 The question is from Beardfit91. I know you guys previously said that jumping in the sauna right after a workout isn't the best thing, but if time is limited, isn't it better to do it before or after a workout than not at all? Oh, I didn't even know you picked this question. Okay, so there's a little bit of controversy around sauna use post-workout. Yeah, I wouldn't jump in the sauna just so you know. Yeah, thanks, Dad, Joe. So sit down, relax. So here's the deal. There are studies that show, and these are pretty good studies when it comes to endurance athletes, that they took a bunch of cyclists, there were a couple of these, and they had the cyclists train really hard, and they took half of them, and they had them also use a sauna post-workout. And what they found was the cyclists that used the sauna post-workout had far greater improvements in endurance adaptations and performance. So when I hear a study like that, right away, I think, okay, well, performance athletes and people that are trying to build muscle and burn calories or burn fat or fall in a different category than a bunch of cyclists who are trying to recover and come back to their sport. It could be, right? Because it's the same type of study that we would see with professional athletes that ice afterwards, right? There's lots of benefits to, and you see this in the NBA all the time. LeBron James goes out in the fourth quarter, they're basically already won. He's already got ice packs wrapped around his knees to bring down inflammation. He has to turn around and do like the next day. Right, exactly. And so then it makes sense because I care more performance. But if I'm an athlete who is actually trying to build muscle, there's a lot of benefits to the inflammation and allowing the body to go its natural course and repair itself, right? It could be, but I think that that is splitting hairs. I think that, oh, we don't wanna reduce the inflammation from the sauna post-workout because that'll reduce the muscle building signal. I think that's splitting hairs. And there are some studies that suggest that you may actually get stronger and build a little bit more muscle by using a sauna anyway. So the whole thing is about, should I use it post-workout? Now here's a deal. For me personally, I notice benefit to using a sauna post-workout. I really do. If I lift and then I go into the sauna, I seem to improve faster in my lifts and feel better. Now it could be because I tend to push my body towards it's kind of its limit. Do you also think that it has something to do with that you're using our infrared sauna versus a regular traditional sauna? Regular traditional sauna just takes much longer to heat up the body, to get that core temperature up. Because infrareds don't need to be as hot because they raise the core temperature up. There are supposed to be benefits for infrared versus traditional sauna. Again, splitting hairs, they're both awesome. They both, because their traditional sauna is hotter. It doesn't have the infrared that heats you up internally, but it's hotter overall. You're still getting the mitochondria benefits that you get in the infrared? Oh yeah, you're getting all the same benefits. Oh really, I didn't know that. Absolutely. I thought that was the main benefit of the infrared opposed to a regular sauna. Immune boosting benefit is one of my favorites. So you know how the body, when you start to get an infection, what happens? Your body gives you a fever because the fever, the heating up of the body reduces the virus or bacteria's ability to replicate. It's also stimulates some of the white blood cells and stuff that are coming out to fight these infections. So a fever is part of the infection fighting process. Well, a sauna simulates that. So if you feel like you're getting sick, like, oh, I think I might be getting a cold or I might be getting, now I don't recommend going into sauna when you're full on already sick. But if you feel like you're getting sick, sauna use theoretically should help. And studies show that. Studies show that people who use saunas regularly have less infections and less illness as well. It's actually, there was a huge study, a Finnish study that I think there were like 5,000 or 10,000 people in the study. They found that regular sauna use reduced all-cause mortality significantly. I noticed just when we started doing this, what almost four years ago, when we started talking about hot cold therapy, this was back when we were talking, this was way back in early episodes, like 200 something when we were talking about the benefits of like cryotherapy and sauna. And I started to implement that for the first time in my life. So all of my training career, yes, I've used a cold plunge, yes, I've done cryo, yes, I've done sauna, but I've never like done it and treated it like a different system of the body and tried to train it. And for the first time in my life, a few years back when we talked about this, I actually, okay, I'm going to cold plunge and I'm going to train in the sauna at least three times a week every week. And that was, I've never gone that long and not been sick ever in my life. I like, I've always, I've always had a very weak immune system. In fact, I'm very sensitive to getting sick. And somebody I used to say, anytime someone around me is sick, I'm guaranteed one of the people that's going to get it. Where since I started doing that, I've been more resilient to colds than I have my entire life. Yeah, I look at it too. Like I felt, I started to use it post-workout and have felt like better acclimated when I do start to heat up. So I've been playing basketball every now and then still trying to keep that up. And I do a fair bit of cardio, not that much cardio, like mainly just movement. And I'm trying to make sure like I'm, you know, everything is in check with my joints, but like using the sauna after I'll work out, I get those, that same sort of a feeling afterwards where it's just like my whole body gets even that much more exaggerated in terms of like heating it all the way through. And that has kind of had some carry over into energy when I am playing. You don't overheat as easily. Right. Yeah, so now I have also messed around with doing the sauna before a workout. Have you guys tried that yet? No. So sauna before the workout is interesting. I wouldn't think I'd like it. Oh no, no, no. If you want to just get a good, if you want a muscle, if you want to connect to muscle, get a pump, have really good mobility. So you're going to go, let's say you're going to go to the gym and you're going to go, you're going to go lighter and you want to go full range of motion and get a really good pump. The pumps you get are fast, like real fast because you're so warmed up, you know, towel off or whatever, let your body cool down a little bit. Then go into the gym, go do some full range. First of all, you'll notice the range of motion is instantly better just because you did the sauna heated you up. But the pumps you get are just insane. Now I don't know if that's going to lead to, I guess indirectly it could lead to better muscle gain, right? If you're because you're getting a better pump because the blood flow is already improved or whatever. But at the end of the day, you know what? The time that you do your sauna doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that you're doing it anyway to begin with. So if you're like, hey, I can't do it post workout or I have to do a post workout or I have to, the only time I would say you probably don't want to do too much sauna is right before bed. I think that will probably disrupt your sleep if you get your core temperature up too high and then go straight to bed. Other than that, I don't, it doesn't really matter. Don't worry too much about the time. If you can pick the time, then I would say do it post workout if you're gonna have a really hard workout and you think it may benefit you to have a little faster recovery. Otherwise, who cares? Do it any time of the day. The best I've ever felt is cryo or cold plunge before a workout, a workout then sauna. Oh, so you go boom, boom. That's been my comment. Dude, go hop in a cryo or do a cold plunge. Freezing shower, I've got it. And then, yeah, or a freezing shower and then get into your workout and man, I feel, the adrenaline rush that you get from that gets me into my workout more. I feel so alert and I feel connected for those reasons. It's like hyper focused. And then afterwards sitting in the sauna for me, that's the perfect format. But again, I think it's a great point and we talk about this on the show all the time that these are those things that sometimes annoy me about the fitness community is, we'll argue and debate over all these studies of, oh, this is better. Before the workout, after the workout, 22 minutes. No, 25 minutes. Yeah. Everybody relax. Right, exactly. It's the creatine argument. It's any of these. How is your body specifically responding? Yeah, it's the anabolic window bullshit stuff. It's like, if you're doing it, you're doing it. That's what matters.