Should you shower before or after a workout? While it may seem counterintuitive to shower before exercising, it can help warm up your muscles before your pre-workout stretch. Showering after a workout allows you to wash off sweat or dirt while soothing your muscles, which is more beneficial.
As tempting as it might be to do a quick wipe down, you should shower after a workout—especially if you were thinking about staying in your workout clothes for a while.
When to Take: 1. Immediately After Intense Workouts: Cold showers can help reduce muscle soreness and inflammation. Taking a cold shower within 30 minutes after exercise can be beneficial. 2. After Injuries: If you have a minor injury (like a sprain), a cold shower can help reduce swelling and numb pain. 3.
Ideally, you should wait until you've stopped sweating profusely to hit the shower; otherwise, you run the risk of still being hot and sweaty after you've washed. This will vary from person to person, but in most cases, this will take between five and 30 minutes, depending on the intensity of the exercise.
The best practice is to wash your workout clothes as soon as possible after your gym session. Here are a few guidelines to follow: 1. Rinse or soak: If youre unable to wash your clothes immediately, it can help to rinse them out or soak them in cold water to prevent odor-causing bacteria from setting in.
Many experts, including the American College of Sports Medicine, recommend cold instead of heat therapy to aid muscle recovery. That might give cold showers the edge after exercise. But again, there's a lack of scientific evidence to support either option. It's best to experiment and see which you prefer.
Here are some of the pros of showering in the a.m.: It cleanses your body. Your bed linens have residual skin cells, sweat and bacteria. “By showering in the morning, you're cleaning yourself up before you put on a fresh pair of clothes and go out into the day,” says Dr.
“Add adipose tissue (fat) and the correlation is even worse.” In other words, changing the temperature of your skin with a hot or cold shower after a workout won't necessarily translate to temperature changes in your muscles—meaning it probably won't have a big impact on post-exercise recovery.
Relaxing muscles
Outside of the mental game, there are physical benefits to a pre-workout shower. If you take a warm shower, then the warm water will relax you. This is actually why a lot of urologists and experts recommend peeing in the shower.
Boosts Metabolism and Weight Loss
Regular cold showers stimulate the production of brown fat, a type of fat that generates heat by burning calories. Over time, this can aid in weight management and potentially support weight loss efforts when combined with a balanced diet and exercise.
The direct impact of cold showers increasing testosterone levels are not strongly supported. Some studies suggest that cold exposure might influence hormone regulation to some extent, but more research is needed to definitively establish any significant link between cold showers and increased testosterone levels.
A warm shower before exercise can help increase blood flow, warm up your muscles, and make them more flexible. This may help reduce the risk of injury, especially in cold weather.
Eat after you exercise
Eat a meal that has both carbohydrates and protein in it within two hours of your workout if possible. Eating after you work out can help muscles recover and replace their glycogen stores. Think about having a snack if your meal is more than two hours away.
Post-exercise, your body undergoes repair and rejuvenation, and a nap can help in muscle recovery and fatigue reduction. It can also help replenish your energy levels. However, it's important to keep naps short—typically around 20-30 minutes—to avoid entering deep sleep cycles which might leave you feeling groggier.
When you exercise, your heart pumps more oxygen-rich blood to your muscles than usual. This causes the body temperature to increase and the heart rate to beat faster. If you shower immediately after exercising, your blood vessels will widen and make you susceptible to various diseases that can strike suddenly.
Traditionally, experts have recommended not exercising at night as part of good sleep hygiene. However, a small study, published in Sports Medicine suggests that some people can exercise in the evening as long as they avoid vigorous activity for at least one hour before bedtime.
It all depends on what you've been doing, how hot the weather is, and your own personal body chemistry and microbiome. Other than people who live in hot climates, and/or work up a sweat with physical activity, most of us don't need a daily shower or bath. Every 2 to 3 days is sufficient for most.
There's no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Many doctors say a daily shower is fine for most people. (More than that could start to cause skin problems.) But for many people, two to three times a week is enough and may be even better to maintain good health.
A growing body of research suggests that taking a hot shower or bath before bed can improve sleep. In the hours before bedtime, a human's core body temperature naturally cools, while skin temperatures of the hands and feet increase.
As we mentioned, nighttime showers remove toxins and bacteria from your skin, which clog pores and lead to breakouts. Body acne is commonly caused by sweat, so it's important to try to wash this off as soon as possible once you're done with your daily activities.
The final verdict? Exercising in a fasted state may burn some quick body fat, but it's not the best option for your body in the long-run. Eat a small snack or meal before and after your workout to ensure that you're properly fueled to perform your best in the gym and recover quickly when you get home.
Overall, the experts agree: Exercising in the morning is the best time of day to work out for logistical, effective and health reasons. When it comes to weight loss, a 2023 study published in the journal Obesity found exercising between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. could help.