Human Reproduction (journal) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Keeping your nether regions cool is one of those pieces of men’s health advice that’s been drilled into your head since 8th grade health class. We’ve been told heat can affect sperm production, and in some cases cause infertility. Sitting the wrong way, using a laptop, and even choosing the wrong type of underwear can cause infertility. But what happens when you deliberately expose your “boys” to high temperatures in a sauna, steam room or hot tub?

In the April 2013 journal Human Reproduction, a team from the Department of Molecular Medicine at the University of Padova in Italy looked at this problem in detail.

They recruited ten healthy volunteers with normal sperm production and had them use a Finnish Sauna set to 80-90°C (176-194°F) for 15 minutes.

After three months of sauna bathing, the researchers found that the test subjects had significantly fewer healthy sperm than they had during the study. For some parameters, the number of “healthy” sperm decreased by 22%.

The good news is that after six months without sauna use, all of the subjects returned to the same levels of healthy sperm they had prior to the study, so no lasting effects were found.

The authors do caution that the test was only performed with men with otherwise healthy sperm production, and a small sample size. They would like to see this repeated on a larger scale, with some men with abnormal sperm production to see if any new long term effects can be found.

From a practical standpoint, men who are trying to start families may want to avoid the sauna for several months. However, looking at overall birth rates, births per woman, and infant mortality Finland appears to be at a similar or better level than most other industrialized nations.

The abstract can be read on Pub Med. The full text requires a journal subscription.

Does Sauna Effect Sperm?

The race is run in teams of four, and takes the teams to a number of public sauna establishments in the area surrounding the town of Otepää. At each sauna, every team member needs to spend 3 minutes in the steam, completely submerge themself in each of the hot tubs, and one team member must fully submerge themselves in every ice hole. Event staff monitor each station, and teams are given penalty minutes for not completing a station. Each team traveled between the saunas in their own cars, with the local police adding their own penalties for teams that sped.

The top three teams won gift certificates to the local sauna businesses. Additional special prizes were given out for best costume, youngest team and several other things Google Translate wasn’t able to tell us.

The saunas that the teams had to visit during the competition were also part of the contest. This year, the favorite sauna was Saunamaratoonlased, upsetting the previous champion the Sokka smoke sauna bath.

The Otepää website has lots of data (in Estonian, of course), including the rules, the saunas where the competition took place, the results, and an extensive photo gallery from the event.

If you are interested in competing in a future Sauna Marathon, you can visit the Sauna Marathon page on the Otepää town website. This year, registration opened about a month before the event.

Hat tip to Estonian Public Broadcasting.

Otepaa Estonia Hosts Fourth Annual Sauna Marathon

In a dark and hot room with a pile of red-hot stones in one corner, plenty of basins and bowls of water of varying temperatures in another, and the humans nude on raised benches closer to these than to the door, their privates against the slatted benches and darkness below, the revenge of the gnome can be terrible, surprising and memorable indeed. (Photo credit: Cremo)

While in a sauna, it is always important to behave respectfully. While sharing a public sauna with others, this is obvious. But even while in your own private sauna you should be respectful, lest you incur the wrath of your sauna gnome.

The blog, Masks of Eris, brought this to our attention in their post “Romancing the Sauna Gnome.” If you are a sauna enthusiast, this short piece is a must-read. Sauna gnomes can take up residence in any inviting sauna. Kept happy, they will help keep the sauna neat and tidy. Should you anger them, the consequences can be dire.

For instance, take a look at the consequences of being overzealous when pouring water on the stove:

Too much water means the sauna will become unbearably hot and steam-filled; the gnome will become reddened and angered, and as you stumble out, unable to take the heat, the gnome will stick out a leg and you will crash head-first against the door. Half the sounds you’ll hear in your ears will be the gnome’s harsh laughter; the rest will be you, screaming. Then when you’ve had a break and return to the benches, the gnome will have had time to place hand-made thumbtacks on them; and when you take the next break, a birch demon has drunk your beers and urinated them full, while the gnome has been on the opposite edge of the roof, loudly saying to itself: “Gee! I’m not guarding the beers! Sure hope nobody will drink them and urinate them full because I’m so old and decrepit I know I wouldn’t notice!” — birch demons are not the sharpest twigs in the forest, but eventually they take a hint.

