Should I Shower with Hot or Cold Water After a Workout

Picture this: You just ended your 30-minutes workout, and you are feeling inspired, refreshed and almighty. It might feel intuitive to hit the showers to wash away the post-workout grime, and a cold shower on a hot day after a big run or an intensive workout can feel incredibly pleasant. But should you be getting under the cold water, or get yourself under a hot shower instead?

Like flossing your teeth and brushing your hair, you probably treat the shower after your sweat sesh as just another necessary step in readying yourself for the day and has likely have not put more thoughts on it.

Let’s change that, shall we? Here is how your shower routine should be:

Start off with cold

From boosting the immune system and exercising up your willpower to contributing to a more youthful skin, cold showers are often extolled and celebrated extensively. For all its praises, there’s one benefit you shouldn’t miss out on knowing: cold showers are excellent for relieving potential muscle aches. Muscle soreness is the bane of the amateur athlete’s existence; it essentially means that you will ache like there is no tomorrow two days after a heavy gym session.

We are not going to lie: it is going to be uncomfortable taking a cold plunge. But, you will love it when you get used to it. Exposing your post-workout muscles with cold water, or taking an ice bath, reduces pain-giving inflammation in muscles, joints, and tendons that those exercises might leave you with. The idea is that the cold helps constriction in arteries and decreases blood flow. This will then help to reduce inflammation, as well as stiffen the muscles and joints, saving you from the pain that might come after.

Then, switch to hot

Once you have rinsed yourself with the cold water, it is time for a supremely comfy hot shower. Not only will this alternating blasts of cold and hot give you a burst of vitality and energy, it will also improve the muscle and joint recovery process. This will then help to flush out built-up inflammatory cells, dead cells, scar tissues, etc. Additionally, going from cold to hot helps expand and relax your muscles by dilating your blood vessels and promoting blood flow. As soon as your blood gets moving, more oxygen and nutrients will be pumped into your muscles while removing lactic acid, which is an important step to heal your muscles.

And there you have it—a guide to showering after you sweat, regardless of your workout habits. With these tips, we hope your 15 minutes of heaven in the bathroom will prevent you from any unwanted muscle stiffness and soreness. Need a hot shower after your workout? Check out Rheem’s range of quality water heaters here!