Ok, I just joined a gym here (I'm in the Bay Area for a few months, for grad school), and was wondering what the use/benefit of a sauna/steam room was for.

I mean, it's great to sit in the hot room for a while after lifting, but is there any real benefit to it?

Further, what level of conversation is appropriate with the naked elderly man sitting next to me?

Please advise.

Nudity in public saunas is actually prohibited by most state health codes (I know it is in FL, OH and AZ). Tell the dude to slip on some shorts or throw on a towel. Nothing more distracting that loose nuggets in a sauna.

~String

Nudity in public saunas is actually prohibited by most state health codes ? There is no God.

Honest to Pete, we're going to end up in hijabs. I know it.

You have to sit on a towel. That's just common courtesy. But shorts?

When I was a kid, clothes were prohibited in the pool at the local Y. They certainly weren't standard in the sauna.


I mean, it's great to sit in the hot room for a while after lifting, but is there any real benefit to it? Finns swear by them - add years to your life, cure what ails you, etc. But they beat themselves with sticks (yellow birch twigs are favored), and run them pretty hot - probably hotter than you get at a gym.

Watch the dehydration.

? There is no God.

Duh. I coulda' told you that.


Honest to Pete, we're going to end up in hijabs. I know it.

Some guys just need to keep their cloths on. The gym I work out at has the requisite "fat guy" with junk hanging halfway to his knees who walks from shower to locker full monty. It's enough to make a gay man straight... and trust me, I'm very gay.


You have to sit on a towel. That's just common courtesy. But shorts?

Shorts aren't totally necessary, but a fully wrapped lower section is (at least where I live, it is). Again, it's health-code run amok, but I'm not complaining. If it were all the hot, buff, younger men who pranced around in their birthday suits, I'd be a bit more reserved in my protestations against nudity in saunas, but seeing as how it's always the WWII age men who have no use for clothing in the locker room, I feel it's best for morale and comfort to require some sort of junk-covering in saunas.


When I was a kid, clothes were prohibited in the pool at the local Y. They certainly weren't standard in the sauna.

Damn. I was born two decades too late.


Finns swear by them - add years to your life, cure what ails you, etc. But they beat themselves with sticks (yellow birch twigs are favored), and run them pretty hot - probably hotter than you get at a gym.

When I was living in Spain, I befriended a Finnish family who had one in their home. While I refused to enter therein unclothed (they did), I did get to partake of it on several occasions while listening to them regale me with its many health benefits.

~String

I'm very gay.
Freaking gaydar sidelobes always screwing up my television reception!

Ok, I just joined a gym here (I'm in the Bay Area for a few months, for grad school), and was wondering what the use/benefit of a sauna/steam room was for.

I mean, it's great to sit in the hot room for a while after lifting, but is there any real benefit to it?

Further, what level of conversation is appropriate with the naked elderly man sitting next to me?

Please advise.

they're very good if you have a cold, and they clear the skin aswell, which is always good :)

Steam rooms are better with their wet steam but saunas are more of a dry heat which is not particularly good.

I think you wear a small towel in both of them and if the guys are naked then i wouldnt go into them. I have showered with large groups of naked men but that was due to necessity.

Steam rooms are better with their wet steam but saunas are more of a dry heat which is not particularly good.

I think you wear a small towel in both of them and if the guys are naked then i wouldnt go into them. I have showered with large groups of naked men but that was due to necessity.

When I went to the gym I had to wear bathing trunks into the steam and sauna rooms. I'd think that should be the case everywhere when a public gym is being used. Now as for conversation of course you can discuss stuff with whomever might be there.

Some guys just need to keep their cloths on. The gym I work out at has the requisite "fat guy" with junk hanging halfway to his knees who walks from shower to locker full monty. It's enough to make a gay man straight... and trust me, I'm very gay.

Ehh...that's probably me, except the junk hanging to my knees part. I mean...it TOTALLY hangs to my knees.

Either way, I AM down about 35 pounds since may.

I checked this morning and it only says you have to sit on a towel. Gotta love California :)

It would piss me off if I had to cover up.

I don't want to see no shriveled up grampa junk..that looks like beef jerky that got left out in the sun to long. Dude...wear a towel!

