How soon can you take a shower after aerobic exercise?

The current general consensus in the sports field is that it is safe enough to take a shower after your heart rate has dropped to the resting level and sweating has basically stopped. For most ordinary sports enthusiasts, this buffer time is about 20 to 40 minutes. People with good physical fitness and regular exercise may be able to reach the state in about 15 minutes. If you have just finished high-intensity aerobic exercise such as a half marathon or long-distance riding, and your basic physical fitness is average, it may be safer to wait for about an hour before washing.

Many people feel that waiting for such a long time is too troublesome, and the sticky sweat all over their body is really uncomfortable. They always want to take a quick shower and change into clean clothes to feel comfortable. However, when they just finish aerobic exercise, the pores all over the body are open, and the peripheral blood vessels are obviously dilated, just like a rubber band stretched to the maximum. When suddenly encountering the stimulation of too cold or overheated water, it can easily lead to abnormal contraction or expansion of blood vessels, which can cause dizziness and nausea at the least and unsteadiness, and at worst, it can put extra burden on the cardiovascular system.

Of course, there are different opinions. Nowadays, many professional sports teams will ask athletes to take a low-temperature cold water bath for less than 10 minutes immediately after the game to relieve delayed muscle soreness and speed up the body's recovery. However, this operation has extremely strict requirements on water temperature and duration, and team doctors will monitor physical data throughout the process. We ordinary people should not follow it casually without professional guidance. A teammate I used to run with ran a local half-marathon last summer. He felt that he was sweating all over and was too hot. He went home and took a 16-degree cold shower without even wiping off the sweat. The fever reached 38-degree 5 that night. He originally signed up for the 30-kilometer cross-country race next week, but he had to withdraw from the race. He lay at home for a whole week before he recovered.

In fact, you don’t have to stick to the clock to calculate the time. You can feel your pulse from time to time while resting. If the difference between the beating frequency and your usual sitting time is less than 10 beats/minute, the sweat on your body has basically dried up and will not drip when you raise your hand. You don’t feel out of breath or dizzy. It’s no problem to wash it at this time. There is no need to deliberately adjust the water temperature to be extremely hot or freezing to the bone. A temperature of 37 to 40 degrees close to body temperature is suitable. Even if it is too cold, it should not be lower than 20 degrees at most. The washing time should be controlled within 15 minutes. Do not wash for too long just to relax, which will increase the body's fatigue.