Bathhouse 101 Bathhouses are not a part of American sports culture, but they should be. Going to the bathhouse has been a crucial part of my athletic development. Each visit drains me of water, electrolytes, and energy, but the following morning I’m feel refreshed, ready to work, and ready to recover. It’s like a reset switch.
A bathhouse is a facility with saunas, Jacuzzis, steam rooms, cold pools, and showers. Nearly all Eastern-European weightlifters (and athletes from most sports) are instructed to visit the bathhouse on a weekly basis. It’s just as important for their progress as the actual training process. Skipping the bathhouse isn’t an option, and a good coach will make sure that all of his/her athletes are just as dedicated to frequenting a bathhouse as they are to any other part of their training. In the US, few athletes visit a sauna regularly. And fewer go to proper bathhouses for the full bathhouse experience on which many professional weightlifters rely.
The following is a typical training schedule for professional Eastern-European weightlifters:
Notice how a typical professional weightlifter is scheduled to visit the bathhouse three times per week (plus a massage twice a week – more on that below). There are very few sources of legitimate scientific information that I could find online about the benefits of saunas, so I asked Dr. Kevin O’Fallon, the “muscle doctor” and Research Physiologist at US Army/Natick Labs in MA, and Professor and Russian National Powerlifting Coach Boris Sheiko to help me gather scientific literature on the topic. All of the studies/articles we used are linked here. Here are some of the most relevant facts from these studies on the benefits of using a sauna:
Performance improvement: Athletes are able to perform better following a visit to the sauna. Studies have shown this when testing counter movement jumps, wrist strength, and grip strength. Studies have also shown significant increases in levels of HGH and endurance. (Sources: 1, 6, 8, 12, 13, 20, 21, 22) Skin: capillaries are forced to work and get good ‘exercise’ by contracting and dilating, pores open up and get cleaned out (in dry heat), dead skin cells get removed (especially with a “venik” or scrub). (Sources: 12, 13, 15) Blood: Blood throughout the entire body, including stagnated blood, is forced to move and systolic pressure increases while diastolic pressure
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decreases. Lipid content, cholesterol, and free radical amounts get reduced. (Sources: 2, 3, 17) Stress and happiness: using a sauna results in an increase in dopamine and serotonin levels, because of which participants saw relief in stress and muscle tension. (Sources: 13) General health and longevity: increased frequency of sauna bathing is associated with a reduced risk of sudden cardiac death, fatal coronary heart disease, fatal cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality. (Sources: 23)
The general consensus in the Soviet sports community is that athletes recover faster when they visit the sauna often. The sauna increases blood flow within muscles and removes unwanted materials from the blood. After the sauna, the increased blood flow will continue, allowing more nutrients into the muscles that are required for muscle recovery. For more information about online weightlifting team you can also visit at our website today.
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