanism should work, so the questions move on to details: how much cooking time is necessary? how hot? pressure? water/oil/salt? UV? do we need more pokies than just sand? who knows... the quest for the non-boot boot continues...
 
My sense is that PAIN is an important factor as well. Based on wide (if shallow) reading*, I believe that the wild BF lifestyle in extremely hostile conditions inevitably resulted in multiple trauma, both acute and chronic, and hurt like hell besides. The "Seri boot" seems like a very hard earned trophy. At best what we might achieve is only going to be a pale shadow of the real thing.

....which is OK, really. There is great virtue in being on this BF path at all. Failure to achieve that level of hardening isn't anything we ought to be losing sleep over.

* For example, Lewis and Clarke suffered horribly from damage caused by Prickly Pear Cactus even though they were wearing leather moccasins and leggings. They found that the leather got shredded after just a few days wearing. It was one of their main causes of suffering and complaining during their excursion.
 
I still think that there might be something to salt. I've read that guitarists will sometimes use saltwater to promote calluses. The pretzel salt has been working out better, and I think that I'm seeing some results. I haven't had any problems with dry skin, since I stopped swimming and went back to running for cardio.

I wonder how effective hot salt might be for calluses? This looks like a fair price for an induction burner with a pot.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GTZMHOW.
 
I haven't tried the hot sand bath but may at some point. Last year I did heat treatment with some results... I just propped up the feet in front of the wood or pellet stove glass. I'd move closer as my feet got used to it, but there would of course be a point I couldn't stand. I'd still hold it just a little after the point of burning pain (be careful!). This would greatly help to pre-warm and also blow open the blood vessels I assume, prior to heading out on a run. However I did not noticeably toughen the skin, I did loose quite a bit of conditioning over the winter but perhaps not as bad as it would have, and I got to run in much colder temps than I ever did before. I just couldn't spend the time I needed conditioning them. An electric skillet with sand at my computer desk would be better. Laying on the ground with my feet up in front of the stove is hard to do anything - even on my phone. Still I've found hot pavement to be the easiest way for me to toughen the feet, but that doesn't help in the winter.
 
thanks. i did a huarache marathon today with black asphalt with sunny 83F temps - I was afraid to go barefoot ... now I have some hope to do a bit less traumata try some seri marathoning ... but with conditioning
 
Update: So, as Ahcuah alluded to with his hiking experiences, it would appear that going barefoot is the most productive way to acclimate. I've been finding that running on a treadmill has helped me to improve form and my foot development.
 
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