Benefits of Soaking In a Hot Tub Before or After Exercise
Like a soothing regeneration, a hot tub can help to bring your body from stiff and overloaded to limber and rejuvenated. Heat therapy helps increase your blood flow, stimulates healing, and relaxes the muscles. In fact, you can benefit from soaking in the hot tub before and after exercise.
Studies have shown that both heat and cold therapy can help promote healing and prevent any muscle damage following exercise. Your home hot tub offers the most immersive therapeutic opportunity available, especially now that you have the option to set your tub as a hot or revolutionary cold tub. Staying in touch with your body’s cycles of stress and recovery through exercise, hot tub soaks can help improve your workouts and your progress toward a healthier body.
More good news for hot tub users according to a recent article published in The New York Times, “muscles can recover best after exercise if they are warmed than if they are chilled.”
Hot Tub Therapy Before and After Workouts
Your hot tub is already a part of your relaxing lifestyle, but how does it combine with your exercise routine? Follow these guidelines carefully and use your best judgment to create new techniques that will help support your exercise and recovery. It is always a good idea to consult with your physician when creating a health and workout routine that works best for your body and needs.
- Before you exercise, soak in the hot tub 10-20 minutes
This helps get your blood flowing and loosen up muscles. Then, spend at least 10 minutes stretching out those warm muscles before starting your workout. (You can even do gentle stretches while in the hot tub.)
- After exercise, let your muscles and heart rate cool down
Try a gentle walk or stretches. Then, take advantage of a calming hot tub soak to help your mind and body relax and help stimulate the healing and recovery process.
A New Innovative Option for Active Adults and Athletes: Cold Water Therapy
- Adjust your water as low as 60°
- Soothe your body after an intense workout
- Ease your heart rate back to normal and cool down stressed muscles
This chart of Dos and Don’ts can help guide you toward using your hot tub to best enhance your exercise.
| Do | Don’t |
| Keep track of your exercise routine and allow your body to rest and recover between high-intensity workouts. Taking advantage of healing methods such as heat and cold therapy can help support your recovery. | Push your body too hard and disregard your limits. |
| Hydrate before and often, whether you’re incorporating the hot tub into your routine or not. Plan to drink even more water if you will be in the hot tub. | Underestimate the importance of staying hydrated to support your body’s process of sweating during exercise and heat of the hot tub. |
| Help your muscles loosen up to prevent injury with a short hot tub soak (10–20 minutes) and stretching before your workout. | Jump right into your workout when your muscles may still be cool and stiff. Neglecting to stretch before working out puts you at risk for injuries. |
| Plan to soak in your hot tub after your heart rate returns to normal and your muscles have cooled down. This heat therapy will help promote deeper relaxation and stretching for your muscles, offer a hot tub jet massage, and help prepare you for the next phase of your fitness path. | Lose out on your hot tub’s wonderful benefits. |
Embracing Hot Tub Therapy for Sports and Sore Muscles
Your hot tub can support your body before and after workouts if you follow these simple guidelines. Remember one of the most important tips is to be aware and act on your body’s cues. If, for example, your body is feeling sore and inflamed right after a hard workout, give it a bit of time to cool down before entering your soothing hot tub soak. In some cases, it may be best to wait a day or two if an intense workout leaves your muscles significantly sore. But in the days following that intense workout, your hot tub can be just the thing to help relax you and soothe your muscles when they are tight and sore.
You are your body’s own best supporter. Consider that the time in between workouts is just as valuable to your body as the workouts themselves. When you push your body to intentionally stress muscles through exercise, you can’t avoid the essential duration of healing and regeneration—that is what helps to result in stronger muscles and an overall healthier body! A hot tub can be one of your best aides in the journey for personal fitness when you leverage it with awareness and intention.
We know that your hot tub can be much more than just a relaxing, soothing place to soak, and we are committed to sharing with you about how you can take your home spa experience to a whole new level.
