Kriotherapy is the latest addition to health and fitness. It may not be be entirely new but it is the first I have heard of it except or course for freezing bodies so they can supposedly wake up in a couple of hundred years time and resume their life.
It seems that freezing your but off in a room like an ice box for a matter of minutes is good for you and the list of supposed cures from Kriotherapy is impressive “ it supposedly helps with sleep problems, relieves symptoms of tiredness and depression, regenerates and revitalises the body and aids recovery of physical injuries.
Kriotherapy’s first session is set at 110C with the first 30 seconds at 60C to get acclimatized. With a warning of not to touch your arms as you could burn your skin off the treatment begins.
The treatment is of course the freezing cold dressed in just a crop top and shorts, two pairs of football socks, two pairs of gloves, a sweat band to cover your ears, tubigrips around the legs and arms, plus something that looks like an oxygen mask to protect your face.
Dressed in this fashion you are then encouraged to hop skip and jump and even dance to take your mind off the cold. This torture will cost you $35. 00 for the first session then a normal price of $50.00 a session as you will need more than one session to produce results.
Kriotherapy does a similar job to physiotherapy, the extreme cold in the chamber triggers cold temperature receptors in the skin to send a red alert signal to the brain, giving a fight or flight response.
Blood is then pumped round the body at an increased rate, and there is an increase in hormone production. It seems a severe way of healing the body but this method of therapy began in Eastern Europe in 1983. Sessions are available at Champneys Tring you do not have to be a guest at the resort.
Certain jockeys have been using krio recently to help with sports injuries. Tony McCoy has just set a new krio record, spending 3 minutes at 149C. Other celebrities said to have tried the treatment include Take That singer Jason Orange
