Infrared Sauna Therapy: Exercise Recovery

Many cultures have promoted sauna therapy for thousands of years.  Saunas have been reported to improve athletic performance, mental health, cardiovascular disease, neurologic conditions, joint problems, and overall mortality.  

But what does the research really show?    

Researchers have done various studies to investigate these claims.  A review of over 100 studies in 2018 showed encouraging results.  In this Pittsburgh Fitness Project series, we’ll detail how sauna therapy can benefit these facets of your life.

Let’s start with exercise recovery.  

You just finished working out.  Why get into a sauna?   

Heat therapy produces changes in the body.  Heating the body causes the heart to pump out more blood – increasing your cardiac output.  Both large and small blood vessels get bigger – they dilate to increase blood flow to our tissues.  Combined, these effects help to flush out any breakdown products from exercise, allowing your muscles to recover faster.   

Regular heat “stress” causes our body to adapt in other ways.  Heat stress, or repeated exposures to increased temperatures, makes the body produce fewer stress hormones and more protective substances.  One of these cell protectors is known as the heat shock protein – a vital part of helping our bodies to recover after exercise stress.  These proteins help our bodies to keep our cells functioning properly and to repair DNA damage.

By safely increasing cardiac output and dilating blood vessels, regular, long-term use of heat therapy also improves our body’s ability to release oxygen into our tissues. This process helps us to exercise for longer periods of time – improving our exercise endurance over time.   Additionally, saunas can help us tolerate exercise better in the heat.  

But you have to stay consistent.

The effects of sauna therapy start to wear off over time without regular use.  For this reason, most studies support using sauna therapy at least 4 times per week.    

At the Pittsburgh Fitness Project, we have three infrared saunas available for sauna therapy.  The infrared light penetrates deeper into muscle tissue and heats the body from within, which is more effective than the traditional steam sauna.  Read our previous infrared sauna blog to learn more about this type of sauna therapy.

The saunas are part of our new Recovery Lounge. And we have added this therapy to serve the Pittsburgh community so we all can work hard and recover better.

Next week’s blog will explore how sauna therapy helps our hearts!  Stay tuned.

Brian Clista, MD      

References:

Dubrez, L. et al. (2019). Heat shock proteins: chaperoning DNA repair. Oncogene.  

Zinchuk, V. et al. (2012). Sauna affect on blood oxygen transport and prooxidant-antioxidant balance in athletes.  Medicina Sportiva.

Kirby, N. et al. (2021). Intermittent post-exercise sauna bathing improves markers of exercise capacity in hot and temperate conditions in trained middle-distance runners. European Journal of Applied Physiology.

Hussain, J. et al. (2018). Clinical effects of regular dry sauna bathing: a systematic review. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine.