Recovery · Laguna Hills
The door shuts and the room is yours.
Iron Ambition has a Sunlighten infrared sauna and a cold plunge in one private room. Use them on their own, or on the back of a training session in the same building.
The room
Heat and cold, three steps apart.
Most people in south Orange County drive to one place for heat and somewhere else for cold. Here they share a room, and the room is booked for you.
Sunlighten infrared sauna
Infrared heats you rather than the air around you, so it runs cooler than a traditional sauna and is easier to sit in for a full session. Cedar-lined, with red light.
Cold plunge
Cold water immersion, straight after the heat or on its own, and short by design. This is not an endurance contest, and nobody is timing you against anyone else.
Temperatures and timing
The numbers, before you book.
These are the ranges infrared saunas and cold plunges work in, and the guidance clinicians give for using them. Your own numbers get set with Austin or Rachael at the consult, against what you are training for.
- Infrared sauna, 110–135°F
- A traditional sauna runs 150°F and up. Infrared heats your body rather than the air around it, so the room stays cooler and a full stretch of it is easier to sit through. Sunlighten rates the Amplify line to 165°F.
- Cold plunge, 50–60°F to start
- That is the range most people begin in. Experienced plungers work down toward 39–50°F. Colder is not better, it is just colder, and there is nothing to prove in the tub.
- Ten to fifteen minutes hot, one to three cold
- Cleveland Clinic suggests starting around 110°F for five to ten minutes and building from there, and keeping any single sauna session under thirty. Plunge time is short by design.
- Three or four times a week
- Which is why the memberships are sold at one, two or three sessions a week rather than as drop-ins. The effect is in the repetition.
- Allow about an hour
- Three cycles of heat and cold, plus changing either side of it. The room is booked for you, so the pace is yours.
Heat and cold immersion both put real load on the heart and circulation. If you are pregnant, have a heart condition or a blood pressure problem, have any circulatory or nerve condition, or take medication that affects how you regulate temperature, speak to your doctor before booking. This is a general note, not medical advice, and we are not qualified to clear you. Bring water, and get out if you feel dizzy or unwell.
Why it is attached to coaching
The people who built the room also write the program.
Austin and Rachael know what you did on Tuesday, so they can tell you whether today is a heat day or a rest day. That answer comes from having been in the room when you trained.
You book the room, not a seat in it
The door shuts and the hour is yours, at whatever pace you want to run the cycles.
It is attached to coaching
Add it to a session and Austin or Rachael will tell you what to do with it that week. That is a different answer after a heavy lower-body day than after a rest day.
One building, one bill
Training and recovery in the same place, ten steps apart, settled in one conversation at the consult.
The heat-then-cold sequence has a name and a body of research behind it. What that research does and does not support is worth ten minutes of your time before you pay for it.
How contrast therapy worksMemberships
From $220 a month.
Recovery runs on a monthly membership rather than a drop-in rate, because the benefit is in the repetition rather than in any single session.
- Restorative Starter · 1×/week
- $220/mo
- Recovery Builder · 2×/week
- $320/mo
- Rejuvenation Pro · 3×/week
- $420/mo
Ask about the recovery room
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Common questions
What people ask about the recovery room.
- Where can I find an infrared sauna and cold plunge in Orange County?
- Iron Ambition has both in one private room at 26945 Cabot Road in Laguna Hills, a short drive from Laguna Niguel, Aliso Viejo, Mission Viejo, Lake Forest and Laguna Beach. Most places in south Orange County offer one or the other, so the usual alternative is two appointments in two buildings.
- Is the sauna private or shared?
- Private. The whole room is yours for the session and the door shuts behind you. That is the main practical difference between this and a drop-in recovery studio, where your slot is timed because somebody is waiting on it.
- What kind of infrared sauna is it, and how hot does it get?
- A cedar-lined Sunlighten infrared sauna with red light. Infrared saunas run around 110 to 135 degrees, against 150 and up for a traditional sauna, because infrared heats your body rather than the air around it. Sunlighten rates the Amplify line to 165. The setting you actually use gets agreed with Austin or Rachael, since it depends on what you are training for and how well you tolerate heat.
- Do I have to train here to use the recovery room?
- No. Recovery memberships stand on their own. What you get by training here as well is that Austin or Rachael know what you did that week, so they can tell you whether today is a heat day or a rest day. Nobody at a recovery-only studio can answer that.
- How long should I allow for a session?
- About an hour. That is roughly three cycles of ten to fifteen minutes in the heat and one to three in the cold, plus changing either side of it. Because the room is booked for you rather than shared, nothing runs to a clock except your own.