All You Need To Know About Infrared Sauna Business Benefits
Adding an infrared sauna to your fitness business can be a great way to take care of your clients, increase retention and add a source of additional revenue.
The demand for these facilities is growing year after year. But does adding a sauna to your business make sense or is it just a fad? In this article, we walk through everything you need to know about Saunas and choose if the purchase of a Sauna is right for your business.
“As an owner of a small private gym that offers only personal training, I decided to add an infrared sauna to aid the recovery process for our clients. I choose the Sunlighten Mpulse due to it having low EMF and multiple types of infrared. Our clients have absolutely loved the effects it has had for them. Most people experience a very relaxed feeling after a session. A lot of users say they don’t have muscle soreness if they use the sauna right after a session. I think for its size and cost it adds a great ROI for both the clients and the business.”
Dylan Ulrich, Owner 10Ten Fitness
What is an Infrared Sauna? Main Difference Between Infrared Sauna and Conventional Sauna
A sauna or steam room or sweat room is a space created to accommodate wet or dry heat treatments. For more than 2000 years, people have used steam-rooms and saunas to increase metabolism, lose weight, reduce pain, improve cardiovascular function, destress, and relax.
The key difference between a conventional sauna and an infrared sauna deals with the heated area. A conventional sauna works indirectly by heating the area around your body whereas the infrared sweat room works directly on your body. A conventional sauna heats the air in the room and all the surfaces of the room.
An infrared sweat room generates heat using light. This sauna directly heats your body without warming the space around you. In addition, this sweat room can function at a lower temperature compared to the conventional sauna.
Infrared sweat rooms typically have temperatures between 110°F and 135°F. In a traditional sauna, temperatures typically range from 150°F to 195°F.
Benefits of Using an Infrared Sauna
Some of the advantages of using an infrared sweat room include, improved circulation, relieved muscle pain, stress relief, and detoxification. Let’s delve into each of these individually.
Improvement of Blood Circulation
After a few minutes in a sauna, your body will increase circulation as a cooling mechanism. On the skin, sweat beads start to form and evaporation dissipates heat. Your blood vessels enlarge and blood flow increases to transfer heat through the surface of your skin. This causes your heartbeat to accelerate and is one reason why exposure to this level of heat should be closely monitored and limited to 15 – 20 minute periods.
Relieving Muscle Pain
An infrared sweat room helps accelerate the healing of muscles after exercise. This is due to the relaxation and increased circulation caused by the heat exposure.
Relieves Stress
A sweat room can also help you to relieve stress. Reduced depression and better sleep are two of the stress related topics that have been reported in studies focused on the use of saunas.
Detoxification
A sauna session will make you sweat a lot. The more you sweat, the more your body gets detoxified and you feel fresh & healthy. The pores in your skin open fully during a sauna session and your heart rate increases. This helps to flush toxins from within the pores on your skin and within your body.
Some other notable advantages of an infrared sweat room include:
- Loss of weight
- Improvement of the sleep cycle
- Help those suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome
- Pain relief for the joints
What are the Types of Saunas I Can Install in My Business?
For a conventional sauna, you will need a dedicated room, large heating systems, and thick insulation.
On the other hand, an infrared sweat room business can be operated in very little space. A small sauna can take as little as 36” x 36” and fit 1 – 2 people. The slightly larger sauna that would fit 4 people still has a footprint as small as 71” x 41”. Either of these can be connected to a 120V/20A circuit.
Most fitness businesses only need a 1 – 4 person infrared sauna. This is because the sauna can be scheduled for use by members.
Some gyms and large fitness centers have saunas and steam rooms that can accommodate ten or more people at once. While these facilities can seem impressive, it’s rare for them to be fully occupied. Furthermore, people will often skip using the sauna when more than just a few people are there even if the space is large enough for ten people. That is because nobody likes sitting shoulder to shoulder with a stranger in a sweat-room.
A more efficient solution is to have one or multiple, smaller, infrared saunas that members can schedule in advance. This allows for private use of the sweat-room with lower electric costs by not heating such a large space.
Use Software to Effectively Schedule Your Sauna
Software can help you effectively and smoothly schedule your sauna. Plan2Play is a great resource for your fitness business, including the sauna. Your staff and clients can schedule their use of the sauna and receive email or text notifications in a user-friendly and mobile-friendly system. Take a look at all the ways Plan2Play can help with your fitness business.
FAQ
Is adding a Sauna Profitable?
There are a couple of ways that a sauna could add profit to your fitness business. This will depend on how you add this feature to your existing business and introduce it to your clients.
The sauna could be included with your existing memberships or it could be an additional paid service. How this is positioned in your business will change how you calculate your ROI. You could have an increase in membership renewals and signups, or you could have a new line of revenue.
How Much Does An Infrared Sauna Business Make?
Some infrared sauna manufacturers suggest that you can buy a 1 – 4 person commercial infrared sauna for around $5,000 – $10,000 and become profitable within the first 1 – 3 months. This seems reasonable for an existing fitness business with a client base which is adding a new service and possible revenue line for the business.
