One of the trendy new therapy techniques that may have come to a town near you is Cryotherapy. On the surface, the business model caters to weekend warrior/alternative medicine types. Admittedly, this is how they lured me in – as I have had a cranky back and two bum hamstrings since tripping on a rock (ok – it was actually a pebble) while running last summer. Everyone I have met with in the medical field has recommended stretching, weights, blah, blah, blah. That doesn’t help me when I play slow pitch softball and cripple myself legging out a weak Nancy pop-up to Tina from accounting.
What is Cryotherapy you ask? As a card-carrying member of the Blake Bortles Wikipedia Reading Club – I looked it up:
Cryotherapy is the local or general use of low temperatures in medical therapy. Cryotherapy is used to treat a variety of benign and malignant tissue damage, medically called lesions.[1] The term “cryotherapy” comes from the Greek cryo (κρύο) meaning cold, and therapy meaning cure. Cryotherapy has been used as early as the seventeenth century.
Its goal is to decrease cell growth and reproduction (cellular metabolism), increase cellular survival, decrease inflammation, decrease pain and spasm, promote the constriction of blood vessels (vasoconstriction), and when using extreme temperatures, to destroy cells by crystallizing the cytosol, which is the liquid found inside cells, also known as intracellular fluid (ICF). The most prominent use of the term refers to the surgical treatment, specifically known as cryosurgery. Other therapies that use the term are whole-body cryotherapy[2] and ice pack therapy.
In addition to the recovery aspect, my local establishment (ironically called Chill Cryotherapy) also markets itself as a weight loss and skin therapy clinic. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that these two fountain of youth benefits are a little snake oily.
Personally, I have known about Cryotherapy for some time since it is something that Joe Rogan has been doing (and talking about on his podcast) for a few years. Rogan goes between 3 and 4 times a week – and there lies one of the problems for the weekend warrior types that live life under any kind of a budget. Cryotherapy is expensive – a session costs about $50– it is not currently covered under any medical insurance.
To date, this is a therapy that is used by a myriad of professional athletes and entertainers like Lebron James, Justin Bieber, Chris Bosh, that good looking Portuguese soccer player, Kobe Bryant. Floyd Mayweather, Demi Moore and the reigning king of the forbidden dance … Derek Hough.
Seeing as it is good enough for my favorite athlete (Derek Hough) and entertainer (Demi Moore) I decided to give it a chance. I entered a fake stressed wood lobby that was playing the sweet sounds of Adam Levine and Maroon Five. After checking in, I was directed to make sure I was 100% dry which was a problem because my fat ass had just mowed my lawn on a brutally hot day. I was having fat guy post-exercise sweats – and had soaked through my best pair of Target Activewear Shorts. This presents a problem – because nothing can be wet when you enter the -146 degree air. With my undercarriage being a sweaty mess – I was then given a pair of see-through maternity panties to wear instead.
After putting on the paper panties, wool gloves, athletic socks (all were provided) and clogs I loudly clogged my way into the room where the human meat cooler was located. The staffer explained what was about to happen and told me he would be in there the whole time to talk me through the 3-minute session.
The session itself was not bad at all – and I made it well past the standard 2:30 session. I hardly noticed the cold as my feet and hands were covered. I noticed that the tech made it a point to talk to me the whole way through – and afterwords he said that was standard procedure to keep people from concentrating on the cold. The one thing that did stick in my mind was that because I was wearing the see-through maternity granny panty things, I did have to expose my junk to him. If a female tech was working – that would have been a bit awkward.
After the full-bodied session I then tried a localized session that would concentrate on the specific trouble area – in this case my hamstring. I entered a room with a massage-like table and a large apparatus that looked like a vacuum cleaner had sex with a nitrous tank. As I laid on my stomach the Cry-tech (not sure what else to call him) focused the vacuum cleaner-like hose on my hamstring for two to three minutes. Again – I did not feel like this was overly cold but that might have been the case because I had just left the full-bodied treatment.
Overall – the experience was positive. I think I felt good after I left but I also know that a single treatment is not going to turn back the clock on my creaky body. I would like to do this multiple times to experience the true effects but I am concerned about the costs associated with that.
While this may be a treatment that multi-millionaire basketball players can enjoy – mainstream adoption might be difficult. When looking at Google Trends – the US does not crack the top seven internationally. Though, interestingly, Dallas does crack the top seven – and is mostly likely connected with the Dallas Mavericks documented use of the therapy and Marc Cuban’s unusually dark and full head of hair.
In final summation, my guess is that the business model for Cryotherapy is going to be difficult to sustain. Individual sessions are too pricey for repeated use – and I don’t see how this being something that will be covered under your medical plan anytime soon. You might have to just recover the old fashion way… take Aleve 4 times a day and stop exercising all together.