After the ice bath fiasco this morning, Roscoe pivoted.

If cold was the problem, heat must be the answer, and more heat must be the better answer.

He is now doing ninety-minute sauna sessions and telling anyone who will listen that he is “maximizing his high-hormone environment.”

He is not wrong that heat moves hormones, but is it really having an effect? Leppäluoto and colleagues (1986) baked, er, I mean had volunteers in an 80°C (176 F) Finnish sauna and watched growth hormone jump roughly 16-fold.

Yep, sixteen fold Brosefus!

If a supplement did that it would have its own infomercial...

..And yet nobody walks out of a sauna jacked, because an acute GH spike with no training stimulus and no raw materials does not translate into muscle.

Mechanism is not outcome. That gap is where most of the internet lives.

Heat earns its keep somewhere else entirely.

Repeated heat exposure drives cardiovascular and plasma-volume adaptations and a heat-shock protein response that helps tissue tolerate stress.

Here is the genuinely useful part: Gibson and colleagues (2017) reviewed cross-adaptation and showed that adapting to one stressor, like heat, can improve your physiological and cellular response to a different one, like altitude.

Yep! Train one regulator and you can buy resilience in a completely different one! The fancy name here is “cross adaptation.”

This is not the same as stacking multiple things on top of each other with no rhyme or reason as Roscoe started doing.

Do This Today

Pick heat for what it actually does. Use sauna as a cardiovascular jump start and resilience tool on its own or after easier sessions, not as a muscle shortcut bolted onto everything.

Dose it, do not just endure it.

Jocelyn Awe, the Director of Sports Performance summed it up this way
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​“Dr. Mike kept me ahead of the trends and gave me the ability to make direct and practical decisions for each of my athletes. Whether you are wondering about the keto diet or the hot trend of ice baths,
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PFC sets you up to make real-world decisions on how to manage the body. PFC is a game changer. PFC is practical.”

The heat module, the protocols, and how heat and cold fit together without fighting are in the cert. You can split it into a much more manageable payment plan at checkout.

>> Phys Flex Certification << details + bonus items

The private 1-hour call bonus ends tomorrow night, Wednesday October 14 at 11:59 PM Pacific. After that it is gone for good.

Much love and a 16-fold hormone spike that will not build your arms,

Dr Mike

PS — if GH spikes built muscle, sauna attendants would be the biggest humans on earth. They are not. The cert is where you learn what actually moves the needle.

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References

Leppäluoto, J., Huttunen, P., Hirvonen, J., Väänänen, A., Tuominen, M., & Vuori, J. (1986). Endocrine effects of repeated sauna bathing. Acta Physiologica Scandinavica, 128(3), 467–470.

Gibson, O. R., Taylor, L., Watt, P. W., & Maxwell, N. S. (2017). Cross-adaptation: Heat and cold adaptation to improve physiological and cellular responses to hypoxia. Sports Medicine, 47(9), 1751–1768.

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Mike T Nelson CISSN, CSCS, MSME, PhD
Associate Professor, Carrick Institute
Owner, Extreme Human Performance, LLC
Editorial Board Member, STRONG Fitness Mag

Mike T Nelson is a PhD and not a physician or registered dietitian. The contents of this email should not be taken as medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any health problem - nor is it intended to replace the advice of a physician. Always consult your physician or qualified health professional on any matters regarding your health.

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