Lesson Learned: Don't take a hot shower right after a hard workout

amusedmonkey

I pushed myself extra hard running today, and since I was in a hurry to make it to an appointment I jumped right into the shower without resting even for a second. By the time I finished my shower I felt lightheadedness, extreme weakness, shakiness, numbness in my hands, tunnel vision, nausea, ringing in my ears that turned into some weird whooshing sound like a hybrid between an old TV without a signal and water running and I felt like I was losing myself. I sat down immediately and within minutes I regained enough composure to finish dressing. It took 2 cups of water, high sodium pickles and 15 minutes for me to get back to normal.

Apparently since blood pressure goes up during exercise, an immediate hot shower after a half-arsed cooldown will cause a sudden drop. Lesson learned...

Sabine_Stroehm

Wow. Glad you didn't pass out or otherwise hurt yourself. And glad it passed.

tcaley4

How far did you run? Do you drink water while running? It sounds like you might have got a little dehydrated as well.

amusedmonkey

Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »

Wow. Glad you didn't pass out or otherwise hurt yourself. And glad it passed.

Thank you! It was tough but it passed. I thought I'd share so others don't repeat my mistake.

tcaley4 wrote: »

How far did you run? Do you drink water while running? It sounds like you might have got a little dehydrated as well.

It wasn't a long run, it was 20 minutes with 3 minutes of warmup and cooldown, so barely 15 minutes of actual running. I did drink water, but my heart rate was over 85% almost the whole time.

ScubaSteve1962

How long have you been running?? You may want to check with your doctor. I do 60 mins of cardio keeping my heart rate over 80% with a 5 min cool down and straight to the shower, haven't experienced any problems.

beemerphile1

amusedmonkey wrote: »

I pushed myself extra hard running today, and since I was in a hurry to make it to an appointment I jumped right into the shower without resting even for a second. By the time I finished my shower I felt lightheadedness, extreme weakness, shakiness, numbness in my hands, tunnel vision, nausea, ringing in my ears that turned into some weird whooshing sound like a hybrid between an old TV without a signal and water running and I felt like I was losing myself. I sat down immediately and within minutes I regained enough composure to finish dressing. It took 2 cups of water, high sodium pickles and 15 minutes for me to get back to normal.

Apparently since blood pressure goes up during exercise, an immediate hot shower after a half-arsed cooldown will cause a sudden drop. Lesson learned...

Sounds more like dehydration than anything else. The shower may have contributed but you were probably dehydrated.

amusedmonkey

ScubaSteve1962 wrote: »

How long have you been running?? You may want to check with your doctor. I do 60 mins of cardio keeping my heart rate over 80% with a 5 min cool down and straight to the shower, haven't experienced any problems.

Not long, but this level of exertion is new to me. I usually stay at around 65%-75%. This time I was short for time so I decided to attempt to squeeze a 30-40 minute workout into a 20 minute time slot.

MostlyWater

Oh yes. Been there. Learned the hard way.