Recovery That Actually Works

Ice baths, saunas, massage guns and red light, sorted by evidence — plus the trade-off nobody mentions.

5 steps · ~30min · tick as you go

5 steps

  1. Cold Water Immersion: Benefits, Evidence and How to Start

    Learn the timing trade-off: cold immersion straight after lifting tends to blunt the muscle-growth response.

  2. Sauna Therapy: Benefits, Evidence and How to Use It

    See which sauna claims have cohort evidence and which are extrapolation.

  3. Recovery Readiness Index

    Combine sleep, soreness and load into one number, and read its limits.

  4. Sleep Debt: What Catching Up Does and Doesn't Fix

    Find out how much of the debt a weekend lie-in actually repays.

  5. Grade the Claim

    Grade recovery claims, including the ones where a real effect has been stretched well past its evidence.

How this works

Nothing here is gated and nothing is new: every step is a page or a calculator already on the site, and you can jump straight to any of them. The order is the contribution, along with the last step — a round of Grade the Claim, because reading something and being able to judge it later are different skills, and only the second one survives the week.

Ticks are saved on this device. Claims you meet in the check come back on a spacing schedule, and what you know keeps the tally.

Written and reviewed by Mathew Beale, MSc Biotechnology, University of Reading.

Last reviewed: