recovery for runners, hyrox and padel players — what heat and cold actually do

Training in Bangkok is its own event. You're not just running the ten kilometres; you're running them at thirty-two degrees with humidity that makes the last three feel like six. Recovery isn't a luxury layer on top of that. It's the thing deciding whether Thursday's session is any good.

Heat and cold both help. But they help with different things, at different times, and there's one situation where a cold plunge will actively work against what you're training for. That last part rarely makes it into wellness marketing, so let's start there.

the honest version of the evidence

Cold water immersion reliably reduces how sore you feel. This is the best-supported effect - across a lot of studies, people who get into cold water after hard training report less muscle soreness over the following days, and tend to perceive themselves as more recovered. If you're playing padel again tomorrow, or you're mid-way through a HYROX block with sessions stacked close together, that's genuinely valuable. Feeling recovered lets you train.

The picture is less flattering for strength adaptation. There's reasonable evidence that regular cold water immersion immediately after resistance training can blunt some of the muscle-building signalling that the training was meant to provoke. The inflammation you're chilling away is, in that context, partly the point. This is still an area of active research and the effect isn't enormous - but if your goal this block is getting stronger or bigger, plunging straight after your lifting session is working against you.

Heat is the quieter, less fashionable one, and probably underrated. Sauna use increases blood flow to muscle, and regular heat exposure produces genuine cardiovascular adaptations - plasma volume expansion, improved thermoregulation - which matter a great deal if you race in this climate. Heat acclimation is one of the few things that reliably makes hot-weather endurance performance better.

We'd rather tell you this plainly than sell you a plunge you shouldn't be taking.

so when should you use what

After endurance work - running, cycling, a long padel session, a metcon: contrast is a good fit. Sauna, plunge, repeat. You'll feel better tomorrow, and there's no adaptation you're compromising.

After heavy lifting, if strength or size is the goal: use the sauna, skip the plunge, or leave at least four to six hours between the session and the cold. Heat alone is fine here and may even help.

In a competition block or a tournament weekend, when the priority is being ready again tomorrow rather than adapting: plunge freely. Short-term readiness is exactly what cold is best at.

On a rest day: this is the most underrated slot. No training to interfere with, nothing to blunt, and the sleep afterwards is usually the best of the week.

a session that actually works

Nothing here is complicated, and there's no correct protocol - but if you'd like a starting point:

1. Sauna, 15-20 minutes. Ours run at 75-80°C, which sounds mild next to a traditional sauna but is doing the work differently - infrared heats you rather than the air. Go until you're properly sweating, not until you're suffering.
2. Shower. Always, before the water.
3. Plunge, 1-3 minutes at 7°C. Get in slowly. Breathe out longer than you breathe in. The first fifteen seconds are the whole difficulty.
4. Repeat two or three times if you've booked 90 minutes. Finish on heat if you want to sleep; finish on cold if you've got the rest of the day ahead of you.
5. Drink more than you think. You've lost fluid and electrolytes on top of whatever training cost you.

Three or four sessions a week is where most of our regulars land. Daily is fine if you're hydrating properly.

the practical bit

We're inside the Sterling Sports & Wellness Centre on Sukhumvit Soi 24 - so for a lot of people this is a lift ride from where they just trained rather than a separate trip across town. Sessions are 60 or 90 minutes, and the suite is entirely private: sauna, 7°C plunge, hot rain shower, changing room. No queue for the barrel, no sharing the bench, no waiting for someone else to finish their round.

If you're bringing a training partner, that's THB 400 each - up to two extra on a 60-minute session, three on a 90.

For anyone recovering two or three times a week, single sessions stop making sense fairly quickly. The 7-pack brings it to about THB 971 a session and the 15-pack to THB 800; the monthly membership is THB 18,000 for 30 credits in 30 days, which is where most of our genuinely frequent people end up.

questions from people who train

book a session when it suits your training week. we got you.