How to make full use of steam room & sauna room in fitness centre?

Question

What is the correct procedure "to sweat"?

Answer 1

You should understand what the benifits of sweating and heating the body are before you begin. First of all, you are not doing this to burn fat! While you do raise your body's metabolism somewhat because of the heat, you really do not "melt" fat off your body by sweating. What you are losing is almost all water weight. The benefits are that your body will eliminate some toxins from your body by sweating.

Secondly, you will strengthen your immune system by heating the body. Just as when your body is fighting an infection your immune system will react by giving you a fever, the reverse is also true to a degree. When your body is overly warm for an extended period your immune system will also react. So, in effect, you are excercising your immune system by doing this.

Weigh yourself first thing in the morning so that you know your base non-hydrated weight. Because the weight you lose is going to primarily be water weight it is important that before hand you drink lots of water and get fully hydrated. You will know that you are have reached this level when you have to urinate and it comes out clear instead of yellow. If you are going to schedule your sweat in the afternoon start drinking extra water early in the morning. Take a good shower first thing in the morning just so you start out clean beforehand. (No one likes to have a person with strong B.O. in the sauna with them.) Drink extra water throughout the day. And drink at least 8 ounces every half hour in the 3 hours before you are going to start sweating. I generally schedule my sweat session after work, late in the afternoon for a 3 or 4 hour time period.

Just before you start your sweat session, use a dry Loufa pad to scrape over your skin. This will help remove dead skin cells and will help open up your pores. Scrape against the direction your hair grows. Generally this means always scrape towards your heart.

Drink some more water and weigh yourself at this fully hydrated level in your swimsuit or whatever it is that you are going to wear while sweating. This will establish a base weight for you to compare against as your sweat time progresses. This weight should be at least a couple of pounds higher than the base non-hydrated weight from the morning. For me, I like to have about 5 pounds of extra water in me before I start. But I weight 250, if you only weigh 100 then the amount of hydration gain you have will be much less.

Personally I recommend doing a Niacin purge while sweating. Get a bottle of 100 mg capsules of Niacin (not "no-flush" Niacinamide), this is fairly cheap - under $10. This is Vitamin B3. Take 1 capsule every 20 minutes starting about 40 minutes before you are going to start sweating. This should cause your skin to flush (turn red) and will make you feel somewhat itchy. Each person is different as to how much needs to be taken in order to start the flushing. Don't try to take 2 or 3 before hand or you are likely to be miserable. You want just enough to start the tingling feeling in the skin and possibly develop some red patches. Some people will get this with the first 100 mg dose, others will not have it untill the 2nd or 3rd dose. That is why I advise spacing the initial loading dose at 20 minute intervals before hand - you can then moderate how often you take the Niacin to keep the flushing constant without turning too red. Don't worry about this "rash" feeling, it will pass - it is caused by toxins in your body being flushed out through your skin. (And that is why you are sweating in the first place.)

As you sweat, take a break every 20 minutes and shower and scrub your skin down with a loufa pad to wash away the toxins that you have been flushing out. Then weigh yourself again and drink sufficent water to bring your weight back up to the fully hydrated weight that you started at. Take another niacin capsule and repeat the cycle.

The choice of steam room or sauna makes only a little difference. It somewhat depends upon how your lungs are feeling. If your lungs are feeling congested, then the steam room is a great choice. If the fitness center allows it, using eucalyptus oil is a great addition to the steam for cleaning your lungs out.

You will dehydrate somewhat faster in the dry sauna than you will in the steam room. In either case you should monitor how you are feeling and if you start to get dizzy from the heat then it is time to take a break and hit the shower to cool down again and check your hydration level by making sure you haven't lost too many pounds.

Towards the end of your sweat, you can allow yourself to sweat your weight down to the weight you started the day at. If you don't do this you might be running to the bathroom all night long getting rid of the extra water. For your last shower scrub yourself down with soap and the loufa pad in hot water to wash away any remaining impurities on your skin. Then gradually cool the water down until in the end you are under cold water. This will close your pores back down. You should feel relaxed and yet revitalized when you are finished. And you will probably be ready to go to bed for the night. Go to bed early because your body will desire extra rest.

As always, be cautious when practicing this, check with your doctor, beware of pre-existing heart conditions or other heath factors that could be a problem; the author is not responsible for any adverse health impacts caused by following the above course of action. This system works for me, but your results may vary.

Answer 2

um i think they are just for relaxation and the heat opens up the pores along with sweating releasing toxins in the body (maybe also causing weight loss?)