I’m sitting in the lobby of the Complete Wellness NYC Center with a group of young attractive female journalists.
We are all here to try cryotherapy for the first time. I heard about cryotherapy from a model agent several months ago gasping how it’s the latest craze and she can’t live without it so I was curious. But to be honest I wasn’t even sure what cryotherapy was. Dr Daniel Fenster comes out to the lobby to greet us and begin to tell us all about this “life optimizing” procedure. It’s at that point that I realize that I’m not getting my eggs frozen while I’m here.
Cryotherapy is based on the exposure of extreme cold to the body via nitrogen iced air. This has a multitude of benefits from reducing inflammation and adding collagen to tighten your skin to speeding the recovery of sore muscles and boosting your immune system. Apparently Lebron James has one. Sounds cool right? It wasn’t until Dr. Fenster disclosed that the use of cryotherapy can burn up to 800 calories in a 3 minute session that I realized why there were all women here. But more terrifying to me as a man who has been trying to bulk up the past year, I was in the wrong place. I quietly made a note to grab a bucket at Popeyes on the way home.
I decided to stay and check this out as I figure “Hey, I work with models, this could be good for them.” We lined up one by one wearing robes covering nothing but our underwear and socks ready to freeze the pounds off. The cryo chamber looked like some sort of fancy backyard moonshine distillery and with nitrogen steam swirling around your body as you step in, I’m halfway waiting for Scotty to beam me up. Nerves were in the air from the women as Dr. Fenster described the three minute process as the first minute “Whoa this is cold!” to the second minute “Ok, I can do this” to the third minute “Get me outta here!” But as I looked around at the women around me I could see the words “800 calories” burned in their determined eyes to make it through.
The three minutes went by quickly mainly because Dr. Fenster stands right outside the chamber distracting you with scientific banter. My knees started knocking the last 45 seconds but since he already told me I didn’t need his banter because I had tattoos and must be tough I gritted it out to the end, (even though I already had my money instagram shot).
Within a minute of getting out, my body is not only coming back to normal but is has a tingly sensation, like someone plugged me into a wall socket. It’s kind of invigorating and I’m feeling kind of cool (mind the pun). I wanted to ask for the others ladies’ numbers after seriously bonding at an ice age like minus 270 degrees fahrenheit. But I was the last one to go in so they had all left me.
In the end my thoughts were this. It was pretty damn cold. And anyways there’s no “cryo” in baseball. Plus after stepping out of that smoky chamber like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator, yeah I could do it again.
-Greg Chan
