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Sauna for recovery - infrared or dry? Or red light therapy?

Old 07-02-20, 06:38 AM
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lyf
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Sauna for recovery - infrared or dry? Or red light therapy?

After longer rides I like using the sauna. I am moving soon and wondering whether to buy an infrared or dry sauna?

I have been doing research via the FoundMyFitness podcast and website, and the jury is still out on whether infrared or dry heat is best.

Infrared is like a microwave -- heats up the water molecules in your blood and body, heat from the inside. This is electric, and saves on money and space.

Dry means heat from the outside, more like how humans have been heating up for aeons. There's usually a furnace and can be wood fired or electric.

There are also new things like the Joovv (red light therapy) but I am skeptical without learning more...

Curious about your experiences + advice!
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Old 07-02-20, 11:17 AM
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How does sitting in a sauna increase recovery?

Go for a ride in the south with 72+ degree dew points and the last thing in the world you'd want to do is go back into a sauna...
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Old 07-02-20, 11:47 AM
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Yes, studies show no recovery benefit. Or ice baths either. Be that as it may, sauna, however done, is beneficial for heat tolerance, but needs to be done almost every day to see the effect. One has to sit there and sweat until it's really getting unendurable. I prefer to just ride in the heat of the day if I think a long hot ride is in my future. Otherwise I certainly wouldn't do that, but find an occasional sauna nice, even if it only feels good and doesn't produce any athletic-connected result.

Even though sauna doesn't produce a measurable recovery effect, improving heat tolerance will make it easier to ride and possibly recover from a hot event. Temperature needs to be between 170° and 200° in a dry sauna. I've taken sauna at 100°C with Finns.

Google "heat shock proteins."
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Old 07-02-20, 11:54 AM
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Originally Posted by lyf
Curious about your experiences + advice!
Just ride. Then ride some more. Maybe I'm an exception and just recover well. Seldom have I done anything special after a ride except maybe ride slower for a half hour or so.

Since I do ride in 95°F and even days over 100°F for long, well over 50 mile rides, I do sometimes get in a cold bathtub of water and relax.

When you are riding at a level that your are generating a pretty good amount of wattage, then you body is working hard to keep your core temp down at normal even at moderate temps. When you stop, and no air is moving around you your body loses a lot of it's ability to cool you.

Why would I want to get in a sauna and potentially increase my core temperature? I'd be dead.

I suppose it might be useful, either one, where the snow doesn't melt and temps are below zero.
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Old 07-04-20, 03:33 AM
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Infrared doesn't penetrate the skin. Microwaves do penetrate the skin and heat up a body of water internally. If one were to go into a microwave sauna one would promptly die.

As to recovery benefit, even finns don't believe it really helps. It's been studied a lot here. But there have been some findings that shock hot cold therapy can aid recovery as in you heat yourself up in the sauna and quickly get into cold water. But apparently the water needs to be really cold as in near zero celsius. And it's questionable whether the Sauna does anything to aid recovery in that scenario. The sauna does however help immensely in getting into the water in the first place and it's bliss after you get out and go warm up again.

If you do that whole shock therapy thing, make sure you don't jump in cold water. You can get a heart attack from that. Easing one's self in is safe though.

I'll wholeheartedly recommend sauna in general though as a general relaxation device. The dry heat should not be dry though. Steam needs to be generated in some way to make the experience comfortable. In Finland this is typically done by throwing water onto rocks on top the furnace.
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Old 07-05-20, 12:06 PM
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Infrared is not microwave!

Infrared is part of the light spectrum. You get it from the sun or any radiating body (open your car hood after driving and feel)

Microwaves exite watermolecules to move, which is heat. That's why your kitchen microwave can heat up moist food.

Depending on the dose, microwaves won't kill you, just heat you up. A 20W micowave won't heat a lot. Some organs that don't have much bloodflow need protection to not overhat. Like your eyeballs. That is why microwave treatment of your head required metal goggles.

