A brief sauna session after exercise, especially if slightly dehydrated, can lead to a 1-2% increase in red blood cell production for performance enhancement.

“By comparison, you know, there are um a lot of discussions online about you know if you finish your exercise, resistance training or cardiovascular exercise with a brief sauna session. So going slightly hypothermic, right? This you have to hydrate, etc. But it actually works even better as long as we're talking about dangerous practices. It works even better if you're slightly dehydrated. You get an overp production of red blood cells in the subsequent days. And this is used for a performance-enhancing effect in elite athletes mainly. Um, you have to again avoid dehydration, death etc. But this is done and there someone will correct me but the the shift in uh available oxygen is in the low percentages like one or two%.”