Should I use my hot tub before or after a workout?
As you regularly exercise to improve your health and strength, your body is constantly regenerating. Workouts stress your muscles, joints, cardiovascular system, and respiratory system. However, there are methods to alleviate this stress, allowing you to relax and avoid the discouragement that can come from soreness or exhaustion. Enjoying an active lifestyle means finding a productive balance between exertion and recovery.
Soaking in your home spa is an excellent way to find that perfect balance. A 20-minute soak can motivate and energize you before a workout and help you relax and recover afterward. Integrating a soak into your exercise routine can also make reaching your goals more enjoyable. Whether you aim for a competitive edge, seek a therapeutic approach to weight loss, or strive for an overall active and healthy lifestyle, your hot tub can play a crucial role before and after your workouts.
How Do Frequent Hot Tub Soaks Enhance Your Exercise?
Hydrotherapy offers a wealth of benefits. Here are the specific advantages that relate to exercise, focusing on preparation in the hot tub before a workout and recovery afterward. Hot tub hydrotherapy provides the following benefits:
Increases Circulation
Exercise stresses your body, so you need healthy blood flow to deliver oxygen to your muscles. Warm water immersion improves circulation by dilating blood vessels and lowering blood pressure. Getting in the hot tub before you exercise can jumpstart this critical function, warming you up for your workout.
Supports Deep and Gentle Stretching
Stretching before a workout decreases your risk of injury, while stretching after helps lengthen and relax stressed muscles, promoting recovery. In your hot tub, buoyancy reduces gravitational pressure on your muscles and joints, and the warmth and pressure of the water deepen your stretches.
Watch the following video to see how to stretch your legs in the spa water. It’s one of many videos showing how to stretch your body correctly in your home spa.
Promotes Focus and Motivation
Soaking in a hot tub enhances your mind-body connection, helping you slow down, become more aware of your body, reduce anxiety, and improve concentration. Research suggests that relaxation techniques can significantly boost competitive performance by reducing stress and heightening focus. A regular soak before or after working out can help motivate you to achieve your fitness goals.
Burns Calories
You’ll be pleased to know that soaking in your hot tub counts as passive exercise. Warm water immersion speeds up calorie burn, even while at rest. A soak complements active exercise by motivating and preparing you for activity. You can start your exercises in the hot tub to warm up, or use the time in the hot tub as your workout by jogging underwater or practicing spa yoga. Buoyancy and water resistance offer a low-impact exercise option when land exercises are too intense for your joints or when you need an active recovery day.
Relieves Mental, Physical, and Emotional Stress
A soak in the hot tub before your workout helps you leave work-related and other stress behind, allowing you to focus on and get excited about your wellness routine. A 20-minute soak after your workout helps dissolve muscle and joint stress from exercise. Combined with the endorphins released during your workout, the relaxation from a hot tub soak creates a balanced life.
Eases Soreness and Promotes Recovery
Soaking in your hot tub after exercise can reduce swelling and inflammation due to the warmth and pressure of the water. Your spa jets enhance this benefit with targeted hydro-massage. Hot Tub Circuit Therapy® is a revolutionary practice designed to give you a deep massage right in your home spa, targeting muscles from neck to toe. This stress and tension relief stimulates recovery and regeneration, helping you relax and quickly prepare for your next workout.
As Mike, a Caldera® spa owner, explains in the following video, “It’s really a leg up on the competition in terms of competing in sports because I’m able to recover a lot quicker with the Caldera spa.”
When it’s hot outside or after an intense workout, you might prefer cold water therapy. The CoolZone™ system lets you set your spa water temperature as low as 60 degrees for a more versatile hydrotherapy soak.
When Should You Use the Hot Tub—Before or After a Workout?
While using your hot tub before or after a workout provides significant benefits, soaking both before and after offers even greater advantages. Your exercise plan might look like this:
- 20-minute hot tub soak, including stretches
- 20-minute run
- 5-minute hydration break
- 30-minute strength and conditioning routine
- 10-minute cooldown, stretch, and hydrate
- 20-minute soak for relaxation and jet massage
On days when you don’t have much time for exercise, you might choose a hot tub soak either before or after your workout. If you struggle with motivation, warming up, or sustaining energy late in your workout, a soak before exercise may be ideal. If you experience post-workout soreness, fatigue, or long recovery times between workouts, soaking after exercise might be the better choice.
Your home hot tub offers a personal relaxation retreat and is a tool for maintaining balance in your active lifestyle. Let your spa help you discover what works best for your exercise routines and goals.
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