I just had the most “luxurious” workout ever, I think. I did a yoga DVD with Suzanne Deason called Fat Burning Yoga, which is about a 45 minute long exercise, and then afterwards, after already being sufficiently taxed physically, yet oddly relaxed at the same time, I hopped in our new far infrared sauna for some dry heat therapy to soothe my already stretched out, worked muscles.

Let’s just say I ended up taking about a 15 minute nap in the sauna, because I had already heated it to an ideal temperature for me, which happens to be about 113 degrees, and the dry heat and the wood that houses the sauna smelled so good, and so natural as I stepped into it. It’s almost like as soon as I step into the dry heat enveloping me, I immediately relax and let my stresses drift away, which is not an easy thing for my Virgo-perfectionist personality and type, believe me.

I guess that infrared saunas are good for after workouts of any sort where there is muscle work, because they help prevent too much lactic acid from pooling around the muscles, which is what causes muscle soreness after you’ve done a hardcore workout or anything that your body is not used to doing on a daily basis.

Because with yoga and other forms of muscle stretching and burning like tai chi and pilates, where you are not physically doing intense cardio, and yet your muscles are doing so much work that you are burning calories anyways, it’s easy to keep pushing the boundaries, because you can get deeper and deeper into the poses as you go, and sometimes you go further than you realize and you feel it the next day.

Since we’ve had the sauna (see the infrared sauna reviews) though, as long as I use it after my workouts, no matter what type of workout it is, I rarely experience serious muscle soreness to where it hurts if I move a certain way. It has also helped my back and neck problems immensely, and I don’t need to see a massage therapist as often, which is good because it saves me money and time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 7:12 pm and is filed under Workout Regimens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.