In the world of strength training, opinions are strong and consensus is rare. When Mark Bell and his team on the Power Project sit down to rate health practices as overrated or underrated, the disagreements are predictable — until they reach sauna.
The consensus is immediate: sauna is underrated. Not slightly. Dramatically. The cardiovascular benefits alone rival moderate-intensity exercise, and most people treat it as nothing more than a place to relax.
What follows is a revealing conversation about where the wellness industry overcomplicates recovery — and where the simplest practices deliver the greatest returns.
The panel's reasoning is straightforward: sauna produces cardiovascular stress that mirrors Zone 2 training. Heart rate elevates. Blood vessels dilate. The body works to regulate its temperature through sweating and increased circulation.
For athletes and non-athletes alike, this means that a 20-minute sauna session delivers genuine cardiovascular training without the joint stress of running or cycling. For recovery days, this is particularly valuable — maintaining cardiovascular fitness while allowing muscles to repair.
The longevity data adds another dimension. Heat shock proteins activated during sauna exposure are implicated in cellular repair and may contribute to reduced all-cause mortality. The Finnish Sauna Cohort, which followed thousands of participants for decades, confirmed a dose-response relationship between sauna frequency and cardiovascular health.
The panel is equally enthusiastic about cold exposure but adds an important caveat: timing matters. Cold water immersion immediately after strength training may blunt the inflammatory response that drives muscle adaptation.
The recommendation is to use cold exposure on rest days or at least several hours after training. Used this way, the dopamine and noradrenaline response provides mood and recovery benefits without interfering with strength gains.
For those not focused on hypertrophy, cold exposure is one of the most accessible recovery tools available. A cold shower requires no equipment, no membership, and no commute.
Perhaps the most useful takeaway from the discussion is what the panel rates as overrated: most supplements. The industry profits from complexity — from the suggestion that optimal health requires a medicine cabinet of capsules and powders.
The Power Project panel pushes back on this. Sleep, nutrition, movement, and thermal therapy form the foundation. Creatine stands alone as the one supplement with robust evidence for both strength and cognitive performance. Everything else is marginal at best.
This is a useful framework: build the foundation first, and only then consider the additions. Sauna and cold exposure belong in the foundation — not the supplement stack.