Here in Finland at least the city I live in you must be full naked if you want to go to sauna in swimming hall and get showered before entering (not the lame ass steam room) because of the health issue ! The towels and shorts and that stuff are the items that carries all kind of germs in ! Last time when I was there I had great conversation with half older man than me about...the sauna lol :D and then the conversation went by itself to many direction, in the sauna everybody is kinda equal and in that atmosphere its kinda easy to talk about, just pick your subjects carefully at first, meaning no outright political or religious outbursts ;) Inhaling the humid air does good for your lungs, also its very relaxing and the warm opens up tight spots in my back. I like medium heat, with heat maniacs sauna is everything else than pleasure.
Also it has teach us from the young age to be comfortable about nudity.
We did get sauna in last summer about 30 times or so, most of those in my friends summer houses, sauna and swimming in the lake in sun setting, breath taking.

I'm confused, BlueMoose.
You said inhaling the humid air is good for your lungs, but saunsa don't have humid air, they have dry air, humid air is in the steam rooms 9which you called lame ass).
Please explain.

Because they keep throwing water on the rocks.

My girlfriends house has a sauna by the pool but it hasnt worked for years. The wood and the rocks and breathing all that in. Didn't seem too healthy to me.

Its not good sauna if the air is dry, often in electric heated sauna are dry aired.
Real good sauna offers humid air when water throw to sauna stove (kiuas), and those kind of stoves are heated by wood, building a good sauna is real art :) I bet I would have hard time to find out of Finland as good saunas as I´m used to use ;) I was in sauna first time so little that I cant even remember it.

My girlfriends house has a sauna by the pool but it hasnt worked for years. The wood and the rocks and breathing all that in. Didn't seem to healthy to me.

-You havent been in real sauna it seems, there are chimneys for the smoke ya know ;)

I have been. I know the ones i was in had rocks and no electric. I can walk across to a real sauna anytime i want.

I have been. I know the ones i was in had rocks and no electric. I can walk across to a real sauna anytime i want.

-Wouldnt guess that from your comments !

-And in electric stoves there is rocks also...

No its real. i cut the fire wood myself. There is an outdoor pool with a sauna on the side and a full kitchen right off the pool as well. The rocks go above the fire and is where you throw the water.

I believe you but I still doubt that you havent been in real good sauna ;)

Well i would say they were pretty good. TBH i would rather just drink some Finlandia and forget the sauna entirely.

No, in sauna with cold beer, swimming in lake, then drinking some Bowmore whiskey, thats the way :)

steam is really good for the sinus as LA said, throw some eucoliptus oil in the steam and breath THAT in:)

throw some eucoliptus oil in the steam The birch twigs the Finns beat themselves with have some kind of menthol in them (you can ID a yellow birch by the menthol taste ).

Most memorable sauna I recall was lakeshore in December, with tinkling ice debris from wave breakup on the water, and a light snow of very big flakes, no wind. Ducked under you could hear the ice like some kind of million tiny bell carrillon. Treading water you could watch the snowflakes touch black water and very, very slowly melt.

Far as grampa junk - and grandma flapjacks too, sorry to inflict the image - you get used to it in about five minutes. Price you pay for the 18 year old grandchild, and the good conversation. And don't worry about inadvertent erections - unless you're a better man than I've ever been, it ain't gonna happen.

I think the risk of "inadvertent erections" ends in the early twenties. I'm 33 and have reasonable control over the vascular dilations in my penis. I don't know when that changed, because I can distinctly remember my late teens when I would get uncontrollably painful erections that came and went at their own discretion.

~String

Good for the skin, and to lose weight via dehydration, alot of boxers and fighters do this

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Being of Finnish descent and have been raised in northern Minnesota, we had our own sauna as did most of our neighbors and relatives. Going to someone else's home for sauna was part of the social culture, and you always took it in the nude.

To the best of my knowledge, there is absolutely no good empirical evidence that saunas have any health benefits whatever.

I suspect they fit into the general category of "icecream therapy". That is, something that makes you feel good at the time, but has no lasting benefit.

Mind you. I love ice cream. Nothing wrong with doing something just because it makes you feel good.

To the best of my knowledge, there is absolutely no good empirical evidence that saunas have any health benefits whatever.Not so sure about the "absolutely no" part of that statement, however, this particular author does grant a "lack of a coherent, solid accumulation of knowledge", he cites many scientific studies and alludes to several others.