Other infractions of sauna etiquette can bring about punishment from the sauna gnome. As the author notes, if you contemplate the potential in “a dark and hot room with a pile of red-hot stones in one corner, plenty of basins and bowls of water of varying temperatures in another, and the humans nude on raised benches closer to these than to the door, their privates against the slatted benches and darkness below, the revenge of the gnome can be terrible, surprising and memorable indeed.”

Among the worst of these, is if the sauna gnome decides to feed your towels to a moose, since “once a moose in your neighborhood get the taste of cloth, your washing line isn’t safe.”

So be reverent in the sauna. Make sure you give your sauna gnome ample warning before you throw a ladle of water on the rocks, and… um… keep your sauna gnome satisfied if he or she shows you some signs. (You’ll have to read the original article to understand that.)

The Sauna Gnome

When you visit a sauna, the common advice is to take two towels: One to sit on in the sauna, and another to use when you dry off. The January 2013 Journal of Craniofacial Surgery makes this explicit to the medical community in a paper describing the conductive contact burn.

In the paper, they describe a trip a 70-year old woman made to a Korean Sauna. During her visit, she went into a hot dry sauna room, covered her thighs with a wet towel, and fell asleep for 30 minutes. When she woke, she found her thigh burned, and covered with large blisters: a classic second-degree burn. Because of her age and other medical conditions, she was hospitalized for two weeks after the incident.

If you have ever attempted to remove a hot pan from an oven using a wet towel or potholder, you have experienced this situation: Wet fabric conducts heat much more quickly than dry fabric.

Close up view of towelling (tea towel) Image taken by uploader (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fabric insulates by trapping air inside the gaps in inside the weave of the fabric. A towel is an especially good insulator because it is woven to have lots of gaps. Air is a very poor conductor of heat.

Those same gaps in the towel serve another purpose when exposed to water: They absorb water, which is a very good conductor of heat. A damp towel will transfer heat more quickly than a dry towel, while a completely sodden towel will transfer heat almost immediately.

This is more critical in certain Korean saunas, where temperatures can approach 400°F (200°C), than in a Finnish sauna, where the temperatures are rarely above 230°F (110°C). Many of these saunas recommend that the patrons cover most of their exposed flesh with cotton or burlap blankets to minimize discomfort.

So remember, when you visit the sauna, take two towels, and keep the one you’re using in the sauna dry.

Use a Dry Towel in the Sauna

Their sauna is built into a custom 8 x 8 x 8 foot (244 cm) shipping container. Inside is a sauna made from western red cedar and a wood fired stove. A solar panel on the roof powers a sound system that can play tunes from your iPod or your electric guitar. Thoughtful details like an antler door handle, a magnetic truck light and a wool toque are included. The full specs are here (PDF).

if you’d like one for your back country retreat, you can contact the designers directly, or visit one of their retailers like Matter in NYC. Matter sells the shipping container saunas for a cool $41,000.

Meanwhile, if you are outfitting a mobile headquarters and need something more institutional, the Norwegian company Uniteam can provide you with a “quick deployable and movable sauna container.”

Uniteam offers a whole range of container-based facilities: From shelters to medical facilities to specialty systems for oil and gas production sites.

Hat tips to Architizer and Sauna Sessions for this one.

Shipping Container Saunas

The latest UFC champion: the sauna!

This past weekend’s UFC event in Seattle had an unlikely opponent KO a seasoned opponent. The sauna knocked out UFC lightweight Tim Means as he was cutting weight before his weigh-in on Friday. We’ve written about the hazards of  cutting weight in the sauna before. Now we have concrete proof.

Fighter Tim Means typically enters the ring at 180 lbs (82 kg). However he fights as a lightweight, meaning he has to weigh-in the day before his match at no more than 155 lb (70.3 kg). That means he needed to lose at least 13% of his body weight.

To get there, fighters use a process called “cutting weight” where they force their bodies to expel up to 20% of their body weight in retained water before their weigh-in. Once they step on the official scale and “make weight”, they immediately start to rehydrate themselves so they are back to their normal weight when they step into the ring.

In Tim Means’ case, if he didn’t cut weight, he would be a middleweight – two weight classes higher. So if his lightweight opponent didn’t cut weight before his weigh-in, Means would have a substantial weight advantage over his opponent. But since every fighter except heavyweight-classed fighters, cuts weight, cutting weight has become a necessary step for any successful fighter, boxer, wrestler, weightlifter or jockey.

