Infrared Sauna
Come relax and experience the upgraded benefits of an Infrared Sauna at The Recovery Room today! Heat penetrates your muscles, increasing blood circulation and assisting healing. Infrared heat will also help tight and worn-out muscles to relax. Reduce soreness, pain and fatigue, while improving performance and boosting your mood, all in one therapy!
The sauna fits up to 4 people making it perfect place to socialise with your mates. Alternatively, use your infrared session as a space to stretch, practice yoga and chill out!
The Recovery Room’s Infrared Sauna soothes your mind by enveloping your body in tranquil warmth. What’s more, a cardio workout has never been so relaxing! So, come and see what all the fuss is about and leave feeling invigorated, not depleted like after a traditional sauna.
What are the Benefits?
Fitness
Greater blood flow, regeneration and repair
Improved delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the muscle
Reduced muscle stiffness and spasms
Improved performance during exercise in the heat
Health
Improved cardiovascular and metabolic function
Help manage arthritis and chronic pain
Improved mood
Better sleep
Injury
Aid regeneration and repair
Reduce muscle stiffness
“If your body isn’t recovering from and adapting to your training then you’re just logging junk sessions that are wearing you down instead of building you up.”
How does it work?
What is Infrared?
Time for a quick physics lesson! Infrared radiation is a type of thermal radiation that lies just to the right of visible light on the electromagnetic spectrum, so we are unable to see it with our naked eyes.
Infrared is not to be confused with UV and other potentially harmful rays; infrared heat is safe.
What is the difference between a traditional sauna and an infrared sauna?
In simple terms - they use a different kind of heat. In both kinds of saunas, something is ‘jiggling’ your atoms and molecules and making you feel warm. The difference is just in how that ‘jiggling’ is instigated.
A traditional sauna uses convective heat, where hot air rises from the heating element and hits us with energetic molecules. These molecules slam into our skin, and the skin dispatches this energy to our blood and the rest of our body. As you know, this aggressive heating can make using a traditional sauna an intense experience.
The Recovery Room’s Infrared Sauna uses radiative heat, a more manageable process where photons of a particular high wavelength gently radiate from the heater and are then absorbed by our bodies.
Improve Blood Flow
When you’re in the warm, inviting environment of a sauna, the body wants to lose heat. It moves blood to the skin by opening blood vessels in the hands and feet through a process known as vasodilation.
This improves blood flow to your muscles, helping to disperse the negative metabolic by-products of exercise. In addition, it speeds in restorative molecules and proteins, as well as fuel in the form of glycogen. Increased blood flow can also reduce swelling and inflammation caused by exercise, contributing to pain relief and more rapid healing.
Reduce Muscle and Joint Stiffness
Stretching whilst in an Infrared Sauna can significantly contribute to increased muscle and joint flexibility. It aids in the repair of damaged or thickened ligaments (attaches bone to bone) and tendons (attaches muscle to bone). This is because heat increases circulation within the joints and reduces synovial fluid thickness, which reduces friction, helping you move more freely.
Reduce Muscle Spasms and Pain
Pain can be linked to a lack of blood flow when you have muscle tension or spasms. The pain you feel can be reduced by improved blood flow as a result of Infrared Sauna use. It has also been shown that heat can reduce the sensation of pain by acting directly on specific nerves. Lastly, the combination of using The Recovery Room’s Infrared Sauna with Cold Water Therapy (finishing with COLD!) can have a pain-reducing effect by increasing endorphin secretion. Think your runner’s high, without the running!
Relax and Reduce Stress
At the Recovery Room we appreciate that mental recovery is just as important as physical recovery - stress is stress no matter the source; whether it’s from work, life or training, stress taxes your body in the same way a workout does. High stress not only impacts your ability to recover, but also affects your physical responses to training and raises your risk of injury. Using an Infrared Sauna just feels good! It helps to relax your muscles and relieve tension throughout the body, allowing you to relax and de-stress. Improve your mind and your body.
Improve Performance
During exposure to the Recovery Room’s Infrared Sauna, your body temperature increases. This rise in body temperature causes physiological changes like those encountered during physical exercise. If used following exercise, repeated Infrared Sauna sessions result in beneficial adaptations for improving performance, especially in hot and humid environments.
How do I use it?
The Recovery Rooms Infrared Sauna sessions are for 30 min (or 20 min if you have a membership and are completing our Signature 60 min Recovery Session). If you’re focus is recovery, particularly from damage, and you’re using the Infrared Sauna in combination with other modes of recovery, such as Cold or Contrast Water Therapy, then ideally use the sauna first - finish COLD!
To compliment the physical recovery being taken care of by the Infrared Sauna, we recommend that you also complete some mental recovery during your session. To do this, bring in your own headphones to shut out the distractions of the modern world and meditate or listen to relaxing music for the duration of your session.
Since sauna use increases both body temperature and heart rate, we recommend that you drink water during your session as it will help your body with regulating its temperature. If you start feeling faint during your session, then remove yourself from the sauna and alert a staff member. Following your session its important replace lost body fluids as rapidly as possible, so make sure you pay a visit to the Recovery Room’s Hydration Station.
We’re happy to answer any questions you may have, but if you want more detailed guidance, then check out our Recovery Programming service.