Sauna Session Benefits for Athletes & Non-Athletes: White Blood Cells & Cortisol Levels Improved
The short answer
One Finnish sauna session is enough to measurably shift your white blood cell profile and cortisol, and trained athletes respond differently than untrained people do. That is the finding Jerred and Joe work through in this episode: the sauna is not just a nice way to end a session, it produces a real physiological response. The practical question is how to use that rather than whether it is happening.
Episode 174 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
Sauna Session Benefits for Athletes & Non-Athletes: White Blood Cells & Cortisol Levels Improved
This week Jerred and Joe are back at it! They dive into a study that looks at the benefits of a sauna session for both athletes and non-athletes. The guys give their overall takeaways of the study and how you can best put that into practice! Next, the guys go over this week's Meet Yourself Saturday workout. It's called Fat & Sugar and is great for heart rate zone practice. Burpees seem inevitable on this one so just consider yourself fitter afterwards! Lastly, the guys give us an update on their lives and what their plans are for 2023. There are lots of changes happening coming up for the Garage Gym Athletes as well so stay tuned for more information!
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IN THIS 42-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
- Sauna Session Benefits
- Life Updates
- Fat & Sugar
- Athletes vs. Non-Athletes
- Cortisol Levels
- Tips For MYS
- Updates and Announcements
- And A LOT MORE!!
Diving Deeper…
If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here are some links for you:
Study of the Week
Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week
Be sure to listen to this week’s episode:
What the research says
The featured study is Effect of a Single Finnish Sauna Session on White Blood Cell Profile and Cortisol Levels in Athletes and Non-Athletes. Two design choices make it useful. First, it is a single session, so it isolates the acute response rather than the accumulated effect of a sauna habit. Second, it splits athletes from non-athletes, which is where most of the insight sits.
That split matters because it means your training history changes the dose you are actually getting. A sauna session that is a mild stimulus for a well-trained athlete can be a meaningful stressor for someone who is not, and the reverse logic applies when a trained athlete is already deep into a hard block. Cortisol showing up in the results is the reminder: heat exposure is stress, and stress is cumulative regardless of how relaxing it feels.
None of that argues against the sauna. It argues for treating it like any other training input. Put it where it helps, keep the sessions sane, and pay attention to how it stacks with the rest of your week rather than assuming it is free recovery.
Want recovery built into your programming instead of bolted on? Become a Garage Gym Athlete.
Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!
To becoming better!
Jerred
Frequently asked questions
What does a sauna session do to your body?
This study measured two things after one Finnish sauna session: changes in white blood cell profile, which reflects an immune response to heat stress, and changes in cortisol, which reflects the stress load itself.
Do athletes respond to the sauna differently than non-athletes?
That is exactly what the study set out to test by comparing the two groups. The practical implication is that your training status changes how much of a stressor a given sauna session is for you.
Does the sauna raise or lower cortisol?
Cortisol is one of the markers this study tracked, and the broader point for athletes is that a sauna session is a stressor your body has to recover from, not a neutral add-on to a hard training day.
When should I use the sauna?
Treat it as a dosed tool rather than something you pile on top of an already heavy week. If you are deep into a demanding block, be deliberate about placing heat exposure where it supports recovery instead of competing with it.
Train like an athlete. For life.
Programming built this way: hard when it counts, sustainable the rest of the time.
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