Benefits of Heat Therapy: Three-for-One Recovery Modality

With warmth waves blanketing the nation (once more), a tall, frosty smoothie and post-workout ice bathtub in all probability sound interesting. However you may truly profit extra from a special—very completely different—restoration methodology, one which packs a three-for-one punch.

Scorching water immersion—not chilly—might enhance restoration following exercise-induced muscle harm, in response to a July 2024 study¹ printed within the journal Drugs & Science in Sports activities & Train. This joins a rising physique of proof that the advantages of warmth remedy embody higher restoration, efficiency, and acclimation to rising temps.

Scorching water for restoration

Within the research, 30 bodily energetic males immersed themselves in chilly water (51°F) or sizzling water (105.8°F). Scorching water immersion considerably improved the late-phase price of drive improvement, a measurement of explosive energy, and decreased muscle soreness. Chilly water immersion was much less efficient in restoring explosive energy and managing soreness.

While you submerge your physique in sizzling water, “the physique will activate mechanisms to chill itself, together with rising blood move to the pores and skin floor to launch warmth,” explains Micah Zuhl, PhD, a professor on the College of Well being Sciences at Central Michigan College. “To do that, the physique dilates vessels to the pores and skin and sure will increase coronary heart price to assist pump blood via these dilated vessels.”

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That warmth stress will increase your blood plasma quantity, explains Kevin Vincent, PhD, MD, head of the Sports activities Efficiency Heart on the College of Florida and UF Well being. “While you develop blood plasma quantity, you get higher supply of oxygen and vitamins to your muscle groups and take away extra lactic acid and different waste from these muscle groups.”

Warmth additionally kick-starts the manufacturing of warmth shock proteins, which assist take away free radicals—or unstable molecules—that may trigger mobile harm. “Repetitive warmth publicity will increase heat-shock protein ranges, and better ranges imply extra safety towards warmth and different stressors, resembling exhaustive train and the oxidative stress that always accompanies cardio train,” explains Dr. Zuhl. Each of these diversifications might make it easier to get well quicker.

On the identical time, sizzling water “raises your physique temperature, will increase blood move, and makes your tissues extra elastic so you may get all of your motor unity pliable and able to generate extra drive,” provides Dr. Vincent.

“Warmth makes your muscle groups really feel higher and extra relaxed, so the ache decreases.”—Kevin Vincent, PhD, MD

There’s additionally a mind-body element to warmth. “While you’re sore, you have got decrease drive manufacturing,” says Dr. Vincent. “It’s not that your muscle fibers are so torn that they will’t produce drive, it’s that the muscle is indignant and sending a message to your mind that claims ‘I’m damage,’ which shuts off muscle exercise to guard that physique half. Warmth makes your muscle groups really feel higher and extra relaxed, so the ache decreases—it’s shutting that ache sign down and breaking that neurogenic inhibition.”

Warmth for efficiency

Warmth, analysis reveals, could be a highly effective restoration software and a approach to improve your efficiency—and it feels higher than shivering via an ice bathtub. When folks adopted their exercise with half-hour in water heated to 104°F, sizzling water immersion not solely enhanced vascular and blood marker responses, it was extra pleasant than train alone, a study² printed in March 2024 within the Scandinavian Journal of Drugs & Science in Sports activities decided.

You don’t even want water. Put up-exercise sauna bathing on common improved VO2 max—a measure of how effectively your physique can ship oxygen to your muscle groups as you run—by round 8 p.c, operating pace by round 4 p.c, and time to exhaustion by round 12 p.c, in response to a 2020 study³ printed within the European Journal of Utilized Physiology.

Translation: “On the finish of a three-week interval, folks’s cardio endurance and output was higher due to that post-exercise sauna,” explains Dr. Vincent.

Warmth acclimation in a warming world

One other profit of warmth remedy? It may be particularly helpful in making ready for extra excessive situations. Summer season climate might final half a 12 months by the tip of this century, a 2021 warning in Geophysical Analysis Letters declared—within the final week of June alone this 12 months, 1,400 warmth information had been damaged throughout 5 continents, in response to the Washington Post. And 75 p.c of athletes throughout the globe who report their actions on Strava stated excessive warmth has affected their train plans, in response to the health monitoring app’s 2023 Yr in Sports activities trend report.

“It shouldn’t be underestimated how a lot warmth coaching helps,” says Dr. Vincent. “To get your self acclimated to warmth, it’s essential expose your self to a sizzling atmosphere.” The 2020 sauna research additionally declared post-exercise sauna bathing to be a substitute for energetic warmth acclimation.

Warmth acclimation goes to be important for train transferring ahead.“To get your physique prepared for what it may expertise is sensible,” says Dr. Vincent. “Whether or not you’re bettering your efficiency or not, you’re additionally decreasing the danger of experiencing warmth sickness—which could be catastrophic.”

The way to use warmth neatly

However warmth is a stressor, identical to train is a stressor, so it must be deployed strategically as a coaching software. You don’t wish to use it after a high-intensity exercise, when your core temperature is already considerably elevated. As an alternative, reserve it for instantly after moderate-intensity exercises—once you’re heat, however not overheated, says Dr. Zuhl. 3 times per week is sufficient to convey out these optimistic diversifications.

Subsequent time you’re seeking to increase your restoration, don’t look any additional than your individual rest room. A superb post-workout soak won’t solely make it easier to get again in your A-game quicker, it could possibly improve your health and make it easier to higher deal with the situations outdoors.