Excerpt from psychsymposium.com (http://psychsymposium.com/41)
Although there is a lack of a coherent, solid accumulation of knowledge concerning the psychological effects of sweating procedures, there have been some interesting findings regarding sweating and psychological well-being that have important implications for therapeutic and preventive mental health purposes. These findings include that sweating promotes positive effects on sleep (Putkonen & Elomma, 1976), mood and affect (Kuusinen & Markuu, 1972; Frankva and Franek 1990), and on hyperactivity, specifically for people with anorexia nervosa (Gutierrez, Vazquez, & Boakes, 2002). One of the most consistent descriptions is that sweating facilitates relaxation and stress relief (Colmant & Merta, 2000; Gutierrez, Vazquez, & Beumont, 2002; Sorri, 1988; and Sudakov, Sinitchkin, & Khasanov, 1988). (emphasis mine, and the "sweating" refers to that brought upon by saunas - pretty decent article on the subject, actually)

It appears that evidence is accumulating to support benefits of the sauna but further research is called for. Many other Google hits on "empirical studies of benefits of sauna"...

Randie

I admit the 'feel good' effect.
Anything that makes you feel good may have temporary psychological benefit. However, I was thinking more of long term health benefits, and I have heard nothing of these.

When I was a kid, clothes were prohibited in the pool at the local Y.In the 1950s my YMCA had family time when, obviously, everyone had to wear suits. But during the boys' classes we were required to leave our trunks behind. I was told that the girls had no such requirement in their classes.
Finns swear by them - add years to your life, cure what ails you, etc. But they beat themselves with sticks (yellow birch twigs are favored), and run them pretty hot - probably hotter than you get at a gym.Isn't the original Finnish ritual a sequence of sauna followed by diving into a snow bank--the hot/cold contrast? This is how it was described to me fifty years ago, before it really caught on in the USA. Or was that just the Finns exaggerating their masculinity?
Inhaling the humid air does good for your lungs . . . .It's been several decades since I was actually inside a sauna, but in those days the air was achingly dry. Guys used to sneak in with cans of water (no drinks were allowed) and pour them over the rocks to give the room a little humidity.
Also it has teach us from the young age to be comfortable about nudity.I thought you Scandinavians were so comfortable with nudity that you only put clothes on for formal occasions? That's what we're told over here anyway. I suppose you hear similar exaggerations about Americans. We don't all actually sleep with a gun under our pillow, vegetarians are not executed, and only about three-fourths of the population drive SUVs.
To the best of my knowledge, there is absolutely no good empirical evidence that saunas have any health benefits whatever.But is there any evidence that it's harmful? A lot of activities have psychological benefits for some people that are difficult to detect, identify and measure, and psychological health can easily affect somatic health.

Every respectable authority in the USA insists that glucosamine/chondroitin is useless because our digestion breaks down the molecules long before they have a chance to do any good. Yet I skipped mine for two weeks when I was home for Christmas, and all of my arthritic joints and old injuries have been almost debilitatingly painful since then. They have only begun to abate after a week and a half of resuming ingestion of the supplement.
Nothing wrong with doing something just because it makes you feel good.Not only is there nothing wrong with it, but the release of endorphins can have a positive effect on the way you play out your life, if not on directly on your somatic health. Happy people incur fewer injuries.

thinking more of long term health benefits, and I have heard nothing of these. The long term benefits - health and otherwise - of regular nights of very good sleep, a higher level of personal cleanliness and skin parasite/infection/inflammation damping, a clean place for childbirth, regular meditative relaxation and stress relief in a social milieu, and so forth,

don't need much "demonstrating" in my book.

Saunas were invented by people who lived athletic, physically demanding lives. Ask any trainer what an athlete should do for a strain, twisted knee, bruised back, etc - ice it and heat it, in cycles, no? There are ways of living that more or less beat up your whole body on occasion.

Mentally, I sometimes wonder if the undeniably wonderful feeling of wellbeing that follows a genuine sauna would not be surpassed even, for most Americans, by the effects of the experience of social nudity in an ordinary, church potluck, moms gossiping about their kids, grandparents telling bad jokes for the fiftieth time, uncles hanging out around the booze, setting. Americans talking about saunas sound like Saudis talking about hijabs sometimes - the inbuilt perversion warps the very language.

