Bonmaklad wrote:
So I am starting to understand the idea around zone 2 training to build up a fitness base.
I also remember reading about pros who relax in spa pools
Then rhonda patrick talking about sweden study and all risk motality with sauna.
So... i took my watch in sauna after my run. My heart rate was 120-130
Has anyone raised their fitness leveraging heat? Anyone seen any studies on vo2 max increases with sauna alone?
It's a good question and I don't know the answer, but it would probably vary depending upon the individual's fitness level. Just like any other muscle, if the heart is challenged, it will acclimate according to the relative magnitude of the stimulus. At one end of the continuum, a heart failure patient may experience quite a large stimulus from this; for a pro endurance athlete, much less. So I don't know the answer as it pertains to your fitness level, but I'll leave you with several mechanisms.
One obvious distinction between sauna Z2 and endurance Z2 is going to be cardiac output, despite identical heart rates. With exercise (running for example), you have a massive vasodilatory effect at the working muscle which decreases total peripheral resistance and allows for a massive increase of cardiac output. This increase of cardiac output occurs as a result of both the increase of HR and the decrease of total peripheral resistance; systolic blood pressure rises only slightly. On the other hand, the cardiac acclimations during sauna are probably more similar to those which you would experience during resistance training. Heart rate increases, but there are two main differences: 1) there is no muscle pump to return blood to the heart and 2) cutaneous vasodilation occurs in the place of muscle vasodilation. I don't know what the relative capacity of those two vascular compartments is, but I'm nearly certain that muscle is greater. Because of these two factors, total peripheral resistance remains high and cardiac output is not permitted to rise to the degree that it would during endurance exercise. And for this reason, systolic blood pressure rises substantially. You can read up on the differences between resistance training and endurance training acclimations at the heart if you're interested. They are substantially different and there's a lot of literature on it.
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