Using the sauna is one of the best-kept secrets for making athletes’ lives easier and helping them perform better and better. All athletes know that the secret to running further and lifting more is making a habit of your most fruitful exercises and, in fact, the same is true for sauna use. Taking regular saunas in connection with your workouts can easily lead to a bounty of health benefits that won’t only make your workouts easier but help you reach new highs and personal bests in the future. Athletes have been using saunas for cooldowns for centuries but there are indeed several more key benefits to using saunas with a good workout that even the best-trained athletes may not be aware of. No matter what kind of exercise you take up, there is a good chance that pairing those workouts with a good trip to the sauna will only go to heighten your experience. Let’s explore all of the key benefits of sauna use for athletes here.
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The Benefits of Saunas for Athletes and Sports Performance
No matter if you are a beginner or a professional, there are several practical reasons to make sauna use one of the steps in your workout routine. This holds true especially for athletes, but also for improving general sports performance, sauna use can do wonders. Let’s get into those reasons here.
Saunas Help Reduce Soreness
Let’s start with the most obvious reason to use the sauna paired with a workout. Using the sauna closely after a workout reduces the chance that you’ll suffer from over-the-top soreness in the coming days. Many professional runners and swimmers, for example, already use this tactic as high as the Olympic level. But even if you are just starting your exercise journey, you can still take full advantage of this sauna benefit. Chances are, if you are a workout beginner you likely have the most to gain in regard to this benefit.
Studies have also found that spending time in the sauna can help the body create beto-endorphins which don’t simply reduce soreness but can also help us restore and expand our muscle mass faster and more efficiently. The body gives off beta-endorphins in the sauna because the heat of the sauna engages our nervous system’s main function which is protecting the body. The heat of saunas is so extreme that the body tries to re-enforce as many systems as possible as soon as the heat passes our normal resting temperature. Beta-endorphins are generally used for restoring the body when we get cuts or scraps but the same endorphin also can expedite the process of restoring the muscles.
True workout debutants tend to suffer from the most soreness for the simple reason that their bodies’ muscles simply aren’t used to being exerted in the way common to exercise.
The reason that saunas help with reducing soreness has to do with the way the body reacts to the heat of the sauna. While a workout will both speed up the body’s blood pressure and bring our muscles to their limits, using the sauna only increases our heart rate and doesn’t engage the muscles as seriously. When we work out our muscles, the muscle tissue adjusts and exposes new muscle tissue to our bloodstream. The soreness we feel after a workout is our adjusted muscle tissue learning to get used to being exposed to oxygenated blood; it’s a touch uncomfortable but the process is simply a sign that our muscles are growing in a healthy way.
But it is still a problem for athletes who work out regularly to feel soreness that lasts into future workouts. So, by using the sauna very soon after a workout, it’s more than possible to speed up the amount of time it takes for your muscles which are freshly expanded to get used to the bloodstream around them. Since saunas raise our heart rate already, spending time in that heat basically gives your body a head start in restoring your muscle health.
While spending time in the sauna certainly can help ease your soreness, there is always an upper limit to how long you ought to spend in the sauna per session. In the same way as a workout, the body needs a break after being exerted at its limit for an extended period of time. The trick is this: once your body starts sweating in the sauna, this is a sign that your heart rate has gone up high enough to make a meaningful difference in your post-workout soreness.
Saunas Can Extend Your Workout
More than simply helping with your cooldown, saunas are fully able to help make even the best workout just a small bit more valuable. This is for the simple reason that the body still has to work quite hard while spending time in the sauna. Even though you may just be sitting down and enjoying a good heat soak, that doesn’t mean that your body can take a break too.
The heat of traditional wood-burning saunas is so extreme that the body takes up a very specific order of actions to keep itself cool. This set of actions is part of the overall process of homeostasis. Homeostasis is the idea of our body’s systems running properly. And running properly includes temperature. When the nervous system notices that the body is running hotter than the standard 32 degrees Celsius, it will start sending signals to your sweat receptors to begin releasing that sweat to cool down your skin. Engaging in this process also kicks up the body’s heart rate in a healthy way. This very simple action keeps the body above its normal resting heart rate.
While the heart rate gain found in a sauna is nowhere near as concentrated as during a serious cardiovascular workout, it is important to understand that any kind of increase in your heart rate above the resting level is still great for your health overall.
If you compared two people, both who had taken identical workouts, and sent one to the sauna for a good session and let the other person take a rest, the person who went to the sauna would burn more calories. This is because their body will have spent a long time above the normal resting heart rate.
Further, this heart rate gain can actually last quite a long time. So, there is no reason to rush yourself after a workout to the sauna. On this, it is very important that between your workout and your trip to the sauna, you quickly jump in the shower and fully wash the sweat off your body. It may sound like a waste to shower off your sweat just to get sweaty again but this goes into another key rule about using the sauna. It is absolutely essential for all athletes to take a shower between workouts and sauna sessions. The high temperature in sauna chambers paired with the small amount of airflow means that it is incredibly easy for bacteria to grow and reproduce in a sauna. Further, it is already slightly damp in most sauna halls thanks to the bucket often used to pour over the rocks sitting above the woodstove. It is then up to each and every sauna user to make sure that they do everything in their power to prevent the spread of germs in saunas. The most basic first step is taking a shower before the sauna but if you are using a public sauna facility at a club, spa, or recreational center, be sure to know the rules about cleaning yourself before the sauna as well.
Saunas are Good for the Immune System
On top of being good for your workout at hand, using the sauna can also protect your immune system and keep you healthy for your next workout. This is thanks to the fact that habitual sauna use eventually helps the body produce heat-shock proteins. This type of protein is generally used to help cool down the body when we are exposed to higher than normal heat for an extended period of time. But these proteins are also incredibly helpful in maintaining and improving our immune system.
