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American Alpine ski racer Lindsey Vonn gave fans a glimpse into her recovery routine as she shared moments from her evening sauna session on Instagram, just months after returning to the sport in November 2024. She underwent a knee surgery in April 2024.
Vonn announced her retirement from professional skiing in February 2019, because of right knee injuries. She retired after the 2019 World Championships, where she earned a bronze medal, ending her career on the podium.
However, the former World Cup champion decided to come back nearly six years after her retirement in 2024. Vonn’s first season after returning has been promising. She finished second in the Super-G at the 2025 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Finals in Idaho, earning a silver medal and becoming the oldest Alpine skier to make a podium finish at the World Cup.
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Lindsey Vonn returned to workout sessions after hosting the 2025 Laureus World Sports Awards, which took place on April 21, in Madrid, Spain. Through her Instagram story, she shared her fresh glow during a sauna session, as she wrote in the story:
"Evening sauna sesh"
Vonn had previously shared about sauna and cold plunge through her feed. Following her retirement in September 2023, she posted a video of about 1 hr workout, followed by sauna and cold plunge. She wrote in the caption:
“Always try to prep for long travel to stay healthy and avoid jet lag. Here’s my 1-hour workout followed by s'auna and cold plunge. Need to hydrate and finish with a protein shake.
Lindsey Vonn returned from retirement to compete in the Alpine skiing season 2024–25, and is hoping to compete in the 2026 Winter Olympics. She recently completed her first spring training camp in over ten years.
Lindsey Vonn opens up about whether she prefers sauna or cold plunge after workout sessions
Lindsey Vonn shared her recovery routine and the benefits of sauna and cold plunge during an appearance on the Habits & Hustle podcast with Jennifer Cohen. Reflecting on what her trainer once told her, Vonn explained why cold plunges are not recommended immediately after weightlifting.
"If you go into a cold plunge after you weight lift—when you weight lift, your muscles are being torn apart, you're actually tearing your muscle, and then it rebuilds on top of itself to make it even stronger. So if you jump into a cold plunge right after, you are stopping—like the tearing, it's bleeding—your muscle’s bleeding. It's not going to be able to repair itself, like it's not going to be better than what it was. So it's going to stop the healing. So normally, you should get in a cold plunge after cardio, she said.
She further added:
Sauna is good, but for me, if I jump into the sauna without the cold plunge, I get too inflamed. I’m a little bit odd in that, because of all my surgeries—when I go into a hot tub or a sauna, my circulation gets going, and then my knee starts to blow up."
Vonn concluded by saying that if she stopped working out, she would fall apart, and it was an important part of her life not to get hurt.
