Many of us love to wind down in a sauna after a workout. It can be incredibly relaxing, even therapeutic, and just what you need after pumping iron or hitting the treadmill. But not everyone realizes that the benefits of using a sauna or steam room after an intensive workout go beyond just feeling good.
Indeed, there are actual physical benefits to hitting the sauna after exercise, and in some instances, a post-workout sauna session is even recommended as part of your routine to get the most benefit from your workout. But what are these benefits? Keep reading, and we’ll explain.
Relaxation
We’ve already mentioned it so we thought we’d start here. Life in and of itself is a stressful thing, especially in today’s frantically paced world. Relaxing in any form is a welcome escape for most people, and that is even more true after an intensive workout. You’ve just spent an hour or two getting your heart pumping, your lungs heaving, and your adrenaline flowing. It makes sense that you’d need a bit of a wind-down period.
There is no hidden secret or obscure science to how this works; it is simply a matter of being immersed in a quiet, hot environment after the frenetic activity you have put yourself through. Stress comes in many forms, and it is rarely good for you in any of those forms, so relax.
Heart Health
There have been numerous studies showing that a stint in the steam room can have a range of positive effects on your heart. One of those effects is a direct result of the relaxation we mentioned above.
Another benefit as far as heart health goes is a lowering of blood pressure. Being in the steam room or sauna promotes aldosterone, a hormone that regulates blood pressure, and a big part of why being in a steam room or sauna makes you feel more relaxed.
Better Breathing
Getting enough oxygen into your body is important, of course, but beyond simply staying alive, ensuring your airways are nice and clear means you will get plenty of oxygen into your system, where it can be carried off to the part of your body that need it. This includes your aching muscles, which are going to need that oxygen to start repairing themselves.
It can also help with some breathing conditions, such as mild asthma. If you have such a condition, some gentle breathing in a sauna can help calm down your lungs and throat.
It should be noted, however, that it is not recommended to use a steam room or sauna if you have a respiratory infection.
Loosen Stiff Joints
Though exercise is obviously healthy and something we should all strive to do (for most of us, more than we do now), it essentially causes a series of tiny traumas across your body. The recovery from these tiny traumas is what leads to improvement—your muscles, for instance, develop tiny tears as a result of muscle-building exercises, and your muscles heal stronger as a result.
Your joints undergo similar stresses in the tendons and ligaments. Heat applied to the joints before a workout has been shown to reduce the potential for injury a workout as it literally warms up the ligaments and increases flexibility. For this reason, you might want to consider a bit of sauna time before your workout as well as after.
Calorie Burning
Being in the steam room gets your heart rate up a little, and the harder your body is working, the more calories it is burning.
Your body tends to burn fat more readily during and after exercise, so while the extra calories burned by your sauna session aren’t a lot, they will have a more significant impact on your weight loss than if you did it at a time other than after a workout.
Reduce Soreness
If you’re doing it right, your workout should leave you feeling a little sore. If you can barely walk, you’re probably overdoing it, but if you don’t feel any soreness, you’re probably not doing enough.
Steam rooms and saunas can help your muscles recover due to the fact that the heat promotes increased blood flow (see increased heart rate above), which gets more of your highly oxygenated blood (thanks to the better breathing) to your muscles quickly, giving your body a headstart on the healing process.
Final Thoughts
There are no magic fixes in exercise, weight loss, and healing, and saunas and steam rooms certainly don’t break that trend. But they can help in a number of tiny ways that can make your healing progress more quickly, give subtle boosts to your workout gains, and gently bring you down from that exercise high on a soft cloud of comforting steam.
Author Bio: This article was written by Niall Hally of Village Physiotherapy. Niall has over two decades in sports physio and is a firm believer in the benefits of saunas for recovery.
