- My body's reaction to the sauna isn't stable. Usually I climb in with it at 60 °C and stay in for 25 minutes until my heart rate is near 100 bpm and I'm drenching. Occasionally though there have been times when this exposure was unbearable and I had to crack open the door to survive. Clearly somehthing else is going on.
- The heaters are thermostatically controlled by interior air temperature. My body is heated, however, by radiant energy and not by air convection. So the thermostatic control doesn't do a good job regulating heat transfer to me. When the thermostat turns off the radiant heat decays out and there is a significant reduction in how hot the sauna feels. In other words there is a perceptual undershoot. I think a new control strategy is warranted.
- Use the temperature of a simulated person mass instead of air temperature to control the air
- Use a simple switch to control the heaters
- Replace the thermostatic control with a timer alone. <--My plan at the moment
- I want to explicitly mention how important my heart rate is while I'm using the sauna. It came as a surprise to me that it was so valuable. It allows me to get a good feeling about the stress I'm being exposed to even when the conditions of the stress are hard to determine. The variables that determine stress are:
- Exposure time, Energy absorbed, Body hydration reserve, Fatigue?, Air temperature, Body heat absorption characteristics? (what are they?), clothing,
- Hmmm. I am seriously out of my depth here. And I think I know some people who actually know this stuff. Maybe I can even find some serious research online.
- Here are some other sauna workout references.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The sauna and the workout
Post in progress...
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