Heat Sense Founder Melissa Fortenberry on Proactive Heat Illness Monitoring in Youth Sports

About this episode

Melissa Fortenberry discusses proactive heat illness monitoring in youth sports through innovative technology.

On the Contacts Coaching podcast, host interviews Melissa Fortenberry, founder of Heat Sense, about proactively monitoring heat strain in athletes to prevent heat illness. Fortenberry, a former Texas athlete and tech professional, describes being sick during a 107-degree football game and researching why existing guidelines focus on symptoms, meaning athletes are already ill once dizziness or nausea appears. She explains limitations of heat index and wet bulb globe temperature for team decisions because athletes differ in hydration and acclimation, and argues core body temperature is the key metric, though gold-standard measurement is rectal thermometry. Heat Sense uses a Swiss wearable (bicep/chest) plus heart rate to estimate core temperature within about 1°C, flag rising heat strain trends via an app and team dashboard, and support cooling interventions. They discuss adoption models, rotating sensors to identify sensitive athletes, EAP planning, and “cool first, transport second” protocols. 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:32 Melissa’s Origin Story 02:05 107 Degrees Spark 03:44 Why Heat Guidelines Fail 06:05 Core Temp Monitoring Tech 08:31 Accuracy and Thresholds 12:00 Cooling…

People in this episode

Host: Justin Clymo

Guest: Melissa Fortenberry

Topics covered

• heat illness
• youth sports
• core temperature monitoring
• athlete safety
• wearable technology

Keywords

• heat strain
• athletes
• monitoring
• cooling protocols
• wearable devices

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Heat Sense

Places: Texas

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