Body hacker and author Tim Ferriss explains on his blog how he became a world-champion at kickboxing by cutting weight better than everyone else. His strategy was simple: Cut the most weight, and use his weight advantage to force his opponent out of the ring, ending the match in his favor. Ferriss cut his body weight by nearly 18% for the weigh-in, then rehydrated himself to be heavier than his starting weight by the time he stepped into the ring.

There are lots of techniques to cut weight. The silver sauna suit is the most visible way, but the ubiquitous gym sauna is also common.

In Means’ case, he was sitting in the sauna on Friday, probably working to sweat out the last few pounds before stepping on the scale. He slipped, fell and hit his head, knocking himself unconscious in the process. That disqualified him for the next day’s match.

Most sauna injuries occur because of slips and falls. When spending a long time in the sauna, the body minimizes blood flow to the brain to keep its extremities cool. When standing up after a long sauna session, it is very common for a person to be light-headed and dizzy. This puts a sauna user at risk of falling or fainting when standing.

Dehydration also has these same basic side effects, plus more.

Tim Ferriss says it best in his blog post (the emphasis is his):

RAPID DEHYDRATION IS DANGEROUS AND BOTH BRAIN DAMAGE AND FATALITIES ARE NOT UNCOMMON.

Add to this a paper published in December 2012 in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, where the authors recommend against cutting weight:

Rapid Weight Loss (RWL) affects physical and cognitive capacities, and may increase the risk of death. CONCLUSION: Recommendations during different training phases, educational and organizational approaches are presented to deal with or to avoid RWL.

So don’t abuse the sauna. Used properly, it’s a great relaxation and rejuvenation tool. Keep your sessions short, stay hydrated, and cool down completely before you start another round. If you abuse it, as Tim Mears now knows, the sauna is one heck of an opponent.

Hat tip to Sportsnet.ca

UFC Update: Sauna 1 – Tim Means 0

Hot Hot Hot is an English-language comedy, written and directed by Beryl Kolts and released by Luxembourg-based Samsa Film. The film has gained enough acclaim that it’s been shown as part of several European film festivals around the world. It isn’t available to rent or stream yet, but we’re anxiously waiting for this.

The film’s main character is Ferdinand, who works at a European theme park called “Worlds Apart.” His job is in “Fish Land” – the aquarium – and he’s happy with his predictable daily routine of tending to the needs of the fish.

All of this changes when Fish Land closes for renovations, and Ferdinand gets transferred to Finnish-Turkish Delight – the sauna complex – where Ferdinand is forced to deal with people in this center of nudity, relaxation and letting go.

Watch the trailer to see what’s in store.

Hot Hot Hot: Movies in the Sauna

Bareback Typing (Photo credit: Olly Farrell)

You’re lounging in the sauna, naked as the day you were born. The heat is penetrating through you and the stress from your workday life is leaving you as quickly as the sweat pouring off your body. You don’t have a care in the world. Now, the door opens, and you turn your head to see who is joining you. Oh God! It’s your boss — as naked as you are.

In the English-speaking world, unless you and your boss both frequent the same gym there is a slim chance of an encounter like this. If your boss is a different gender than you, it’s nearly impossible outside of a nudist club.

In other parts of the world, seeing your boss naked is a real possibility.

In Northern Europe, many companies have a corporate sauna which is available for business meetings. Japan has their Onsen culture, and Russia has their Banyas. In these cultures, most of the time the sessions are segregated by gender.

In Germany, the sauna is a different: It’s a popular leisure time activity. According to the German Sauna Association, there are more than 2300 public saunas in Germany. In a 2008 study, the German Sauna Association found that 30 million people – more than one-third of the population of Germany – uses the sauna at least once a week.  In Germany, you are naked in the sauna, and most of the time, men and women use it at the same time. Compare this to the United States where only 25% of the population has ever been nude in mixed company.

With statistics like this, meeting your boss at one of Germany’s these public saunas or in a hotel sauna should be as non-stressful as running into your boss at the local mall. Not so.

