Training through a Dubai summer without losing your progress

From June to September it is 40 degrees by 9 am. You will not train outdoors at noon, and you should not try. Here is how my clients keep going.

Every May my outdoor bootcamp moves its start time from 6:00 to 5:15, and by June it moves indoors altogether. The heat in Dubai is not something to push through. Heat exhaustion is real, and I have seen fit people get dizzy on the boardwalk at 8 in the morning in August.

Move the hard sessions inside

Lifting stays in an air-conditioned gym. Conditioning moves there too: rower, bike, sled pushes on turf. If you love running, go before sunrise or after 9 pm, keep the pace easy and shorten the route. Running JBR at 5 am in July is fine. Running it at 7 am is not.

Hydration starts the night before. I ask clients to drink 500 ml with electrolytes in the evening and another 500 ml when they wake up. During training, sip, and weigh yourself before and after a long session: every kilo lost is roughly a litre to put back.

Expect your performance to dip by five to ten percent in conditioning work, even indoors, because your body is working to stay cool all day. That is normal. Keep the lifting numbers steady and do not chase personal records in August.

Summer is also travel season

Half my clients leave the UAE for at least three weeks between July and August. Before they go we agree on a minimum: two bodyweight or hotel-gym sessions a week and 8,000 steps a day. Most of them come back stronger than they expected, because they rested.

September is when we push again. By then the mornings are a touch kinder, the bootcamp moves back outdoors in October, and the people who kept a minimum all summer are the ones who are ready for it.