Speed Up Your Regeneration and Propel Your Gains by Taking a HOT Bath Bath 2-Days Before Arduous Workouts
Image 1: Are women tougher than men, because bathe more often? If you define toughness by your muscles resistance to eccentric exercise damage, the answer could be "YES!" If you listened to Brooks, Carl and me on Super Human Radio , yesterday ( download the podcast ), you may remember me stating that 48h appears to be a good rule of thumb, as far as the rest periods between workouts for individual body parts are concerned (this assumes that you are young, healthy, reasonably conditioned and lift heavy). A recently published paper by Chad D. Touchberry does now suggest that there may be another 48h window before your workout ( Touchberry. 2012 ). One you would use a priori to improve your recovery a posteriori - preconditioning in a hot bath for 20 min at 41°C, 48h before a hard workout or competition! Eccentric treadmill running = maximum muscle damage At least in a rodent model, those 20 min of heat exposure in 41°C warm water lead to statistically highly signific...