What are cooling jackets and how do they work?

In order to help their players as they battle the heat during their Premier League Super Series campaign in the United States, Manchester United are using cooling jackets.

Cooling jackets have been around since the 1950s and 1960s, first being worn by the military, and have since been used in a variety of sports, including Formula 1, tennis, and rowing.

Studies have shown that they can improve endurance, performance, and reduce the risk of heat stroke and heat exhaustion. They are designed to lower an athlete’s core and skin temperature.

United currently employs a kit from Adidas, which was released earlier this year.

Players are wearing those cooling jackets after warming up and at half-time in the United States.

In a number of matches this summer, players at the 2025 Club World Cup experienced extreme heat. There were numerous cooling breaks and stadium installations of large mist fans on the sidelines.

The army’s first cooling jacket models required a power supply to circulate cold water around the body, but with advancements in technology, this is no longer the case.

An insulated jacket that goes over the top of a cooling vest was the Climacool System technology used by Adidas earlier this year.

The heart rate and body temperature are both higher in a hot environment and lower when exercising at the same intensity. According to Dr. Chris Tyler, a University of Roehampton reader in environmental physiology, that can result in things like heat exhaustion or even worse.

“All that the vest will claim to do is reduce is.” Therefore, they will lower the strain, heart rate, and body temperature.

The vest’s effectiveness depends in large part on how it is used. There is a significant difference between a person’s actual body temperature and how they feel.

They must be worn for a long time and extend their reach.

The Club World Cup, which was unofficially a warm-up for the 2026 men’s World Cup, provides a good idea of what can be anticipated during the next summer’s tournament in the United States, Canada, and Mexico given the conditions.

48 nations will participate in the World Cup, compared to the 32-team Club World Cup. This will increase the number of daytime games and create more technical difficulties for players.

When questioned about the necessity of wearing cooling vests at the Club World Cup, Dr. Tyler responded, “Certainly some some kind of proactive cooling intervention.”

Avoiding playing in those circumstances is the best way to prevent it, according to the author.

There might be some proactive scheduling, they say. In La Liga, for instance, people have been mentioning very early kick-offs or very late kick-offs, and they do it in particular when the game starts off very late.

There is no reason to believe that the teams will be adopting cooling strategies to try to combat that because we saw players struggling this summer.

Dr. Tyler added that he anticipates widespread use of cooling jackets or at least some form of cooling equipment throughout the World Cup.

“Definitely. All the capable teams will. Those teams who have a lot of backing will undoubtedly do so, he said, and teams are already preparing for the heat of the upcoming World Cup.

“Some of those might be custom-made measures, while others might be off-the-shelf measures.”

Because they can control the tempo, they can make the opponent run, and those things, the better teams are generally less affected by the heat.

Adidas introduced the Climacool System, which consists of a specially designed cooling vest and an insulated jacket in March.

Mercedes’ F1 team used the jackets for all races where the drivers’ performance would be impacted by the hot weather.

Drivers can experience temperatures between 55C and 60C, according to the manufacturer, which results in a weight loss of 4.2kg (9.3 pounds) in one race just in sweat.

F1 drivers frequently submerge themselves in water before a race to prepare for the race.

An hour before the race, according to Dr. Tyler, “often, F1 drivers” do that.

“When they put on the vests, that’s largely perceptual,” is what they’re doing. They’re attempting to make those vests as much as they can so that they can feel cooler for as long as possible.

When the temperatures are high enough, the FIA will start to introduce various in-car cooling suits. That will now be very similar to what the military used to do.

The drivers will be sitting, which means they won’t be as active as they would if they were running, but they will be sitting on an engine or a hot track.

Although I have my doubts about whether they will be able to extract enough heat to actually reduce the drivers’ strain, they will undoubtedly make them feel a little cooler.

The Formula One teams have since suddenly gotten their badges, which is a nice platform for all of their businesses and sponsors.

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