I heard a lot about IR and redlight therapy, but think just going in the sun is free and more natural. May in winter it may make sense, not sure. But ancient humans and animals just do fine with natural sun.
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Old 07-05-20, 12:49 PM
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So now we are focusing on a technicality of terms used? Result is somewhat the same, a rise in temperature in whatever is receiving the radiation, regardless of what spectrum it is in.
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Old 07-05-20, 01:10 PM
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Back in the day as a serious distance runner, I found that soaking in hot tubs of water aided in my ability to stretch, seemingly sped recovery, and helped with relaxation. Combined with massage, even greater benefits in those areas.

Never found quite the same overall benefits with dry heat, myself. Have never done infrared saunas.

In my case, I've got old injuries that were deep, and something about the deep-heating nature of the hot water helped where other methods weren't so effective. Looser muscles, hence deeper stretches. Less-achy joints, in the long run. Heat didn't help with overworked, inflamed muscles, no. Cold worked better for that (ice packs on abused muscles, etc).

Lots of animals do hot-water dips. No way to know whether it aids in recovery of muscle abuse or anything else, beyond the feel-good aspect we know to occur.

Can't say much about saunas. Have done dry saunas, from time to time. Nice, for awhile. But I never did find them to aid in my own recovery from hard workouts, abuse to muscles, etc.
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Old 07-06-20, 11:00 AM
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Originally Posted by Iride01
So now we are focusing on a technicality of terms used? Result is somewhat the same, a rise in temperature in whatever is receiving the radiation, regardless of what spectrum it is in.
Facts are so boring...

The whole point and claim of IR is the way IR works. Among other things, it will heat the outside of your skin and heat conducts to the inner tissue. a microwave would generate the heat deeper in the tissue. If you but a chicken in an oven, it heats at the outside first (and you get a burnt crust). if you put it in a microwave, it will heat more evenly and you don't have the dominant heating of the outside (and no crunchy crust). Big difference.

You also could use UV, X-ray, gamma-rays, and so on to heat a body. Trust me, they all will have very different effects on your body even if the amount of temperature rise is the same.
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Old 07-06-20, 01:08 PM
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Originally Posted by HerrKaLeun
If you but a chicken in an oven, it heats at the outside first (and you get a burnt crust). if you put it in a microwave, it will heat more evenly and you don't have the dominant heating of the outside (and no crunchy crust).
Well if you don't know how to control the thermodynamics of your heat source I guess your chicken will be burnt on the outside or dry in the inside. One should learn how to control such things if they want their food cooked properly.
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Old 07-06-20, 04:14 PM
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You'll have to compare watt-hours, but my guess is that an IR sauna will use less electricity than an conventional dry sauna. That's a definite maybe. You won't have to preheat an IR sauna.

As far as special benefits go, here's a link on those: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...-sweat/528813/

The author in the above piece chose to be wrapped in a towel, which seems totally weird to me. 45' is in the death zone for a conventional 100°C dry sauna.
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Old 07-06-20, 05:30 PM
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Originally Posted by Clyde1820
Lots of animals do hot-water dips. No way to know whether it aids in recovery of muscle abuse or anything else, beyond the feel-good aspect we know to occur.
.
Lots of animals? I can think of one species of monkey in Sapporo that gets in hot springs in the winter time (so, to heat up)... where are these other animals and where is all the hot water coming from?
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Old 07-06-20, 10:00 PM
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Originally Posted by rubiksoval
Lots of animals? I can think of one species of monkey in Sapporo that gets in hot springs in the winter time (so, to heat up)... where are these other animals and where is all the hot water coming from?
Hot water springs exist around the world. Comes from the same place all the other hot springs folks have seen. Lots of photos and films exist of a variety of animals enjoying time in such.
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Old 07-06-20, 10:46 PM
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Originally Posted by lyf
FoundMyFitness
A very useful site. Especially her interview with Dr. Panda on TRE (time-restricted eating) and Dr. Walker on sleep.
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