Which Sauna is Better — Traditional or Infrared?

In April 2024, the first Xtra Clubs wellness centre was opened in Bondi Junction. This was a tremendously exciting period for our team, who had been building towards this opening since early 2023.

We had some great questions about our business and the recovery/wellness industry when we first went live with the Xtra Clubs concept.

Here’s some of our favourites from that time.

Q: Why choose Bondi Junction as the first location? Ans: We found a great site that was formerly home to a bank, meaning lots of open space. The club also sits in the middle of the Bondi Junction mall, exposing us to lots of foot traffic, along with being nearby to many gyms and a variety of convenient public transport.

Q: Was there a need for this wellness centre chain in Sydney? Ans: YES. For too long, Sydneysiders had been forgoing the health benefits of wellness therapies due to memberships and one-time costs being incredibly unaffordable. When we were researching the industry, we found that the average cost per minute to use a sauna in Sydney before Xtra Clubs was $1.10/min.

With our memberships starting from $27.95, which provides unlimited and anytime use of our wellness facilities (sauna, ice and steam), Sydneysiders finally have the opportunity to affordably benefit from a regular wellness routine.

There was one question that we received more often than any other before we opened to the doors to our first site. We’re hit with this question still, online and inside the club from our members and visitors.

The question is, what is the difference between traditional and infrared saunas?

Well, the major difference is how heat is dispersed in these saunas.

Our traditional sauna generates steam through an automated heater, which sprays waters onto hot rocks around every 5 minutes. This warms the sauna to a temperature of 80 degrees Celsius, and will break anyone into a sweat.

Alternatively, the three infrared saunas at Xtra Clubs Bondi Junction utilise far-infrared lights to heat the space. This heat doesn’t permeate throughout the room like the traditional sauna, rather it penetrates bodies at around 55 to 65 degrees Celsius.

There are arguments as to which sauna is better. Some find the infrared saunas more enjoyable as the experience is less physically demanding. Others love the intense sweat from the traditional sauna.

We recommend you try both saunas to discover for yourself which is better, or which is best suited to assisting your health goals. A deeper dive on the differences between traditional and infrared saunas, including the health benefits they provide, is available to read in this blog on our website.