So taking a hot bath is actually better than a cold bath when it comes to improving muscle strength, muscle size and even recovery. So most people actually think that you should be cold plunging after exercise. But the problem is when you cold plunge it or you go into these ice baths, that actually decreases muscle protein synthesis. And that will lead to decreased gains in muscle hypertrophy, or the size of the muscle, and decrease in muscle strength. So that’s really not what you want to be doing after exercise. Whereas actually a hot bath after exercise does not inhibit muscle protein synthesis. So there are advantages to actually taking a hot bath compared to a cold bath or cold plunging after exercise. In fact, for most people, you actually shouldn’t be doing an ice bath after exercise, only in certain circumstances where, let’s say you have to compete the next day and you don’t wanna be sore, or if you’re in an intense training camp and you have to again train the next day or, you know, two days later and you don’t wanna be super sore, then sometimes ice baths can have an advantage there. But even comparatively, even looking at some studies where you’re taking a hot bath versus a cold bath, actually there’s better regain of basically muscle strength and performance compared to even cold baths. So in those circumstances, it still seems that taking a hot bath would be more advantageous than taking a cold bath for those reasons.
There’s also additional benefits of taking a hot bath over a cold bath. And I’ll go into actually what some of the protocols are. But basically, you get benefits of heat acclamation. So basically, when you do exercise, it is a good idea to take a hot bath right afterwards. But even on days when you’re not exercising, if you keep going into a hot bath, and I’ll go over the protocol in a second, for multiple days or at least three days in a row. It helps you become heat act acclimated. And this heat acclamation has many benefits on performance later on. And some of that will actually reduce muscle soreness from bouts of exercise once you are heat acclimated as well. But your performance actually improves as well when you are heat acclimated. So the typical protocol is going into a hot bath somewhere around 100 to 108 degrees Fahrenheit for anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes. And ideally, you try to hit a core body temperature of somewhere between 38.5 and thirty nine point five degrees Celsius, which is essentially between like 101 and 103 degrees Fahrenheit.