Both hot and cold therapies have their place in an effective training and recovery routine. Today, I’m going to explain how you can integrate them into your fitness and health regimens.
When I say hot therapy, I’m talking about saunas (both Finnish and infrared), steam rooms, jacuzzis, and simply training in the summer heat. Anything that exposes you to high temperatures counts.
When I say cold therapy, I’m talking about ice baths, cold plunges, swimming in the Pacific ocean or an alpine lake, taking cold showers, or even just going outside in a t-shirt and shorts when it’s freezing out. If it makes you cold, it counts.
When and Why to Use Hot Therapy
Pre-Workout: Heat therapy can be highly beneficial before a workout. It helps prepare tissues, promoting fluid movement and joint mobility.
Post-Workout: By using the sauna after a training session, you can increase aerobic capacity, the amount of oxygen your body can process, plasma and red cell volume, and time to exhaustion.
Detox: Although I hate the word “detox,” sweating in a sauna (or steam room, or out in the Miami sun on your fat tire bike) can help you shed excess toxins from your body.
Oxidative Stress: Regular sauna usage lowers C-reactive protein levels and other markers of inflammation and oxidative stress.
Heart Health: Long-term sauna usage is linked to a lower risk of heart disease, heart disease mortality, and death from any cause.
Heat Tolerance: Intense physical activity often leads to overheating. Using a sauna effectively trains the body to operate at higher heat levels.
When and Why to Use Cold Therapy
During Competition: Cold therapy is excellent for promoting recovery in the heat of competition, reducing pain and inflammation so you can perform at your best for the next round or event.
While Training: Cold water or ice packs on the palms and wrist for two to three minutes in between sets can help you eke a few more reps out of your sessions or run farther/faster. Temperatures between 51-60°F work best.
But NOT Post-Strength Training: Immediately after strength training, cold therapy can interfere with muscle growth by blunting the necessary inflammation response. Wait at least six hours after your session.
For Immunity: Research shows that regular cold water swimmers and cold shower takers get sick far less often than people who avoid the cold.
Expending Energy: Cold exposure forces your body to burn more energy to maintain its temperature, though the effect is offset somewhat by rebound hunger.
Better Sleep: It’s natural for body temperature to drop at night to prepare for sleep. One study found that athletes who took a cold bath in the evenings reported better sleep quality than those who did not take the bath.
Seasonal Considerations
Don’t forget to use cold exposure in the winter and hot therapy in the summer. While it’s natural and beneficial to seek out the sauna when it’s cold and a cold plunge when it’s hot, training your body to tolerate both extremes—cold in the winter and heat in the summer—can have significant benefits.
Best Practices
When used together, heat and cold therapies can provide a powerful combination that supports overall health and performance. They aren't without risks, however. Always follow these basic safety guidelines:
For heat
- Stay hydrated.
- Work your way up.
- Dizziness or lightheadedness, extreme fatigue, confusion, and weakness are signs that you’ve spent too much time in the heat. Get out.
- Keep it to 3-4 times a week.
For cold
- Swimming in cold water is plenty. Swimming in a cold lake, river, or ocean is in many ways preferable to a tub. Even a cold shower works.
- Get out before you start shivering, at least for beginners.
- Never do breath holds underwater in the cold.
