More recovery methods is not a better routine — a 38-year-old pro dropped the sauna

Recovery routines only grow. You add cold plunges, then a massage gun, then compression boots, then a sauna. Almost nothing ever comes off the list, because nobody checks whether the last addition did anything.

Tim Ream, 38, who captained the United States at the 2026 World Cup, moved in the other direction too. He has kept a serious recovery routine for years, and he has also genuinely removed the parts that did nothing for him.

What he kept and what he cut

• Kept — red light therapy, cold plunges, manual soft-tissue work, cryotherapy, Normatec compression boots. This is the combination he has leaned on over the past year and a half to hold recovery between sessions and matches.
• Cut 1 — the sauna. Dropped a few years ago. He did not feel better for it; he felt more drained.
• Cut 2 — compression tights. He used to wear them constantly. Now they are an occasional thing, not a standing habit.

The point is not that saunas are useless. This is one athlete's experience, and on group averages the sauna has reported benefits (see sauna dosing for lifters). The point is that he actually separated what stays from what goes.

Why a shorter list is better

Every method costs time and money. Ten minutes in cold water, twenty in compression boots, fifteen in a sauna is 45 minutes a day on top of training. If those 45 minutes do not raise performance in the next session, they are better spent on sleep, food or another working set. A long list also hides cause: run six things at once and you end up believing all six are necessary.

How to test it

Remove one thing at a time for two to three weeks. Hold training volume and sleep steady, and log reps at a given load plus how you feel after sessions. No difference means the method can leave the list. A clear difference means it earns its place. Without removing it, you never find out which.

Heavy loads are not what keeps speed as you age

What Ream added over the past three to four years was training, not gear. He uses flywheel-based kinetic work (a kBox) where you push one way while being pulled the other, plus plyometric work with a little load on top, moving laterally and vertically. In his words, the misconception is that you have to move heavy weight to maintain speed; the actual work is adding a little resistance and moving against it as fast as you can.

That is his opinion, but it points the same way the research does. Pushing light loads at maximum intent raises the force you produce at a given velocity before it raises velocity itself (see what speed work actually raises). Given that the first thing to fade after 40 is rate of force development rather than maximal strength, loading the bar heavier is not the only available answer.

Use your strength score to audit the routine

Feel is a poor instrument for judging what breaks when a method is removed. A relative strength score calculated from squat, bench press and deadlift one-rep maxes is one of the few objective numbers available for this. Record your current lifts before you drop something, then retest under the same conditions three weeks later. If the score holds or rises, the method was a habit rather than recovery. If it drops noticeably, put it back. Comparing the two dates in the strength calculator makes the call much faster.