The players of the Tottenham football team use a Finnish-style sauna to recover. HIFK's ice hockey players almost always combine hot with cold when recovering.
Athletes have long favored cold treatments for restoring muscles, but now heat treatment is making a comeback. Instead of and alongside cold pools, the sauna, which is important to Finns, has grown in popularity.
For example, Tottenham Hotspur football stars restore their muscles through training after in the Finnish sauna.
The sauna was built at Tottenham's training center in Enfield, north of London, by Finnmark, a builder of Finnish-style saunas based in England.
“The sauna is quite large, about 2.5 meters by 2.5 meters, upper shelves and L-shaped lower shelves. The sauna is built next to the swimming pool and recovery pool. The entire space is finished with bronze-colored mirrors”, Finnmark's technical director, who was building the sauna Max Newport tells.
Tottenham's sauna has been in use since last spring, so the players have only benefited from it in the current season.
The sauna has received positive feedback from the club's staff and it has reportedly been used a lot, says Newport.
“During the last couple of years, the World Cup has been played and there has been a lot more. There have been a lot of injuries and player burnouts in the Premier League, but Tottenham are doing well. Maybe it's not a coincidence that they got a Finnish sauna and then suddenly things are going really well in the Premier League,” Newport reflects.
The operation of the heat belt is controlled by a controller shaped like a hockey puck.
HIFK's physical trainer Hero Mali presents a Finnish invention – a heat pack that warms up with the help of a chemical reaction.
Finnmark has built Finnish saunas for other British athletes and clubs. Interest in hot and cold recovery and injury treatment has definitely increased in Britain, says Newport.
It's no surprise that athletes in Finland take a lot of saunas.
Very many of the players of Helsinki IFK's SM league team quickly go to their own sauna clubs after the games, says the team's physical trainer Hero Mali.
Sauna clubs have their own rules. During the first sauna round, we still talk about the game, but after the open bath, we prefer to be silent.
“When you come to the second sauna round, you don't talk to each other anymore, or at least you don't talk about hockey. Everyone can be quiet and calm down in their own circumstances. We try to let go of the game,” says Mali.
In the evening, the sauna is always finished when it is hot.
“The body starts to cool itself after sauna, which helps to sleep when the body temperature drops.”
However, you have to be careful with sauna, especially if there is a new game the next day.
“We also have a few players who already sweat a lot during the game. They themselves know that you can't take an excessive amount of sauna after the game, because then the hydration gets messed up and you don't have time to recover,” says Mali.
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“The heat expands the blood vessels in the muscle and the surface blood circulation is activated. And then when we go into the cold, the blood goes inward.”
In HIFK, both hot and cold are used for recovery. Antti Pihlström, Valtteri Kakkonen and Joonas Rask relaxed in the sauna.
Luke Martin took a cold bath.
of HIFK players almost always associate cold with hot in recovery.
“The heat expands the blood vessels in the muscle and the surface blood circulation is activated. And then when we
go into the cold, the blood goes inward, that is, it washes the muscle a little,” says Mali.
Before training or matches, players use heating belts and heating bags to warm the tissues. The heat helps to cope with even minor injuries.
If there is even a small problem in the shoulder, a heat pack is put on it for a while before the actual active warm-up, says Mali.
“Tissues are more flexible when they are warm. And some halls are cold, and when the hall is cold, you need a lot more thermal packs.”
Studies have also found that heat can have effects that accelerate recovery, doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Physical Education, University of Jyväskylä Essi Ahokas says.
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“Heat has been found to prevent the deterioration of muscle strength and performance.”
HIFK's massage room is in busy use. In the room on the left is the physical trainer Hero Mali, at the front table Aron Kiviharju, at the middle table Micke-Max Åsten and physiotherapist Panu Leijala, at the back table Aleksanteri Kaskimäki and physiotherapist Tero Tolvanen.
An eager one is involved in a research project whose purpose is to find out the benefits of heat-based recovery methods after sports performance and the effects of regular hot use on performance.
“Heat has been found to prevent the deterioration of muscle strength and performance. One significant factor is pain relief. Heat has been found to reduce pain and relieve swelling, so the athlete may feel more recovered and ready for the next training session or competition.”
The benefits of heat in terms of recovery, decrease in muscle strength, and decreased mobility have had conflicting results, says Ahokas.
Studies have found that taking a sauna in a traditional Finnish sauna after swimming training weakens the next morning's swimming performance compared to the load without taking a sauna.
The heat belts and Heat Bags used by the Helsinki IFK team heat the muscles locally, so the temperature of the entire body cannot change.
“If the temperature of the whole body rises significantly, it can increase, for example, energy consumption and burden the autonomic nervous system, in which case it can possibly slow down recovery. However, we have not found that an infrared sauna with a lower temperature affects the load on the autonomic nervous system the nigh
t after sauna use,” says Ahokas.
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“Heat shock proteins are important in the repair process of muscle cells.”
Heat according to Ahokka, the effect that accelerates recovery is at least partially due to curbing the inflammatory reaction.
A heavy or new type of load causes muscle cell damage, the repair of which requires an inflammatory reaction, but excessive inflammation and swelling impair performance in the coming days.
Another possible factor is the body's heat shock proteins, which are activated by stress and heat.
“Heat shock proteins are important in the repair process of muscle cells and muscle growth. In addition to recovery methods after loading, the use of hot before loading has been studied. In this case, these proteins are already activated when there is a load. Then it can be very affordable,” says Ahokas.
Cold mask.
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