Maybe you want to buy infrared sauna but don’t really know how to integrate an infrared sauna with your workouts. In this blog post I’ll give you three reasons why a sauna after workout gives you unique benefits:
1. You Burn More Calories
Spending time inside a sauna temporarily stresses your body. Your body needs to expend energy to maintain its body temperature. And, of course, many people exercise to burn calories to become healthier and lose body fat.
What you might not know, however, is that spending time inside a sauna is an amazing way to burn more calories. Different studies show that you burn between 500 and 1,100 kilocalories during an hour-long sauna session (1-3).
Those numbers are higher than what you’d burn running on an average speedat 750 kilocalories. And, that number is almost double of what you’d burn dancing for an hour, at 450 kilocalories.
Of course, you’re also burning calories while you’re exercising. Hence, saunas are an excellent tool to become a fat-burning machine. Be careful though, as saunas add stress on top of the stress of exercise, so build up your tolerance slowly – especially if you’ve got a chronic health condition.
And there’s more:
2. Detoxification Increases Massively
Combinding exercise and saunas are a match made in heaven. First of all, exercise increases your circulation and activates your lymphatic system. Your lymphatic system is an important part of your immune system that can only be activated through movement or massages.
By getting your heart rate up high before spending time inside a sauna, you’re helping your body mobilise toxins and waste products. During a sauna, moreover, many of these toxins and waste products are then removed.
Contrary to popular opinion, some toxins are best removed through sweating (4-7). Examples here are different toxic heavy metals, Bisphenol A (BPA) from plastics, and phthalates that are found in many consumer products and enter your body through your skin.
The more you sweat, the more you detoxify through your skin. Make sure to consume enough water and salt though (1 teaspoon for every hour inside a sauna). Rinse yourself with lukewarm water after a session or use towels to remove all the toxins from your skin.
Also, the more fat you burn during exercise, the more toxins will be released during that process. Fat is often a favourite storage place of the body for toxins. By releasing the toxins from your fat, the ones that aren’t removed through your liver, urinary system, and gastrointetsinal tract will then be eliminated through your skin.
Lastly, there’s one more benefit:
3. You Might Recover Quicker
There’s not too much science available on the topic of post-workout saunas and recover but the existing studies are quite promising (8; 9).
In endurance athletes, for instance, spending time inside a far infrared sauna helps you recover quicker. Nervous system recovery also increased.
And for power and strength athletes, moreover, supports increases in both bone mass and muscle mass. I’d personally like to see more long-term research in both types of athletes, especially longer-term studies. Nevertheless, the preliminary results available today are very promising.
I do prefer a far infrared sauna in this case. The far infrared sauna is very gentle on the body even though it helps you sweat a lot. For both the detoxification benefit I talked about before and the post-workout recovery, if you want a more relaxing and gentle experience, the lower temperatures of far infrared work great. Traditional saunas use very high temperatures to achieve their effect, thereby increasing the stress on your body.
With that being said – after these three benefits – let’s conclude:
Why Post-Workout Saunas Are A Great Idea
Using a sauna after a workout ensures you capitalise on some extremely promising benefits, such as faster recovery, more detoxification, and greater fat loss. Many other benefits exist that I won’t go into now, such as deeper sleep, more relaxation, improved heart and blood vessel health – all which aid athletes.
But, hopefully, the three benefits I covered so far have convinced you that post-workout saunas are great!
References:
[1] Podstawski R, Borysławski K, Clark CCT, Choszcz D, Finn KJ, Gronek P. Correlations between Repeated Use of Dry Sauna for 4 x 10 Minutes, Physiological Parameters, Anthropometric Features, and Body Composition in Young Sedentary and Overweight Men: Health Implications. Biomed Res Int. 2019 Jan 21;2019:7535140. doi: 10.1155/2019/7535140. PMID: 30800676; PMCID: PMC6360547.
[2] Gutiérrez A, Mesa JL, Ruiz JR, Chirosa LJ, Castillo MJ. Sauna-induced rapid weight loss decreases explosive power in women but not in men. Int J Sports Med. 2003 Oct;24(7):518-22. doi: 10.1055/s-2003-42017. PMID: 12968210.
[3] Leppäluoto J, Tuominen M, Väänänen A, Karpakka J, Vuori J. Some cardiovascular and metabolic effects of repeated sauna bathing. Acta Physiol Scand. 1986 Sep;128(1):77-81. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-1716.1986.tb07952.x. PMID: 3766176.
[4] Genuis SJ, Birkholz D, Rodushkin I, Beesoon S. Blood, urine, and sweat (BUS) study: monitoring and elimination of bioaccumulated toxic elements. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol. 2011 Aug;61(2):344-57. doi: 10.1007/s00244-010-9611-5. Epub 2010 Nov 6. PMID: 21057782.
[5] Genuis SJ, Beesoon S, Birkholz D, Lobo RA. Human excretion of bisphenol A: blood, urine, and sweat (BUS) study. J Environ Public Health. 2012;2012:185731. doi: 10.1155/2012/185731. Epub 2011 Dec 27. PMID: 22253637; PMCID: PMC3255175.
[6] Genuis SJ, Beesoon S, Lobo RA, Birkholz D. Human elimination of phthalate compounds: blood, urine, and sweat (BUS) study. ScientificWorldJournal. 2012;2012:615068. doi: 10.1100/2012/615068. Epub 2012 Oct 31. PMID: 23213291; PMCID: PMC3504417.
[7] Sears ME, Kerr KJ, Bray RI. Arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury in sweat: a systematic review. J Environ Public Health. 2012;2012:184745. doi: 10.1155/2012/184745. Epub 2012 Feb 22. PMID: 22505948; PMCID: PMC3312275.
[8] Mero A, Tornberg J, Mäntykoski M, Puurtinen R. Effects of far-infrared sauna bathing on recovery from strength and endurance training sessions in men. Springerplus. 2015 Jul 7;4:321. doi: 10.1186/s40064-015-1093-5. PMID: 26180741; PMCID: PMC4493260.
[9] Toro V, Siquier-Coll J, Bartolomé I, Pérez-Quintero M, Raimundo A, Muñoz D, Maynar-Mariño M. Effects of Twelve Sessions of High-Temperature Sauna Baths on Body Composition in Healthy Young Men. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Apr 22;18(9):4458. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18094458. PMID: 33922289; PMCID: PMC8122786.