Isn't the original Finnish ritual a sequence of sauna followed by diving into a snow bank--the hot/cold contrast? This is how it was described to me fifty years ago, before it really caught on in the USA. Or was that just the Finns exaggerating their masculinity? That's every sauna I've ever taken. There's no bragging involved - the snow (a lake or river is better, sometimes you have to chop out some ice) doesn't feel cold at all, and everyone (little kids, old and infirm) cools off in it.

Every respectable authority in the USA insists that glucosamine/chondroitin is useless because our digestion breaks down the molecules long before they have a chance to do any good. Yet I skipped mine for two weeks when I was home for Christmas, and all of my arthritic joints and old injuries have been almost debilitatingly painful since then. They have only begun to abate after a week and a half of resuming ingestion of the supplement.Not only is there nothing wrong with it, but the release of endorphins can have a positive effect on the way you play out your life, if not on directly on your somatic health. Happy people incur fewer injuries.

Fraggle

I have been impressed by the good science in many of your posts. For this reason, I know that you will be aware of the problem with quoting case histories in medical science, and the need for proper double blind trials with placebo controls.

The case you quote re glucosamine/chondroitin is uncontrolled. You cannot know what result you would have if someone secretly removed your pills and replaced them with a placebo control without your knowledge.

. . . . I know that you will be aware of the problem with quoting case histories in medical science, and the need for proper double blind trials with placebo controls. The case you quote re glucosamine/chondroitin is uncontrolled. You cannot know what result you would have if someone secretly removed your pills and replaced them with a placebo control without your knowledge.It's a liquid, not pills, although that's hardly important. I'm well aware of the placebo effect and my attitude is: more power to placebos! One positive thing you can say about them is that they are less likely to have side effects than real medicine. (This of course is not so true of formulated compounds that just don't happen to work.) If I were king I would launch a benevolently sinister clandestine government contracting program to manufacture and market a wide range of placebos for all currently untreatable ailments. As well as for hypochondriac and psychosomatic ailments: what a perfectly poetic match!

Nonetheless, we've been giving G/C to our dogs for years and they're not in a position to distinguish the supplement from a placebo from a tasty bit of garbage that happened to splash into their dish. We generally have about ten dogs, from their first year to their last year of life, and we've noticed a considerable improvement in their mobility as they get older. In fact almost every breeder we know has had the same experience. Some veterinarians have thrown up their hands and said, "Hey, if it works go for it; it doesn't seem to do any harm." Many, perhaps most, of the people we know who take it are like us: their dogs were the guinea pigs and then they started taking it themselves.

I will certainly hold off calling this science. But like the sauna, if it doesn't have any known ill effects, I'll just count myself as part of the experiment and wait for someone to interpret the results, as I enjoy the benefits, whether placebo or otherwise. Er, not like the sauna at all, since I don't actually take saunas.

After all, after 24 thousand generations of increasingly selective breeding, dogs are famous for their empathy with humans. Perhaps they know from our tone of voice and body language that we're slipping them something to make them feel better. Nothing makes a dog feel better than his pack leader caring for him.

Well... maybe a groundhog with two tire tracks.

Isn't the original Finnish ritual a sequence of sauna followed by diving into a snow bank--the hot/cold contrast? This is how it was described to me fifty years ago, before it really caught on in the USA. Or was that just the Finns exaggerating their masculinity?
I remember, as a child, taking a sauna in the dead of winter in Minnesota, and then running around in sub-zero temps wearing a just a t-shirt and not feeling a bit cold.

It's been several decades since I was actually inside a sauna, but in those days the air was achingly dry. Guys used to sneak in with cans of water (no drinks were allowed) and pour them over the rocks to give the room a little humidity.
One of my favorite things to do was to sit on the top bench, throw a small kettle's worth of water on the stones and then wait for that hot, humid wall of air to hit you. It would literally make a chill pass through you.


I thought you Scandinavians were so comfortable with nudity that you only put clothes on for formal occasions?


Not quite, but then I did live in the U.S. But I do know that I never went through the embarrassment that some boys go through the first time they have to get undressed in front of a bunch of other boys for gym class.

But I do know that I never went through the embarrassment that some boys go through the first time they have to get undressed in front of a bunch of other boys for gym class.I never experienced it, never observed it, and never realized that some guys did experience it, until well into adulthood. Of course mine was the generation that threw nude mixed-gender pool parties.