The German Etiquette site, Knigge.de in their Sauna Etiquette guide has a section on “Unwanted Encounters” where they speak about just such a case:

Upon entering the sauna, you discover your boss. You would prefer to turn on the spot and leave, but this reaction is not polite. The same is true if you ignore him.

So what should you do? Their recommendations are:

• Say hello and make some short small talk to acknowledge his or her presence,
• Discreetly cover your modesty with your sauna towel,
• Sit in a place where you are both looking the same way so your eyes don’t cross paths too often, and
• Don’t tell your friends and colleagues about your encounter – What happens in the sauna stays in the sauna.

What if I Meet my Boss… Naked?

Jessica Biel (Photo credit: john antoni)

Last night, American actress Jessica Biel — the new Mrs. Justin Timberlake — appeared on the David Letterman Show and told him about her pre-wedding spa escape with a girlfriend in Austria:

So I didn’t really quite know what the protocol was, so I just laid there … froze … in my bikini, and my robe, and my towel and my slippers. And these guys came in and I’m like, “I can handle this.” One is sitting [on my right] one is sitting [on my left] and they drop their towels. They are butt naked. … They were naked and I’m in the middle of them kind of looking back and forth [out of the corners  of my eyes] at them thinking “How am I going to get out of here without being rude?” I look over and I realize, oh my God, yes, it is confirmed there are balls on wood. I mean not just naked, but balls on wood, Dave! That’s not okay!

This is a horrifying story, with etiquette violations on both sides.

Perhaps knowing about Ms. Biel’s experience, Yahoo Germany recently published a handy reference, “Sauna Etiquette: How Naked is too Naked?” Let’s take a look at the proper etiquette for the sauna in a German-speaking country like Austria.

• Attire: Shame and swimwear are two things that don’t belong in the sauna. It is clear the Austrian men had neither shame nor swimwear, while Ms. Biel had both.
  +2 Austrian Men, -2 Ms. Biel
• Hygiene: While in the sauna, you should have a large towel to sit on, and not place your bare bottom on the wooden boards. According to Ms. Biel, she was well covered and the men had “balls on wood”.
  -1 Austrian Men, +1 Ms. Biel
• Slippers:  Slippers are left outside the sauna where they can’t be tripped over, not worn inside. Ms. Biel does not mention her sauna companions’ footwear, but clearly mentions hers.
  0 Austrian Men, -1 Ms. Biel
• Good Courtesy:  The etiquette rules state that when entering the sauna you should greet those already inside it, and ask if the place is free before taking a seat next to someone. The Austrian men apparently did not do this, and Ms. Biel’s body language, should have made it obvious that she was uncomfortable with them near her personal space.
  -1 Austrian Men, 0 Ms. Biel
• Look, but Don’t Stare:  Yes, everyone is naked, but you don’t need to keep your eyes glued to the floor or another area where you won’t catch sight of one of your fellow sauna-goers. A look around is acceptable, so long as your eyes don’t linger and stare. Ms. Biel made it a point not to stare, and the two men never seemed to realize they were sharing their sauna with the star of the A-Team, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Illusionist.
  +1 Austrian Men, +1 Ms. Biel

So in the sauna etiquette battle, the naked Austrians edge out Jessica Biel +1 to -1. It’s still a dismal performance all around.

We’d be interested to hear which sauna (or hotel) Ms. Biel had her experience at and see if the two gentlemen she encountered would be willing to tell their side of the story.

As a comparison, “Frau A”, also an American, tells of her first visit to Therme Erding in Munich on her blog Schnitzelbahn:

I’d been so forewarned by other Americans that the German saunas are textilfrei (i.e., no bathing suits allowed) that I didn’t bother to take one with me at all when I visited the Therme Erding in Munich. After I traveled quite a ways on public transportation to get there, there was no way I was going back to get a bathing suit after I finding out that there was a textilfrei part and another part that allowed bathing suits!

I have to say, it was an empowering experience.

If you would like to read more about sauna etiquette, you can read the original Yahoo article, or visit the source — the German Etiquette site Knigge.de (both in German). Frau A does a great job of translating the essence of these articles on Schnitzelbahn. Of course, you can also read the SaunaScape take on the proper ways to experience the German Sauna, or see a video of what one is really like.

If you want to see the Jessica Biel segment, here it is:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Don’t be like Jessica Biel: Sauna nude in Austria