The more frequently you engage your body’s ability to produce heat-shock proteins, the more often you will be insulating your body’s immune system. This means that you’ll be giving your body a head start for the next workout!
Using the Sauna Works Out Your Pores
As the body gets used to sweating more frequently, whether it is from exercise or from using the sauna as is, our pores become more efficient in jetting out sweat. This is primarily due to the fact that every time we sweat, our bodies clear out the natural oils and toxins that line (and sometimes block) our pores. So the more frequently you engage your pores, the more porous they are likely to become. This can be especially useful for athletes, as sweating is a key way of keeping the body cool. It’s easy to think of sweat just as a sign that your workout is going well but there is obviously much more going on in the background. Our bodies sweat for a very good reason, as explained above. So, by making sure that our body’s pores are open and fully prepared to sweat, we make it easier to cool our bodies each and every time we get close to overheating.
Imagine, then, how much good you would be doing for your pores if you, first, took up a serious and high-intensity cardiovascular workout and closely followed it with a trip to the sauna. This means that just about any kind of natural blockage in your pores will likely be cleared for the next time you start to work out.
A large consideration you ought to make, however, when you start sweating for a long time is to think hard about how much sweat is too much sweat. While cleaning out your pores is a key part of both preparing for your next workout and keeping the breathability of your skin in peak form, it is also essential to realize that every bead of sweat is water that your body is losing and will very soon need to get back. Be certain to take regular breaks for water, especially if you are using the sauna after a workout – athletes should pay close attention to not becoming dehydrated, which certainly does not help their sports performance.
Saunas are Good for Your Heart Health
On top of all of the above benefits, saunas are incredibly good for the healthy maintenance of your heart. This is simply because spending time in the sauna always engages your nervous system and homeostasis-keeping abilities in a unique way.
Each time you enter the sauna, the temperature hitting your skin will quickly cause you to sweat. But in between the time that your body realizes it is hot and starts sweating, millions of microscopic signals are sent all around the body telling each and every system how to react to the sudden change of environment. And in the midst of all that microscopic action, the heart starts to beat faster in a healthy way.
The more frequently we keep the heart above a resting rate of beats, the more we are working out the organ itself. The heart becomes more efficient the more often it is exerted; this is why people who regularly exercise (or habitually use the sauna) tend to have a lower chance of contracting heart-related illnesses later in life.
Frequently Asked Questions on the Benefits of Saunas for Athletes
Even knowing all of the most prevalent benefits that saunas can deliver for athletes, it is more than understandable to still have some follow-up questions. Let’s talk about the most common questions that athletes and exercise debutants alike are most likely to ask when starting to pair their workouts with visits to the sauna.
How Long Should I Stay in the Sauna to Maximize My Performance?
Luckily, there is no universal amount of time that a person must stay in the sauna in order to get the most out of their visit. A good general rule to follow is that once your body starts getting sweaty, this means that your body is already engaging all of the systems that will ultimately lead to health benefits. There is, however, an upper limit of time that athletes ought to spend in the sauna. This is for the straightforward reason that the body gives off quite a bit of water in the sauna and after a while, it is necessary to rehydrate. That amount of time is roughly 20 minutes. While some sauna pros can stay in for times longer than that, they are indeed putting their health at risk unless they take water breaks in between.
The ultimate point to realize is that the amount of time you spend in the sauna isn’t nearly as important as the quality of your session. You could spend even just five minutes in the sauna and still reach the health benefits you are looking for. The trick is, the biggest and most bountiful health benefits of the sauna tend to come about only after sauna use has become a regular habit. The same is true for exercise: you can’t expect to work out once and suddenly be a pro athlete. The best things in life take time and dedication and saunas are a great example of exactly that.
What Workouts Are Best to Pair with the Sauna?
Generally speaking, just about all workouts possible are great to pair with a trip to the sauna. From weight lifting to jogging, there is almost no way to go wrong when pairing a workout with the sauna. But depending on the type of workout you take on, you can expect certain sauna benefits to manifest in different ways. For example, if you go for a serious run that engages your lungs and gets you really sweaty, the biggest benefit you’ll likely take advantage of when you get to the sauna is extending your workout through the heat of the sauna. This is because running is a cardiovascular exercise, meaning that the part of the body most engaged is the heart itself. So as you start your sauna session, your heart will already be riding high from your earlier workout.
But let’s say instead that you just lifted weights; it was a good session and you can already feel a bit of soreness coming on even before you get in the sauna. In this case, you will mainly feel two benefits from the sauna: first, your impending soreness will likely be a bit shorter compared to if you had never visited the sauna in the first place. Second, Your muscles will start to restore faster and more fully thanks to the release of beta-endorphins that happens in the sauna. While the heart is still engaged during a workout like lifting weights, these workouts are considered anaerobic which means that the entire body isn’t necessarily being engaged compared to running or rowing which makes the entire body work rather hard.
Conclusions on Sauna Benefits for Athletes
Athletes have so much to gain from just adding a simple trip to the sauna to their workout routines. But also for improving your overall sports performance, sauna use can do wonders as we have seen above. More than simply being good for our health, using the sauna is a wonderful way to relax in its own right. No matter if you are a pro at the top of your sport or just beginning your exercise journey, you still have so much to gain from adding sauna heat to your regimen. As long as you are certain to follow some basic rules like drinking enough water, cleaning up between your workout and sauna time, and not spending too long in the heat, you can easily make your workouts more fun and fulfilling.