After a hard workout, soaking in a hot bath or sitting in a steam room can be transcendent. A heating pad pressed on a particularly tight area of your lower back can help it feel looser after a long day of lifting boxes or hunching at your computer. “I go to the sauna myself,” says Dr Wen Chen, a program director at the US National Centre for Complementary and Integrative Health.
After a long day of skiing over the winter holidays, her back tends to get sore, “but after sitting in the sauna, I’m cured for a couple of days”, she says. If you have sore muscles, heat can provide instant relief. But how helpful is it for recovery? Credit: iStock But is it actually speeding up recovery, or does it just feel good? The answer, it turns out, is yes.
How heat interacts with sore muscles is still largely mysterious, but there are a few things scientists can say. For one, it does ease pain. According to the American College of Physicians, using a heat wrap reduces pain more than a placebo and potentially even more than medications such as Panadol or Nurofen.
But what are the best kinds of heat? Is a hot bath better than a heating pad? How long after exercise is it most effective? Here’s what researchers know about what happens when heat gets under your skin. Why does heat feel so good on sore muscles? When you warm up a portion of your body with, say, a heating pad, your blood vessels relax, increasing blood flow to the area. With that increased blood flow come more oxygen a.
