🥵 The Best Purchase I've Ever Made

In this week's P.O. Box:

It’s been almost two months since I got my at-home sauna up-and-running, so I figured I’d give an update on sauna life and answer a bunch of questions I’ve received…

♨️ Where did you get your sauna?

The company is called Salus Saunas. I got the “Stamina” model—a 3-person, traditional indoor sauna. It ain’t cheap, but considering 1) it’s helped me fully eliminate a gym membership 2) I use it all the time and 3) I’ve dreamed of getting one of these for almost 5 years, it was relatively easy to justify the splurge.

There is no promo code Pete here. I am not getting paid to promote them. I will say, though, I did have a very good customer service experience with Salus and Javier. They answered a ton of my questions, accommodated a specific shipping schedule, and were very helpful throughout the process.

They initially got on my radar when Haralabob posted one of their barrel saunas on Twitter. The outdoor barrel sauna was very tempting, but ultimately I decided I didn’t want to deal with the New England elements and inevitable wear and tear over the years.

🚨 Did you consider an Infrared sauna?

I know people who love their Infrared saunas and they are also cheaper/easier to install (more on that in a sec), but I much prefer the traditional saunas that heat the air first and get much hotter. The literal sweat and mild discomfort is a big part of the appeal for me and that experience just isn’t there for me with the Infrareds.

My sauna is generally heated around 180-185 degrees and it takes 45 minutes to reach those temps after turning it on.

There’s also way more research on the benefits of traditional saunas because of all the Scandinavian studies that have taken place over the years.

I’m not here to get in a sauna battle, though. I reserve my holy wars for more important causes, like pickleball and slow drafts.

🥵 What’s your typical sauna use look like?

There is rarely a day I’m not using the sauna, so it’s pretty much seven days a week.

I spend between 15-20 minutes in the sauna each session and take a quick cold shower before and a long cold shower after. I wish I had time for a full sauna “protocol” where you are alternating between multiple hot and cold sessions for over an hour, but who the hell has time for that?

One switch I’ve made in the past few weeks is not using the sauna before bed. Initially, I liked the idea of using the sauna as a relaxing wind down after a long day of tilting best ball snipes and responding to YouTube comments, but I found it hard to get my body temperature down fast enough and was overheating.

I’m now primarily doing it in the morning or after a workout in the afternoon or early evening.

🔈️ What do you do in there?

That’s a personal question, but I opened this can of worms and now I must deal with it.

I’m on Team No Phone in the sauna (seriously, y’all Team Phone In 180 Degree Heat people are crazy; some of us care about our Androids), but I do like bringing in a small, Bluetooth speaker.

Depending on my mood, I’ll either meditate, listen to music (my favorite sauna album currently), or listen to a podcast.

I’ve found the sauna + meditating to be a really great habit stack because I otherwise struggle to prioritize meditation and the heat stress naturally forces me to focus on breathing more, which dovetails nicely with the guided Headspace meditations I’ll fire up.

👷 How hard is the install? Electrical work?

The traditional sauna heater requires a 240v, 30-amp set-up, so I had to get an electrician to come and properly configure the outlets near the sauna and then install the heater itself once we had assembled the sauna. That’s certainly one thing to consider if you are ambivalent on traditional vs. infrared (the latter requires no special electrical set-up).

The sauna was all delivered piecemeal inside a giant shipping crate that was easy to breakdown.

The assembly is definitely a two-person job. It took my Dad and I about four hours to put the full thing together. There is a decent amount of precision measuring required when setting up the base, but then everything comes together fairly easily.

I might be underestimating the “handyness” required, though, since I am worthless with these things and my dad is a natural (retired Civil Engineer). The combo of the instruction manual and video tutorial was solid, though.

🏈 I’ve seen your drafts (Romeo Doubs at 96?). At least you’ll be getting a sweat somewhere this season?

Yes.

📺 BBM4 Drafts: #78 Best Ball After Dark w/ Eaglezzz, #79 & #80 Best Ball Breakfast, #81 & #82 Splash Play, #83 w/ Kerrane, #84 w/ Siegele, #85 Swolecast (w/ mission), #86 Ship Chasing (w/ Chris Allen)

💡 Best Ball Tips. #30: Predict ADP Moves.

🤯 Weekly Winners mega strategy guide. Had fun trying to wrap my head around all of the strategic angles for this new Underdog best ball format over at Fantasy Life.

😡 The RB Who Vows To Run VIOLENTLY. Wrote about one of my favorite Zero RB targets for Fantasy Life. And one of my biggest early RB fades.

🎡 The Jake Trowbridge Randomizer. Watch the very talented Jake sing emo songs, impersonate Denzel Washington, become a literal cheesehead, and improvises a scene as a drugged out Aaron Rodgers.

💎 My favorite late-round QB right now. Need to balance out all that Howell exposure. Also, I love this backfield.

☣️ More DFS drama? Justin Macmahan joins LOLz to discuss the rise and fall of his old DFS company, Daily Fantasy Insider, including a big dispute with his tech partner and a failed sale attempt. Includes wild stories about why he's not playing on his own account on DraftKings anymore, if he has outstanding DFS debt, and whether or not he paid TikTok superstar Josh Richards to promote his new site on Twitter.

🏀 Boots On The Ground At NBA Summer League. Mike Zakarian from Team Hold swings by to recap his trip to Summer League, seeing Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson up close, and some celebrity sightings. The gang also discuss the Damian Lillard trade rumors.

Like so many people, I am loving The Bear S2. I’m amazed at how much ground they cover in relatively short episodes. Every character is complex and fully-fleshed out. The visuals are stunning, too.

The only downside is watching this show at night stresses me out…

Fantasy Life launched our new website this week and, speaking of stunning visuals, it looks so slick. Check it out when you get a sec:

Thank you for all of the Twitter tags this week alerting me to this story:

Didn’t realize there was a first generation of piss boys…

Saturday at 9pm ET the Best Ball After Dark streams roll on with Jen Eakins from 4for4. Join us for drinks, some laughs, and a BBM4 draft. Become a YouTube member here for access:

If you are 1) in Underdog Cardio Club and 2) live in or around New York City, mark your calendar for a live event I’ll be hosting with Underdog on August 4 in the afternoon. More details to come, but UCC members should have received an email this week with a form.

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