The latest craze among professional athletes is cryotherapy. What the heck is it? And how did I end up trying it out?? Let’s find out!
I’ve been going to Barre 3 Cherry Hill for about 3 months now and loving it! One of the locations that we have classes at is the Shin Center in Garden State Park in Cherry HIll. The Shin Center is an integrative medicinal and wellness center focusing on the art of recovery! Their facility is beautiful! They have so many unique therapies I’ve never seen before! What’s even cooler?! They work with the Philadelphia Eagles on their recovery post game!! So freakin cool!! Well anyways, a couple weeks ago they had a raffle for a free Cryotherapy session and I WON! Seriously?! Freakin amazing!!!
Before I went and did my session I wanted to see what cryotherapy was all about! And mind you, I booked an appointment for Friday of that week! So I didn’t have much time! No worries though, you all know my research skills are on point so I was fine!
So what is cryotherapy? Long story short, it’s cold temperature therapy that can be done all over the body. You are exposing your body to temperatures as low as -220F which let’s just say is COLD. The entirety of the therapeutic session is done in a chamber that systematically controls the temperature at a specific rate of time anywhere from two to five minutes. It is believed that cryotherapy was developed originally to help with chronic painful conditions like multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis to help reduce inflammation.
Now the science, YAY!
When you get in the chamber,it immediately gets cold and the receptors on our skin send a signal to our brain that we are freezing and our bodies go into defense mode. Which is crazy to think that we voluntarily put ourselves in shock to get some type of benefit. When our body goes into defense mode, it sends all the nutrients and blood to our core where the blood gets oxygenated and cleaned of all toxins. After you get out of the cryotherapy chamber and bring your body to room temperature, this “fresh” blood is recirculated throughout our body. The blood is now rich in nutrients so it gives our body something better all over helping to heal and recover.
Let’s get to my cryotherapy session!
At the Shin Center, they have a room for you to change your clothes into your undergarments with a robe, socks, and slippers. Once you’ve changed, you step into the chamber which looks like a tube with a door LOL. Then they shut the door and ask for your robe which I appreciated because I don’t need to show everyone my goodies hahah. You then get lifted so your chin is above the door which is important for breathing. My specialist then set the temperature and time. At the Shin Center they do cryosauna. The chamber went cold, hot, cold, hot, and cold which lasted for a total of three minutes. But don’t fool yourself, the three minutes is HARD. It gets really hot and really cold so your body is like LADY WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?! You can see the gas around you that is formed from the cooling of the liquid nitrogen. They also gave me gloves to protect my fingers which was great because dang, it was cold. My specialist stayed with me and chatted so the three minutes didn’t feel as long.
I thought it was so fun to try something new but it’s not like I left feeling this euphoric feeling, but I did leave feeling less sore. So I appreciated that!
At the Shin Center one session of cryosauna is $50 but they have packages that make it cheaper if you go more often.
Like I always say, I’m not a doctor so before you go and commit to cryotherapy make sure you talk to your doctor!! It can be very dangerous if not done properly. It is insanely important to find a place that has a good history of these types of therapies.
If you’ve ever done cryotherapy I would love to hear from you!!
Xoxo, Z
