The Big Chill: Alex James braves the coldest therapy on earth

The coldest therapy on earth Saunas in Sweden, muscle mashing in Moscow, a quick tweak in Thailand - Alex James is an extreme therapy junkie. But would stripping to his underwear and stepping into a deep freeze be going one degree too far?

Published: 19 February 2007

So, the idea is that, wearing only my pants, I enter an environment so cold that it would make a particularly harsh winter's night on Mars look cosy, and emerge looking younger and feeling fitter than I was before.

I'm a spa junkie. There's nothing I like more than a bit of vigorous shiatsu muscle-mashing, a thorough Russian eucalyptus bashing, some Swedish bone-crunching or a good Thai tweaking. But will I be able to withstand being chilled to minus 140C for the good of my health?

The question arises because Britain's first cryotherapy centre has just opened its doors in Battersea. The London Kriotherapy Centre (that's the Polish spelling) is the brainchild of the writer, broadcaster and former jump jockey Charlie Brooks. It's located in Battersea because this was the only site close to central London with enough space in which to store the towering liquid nitrogen tank that powers it.

I like Charlie a lot. It's always hard to know what he's going to tell me next; among other things, he has an excellent eye for racehorses, runs a Cotswold stone quarry and occasionally goes to Barbados where he wins pro-celeb golf tournaments. His inspiration for the centre came from the England rugby player Will Green, who told Charlie that his regular side Wasps had been going to Poland to use a "chill chamber" as part of their training regime. Intrigued, Charlie went to Poland to investigate.

Converted by what he found there, he has since designed and built the first human deep-freeze in this country and incorporated it within a next-generation gym. There's nothing quite like it anywhere in the world. It's jammed with all the very hottest conditioning technology.

The idea is that the clients use the centre as they would a regular gym, but they get fitter in less time. Charlie uses the coolbox every day, and recommends taking 10 sessions over a few days, but I'm looking for a one-off quick fix.

System shock as therapy is not a new idea. Charlie cites the example of 80-year-old Chinese ladies regularly bashing themselves with glass bottles in order to prevent osteoporosis. I seem to recall an Icelandic hangover remedy that involved poaching oneself in superheated geyser steam and then jumping into a frozen lake through a hole in the ice. It worked wonders.

The principle behind cryotherapy is that, exposed to the extreme cold, the 250,000 temperature receptors in the skin send a message to the brain that say something like "wow", and that a healthy body reacts well to that stimulation. It's a beneficial effect similar to training in a hypoxic (low oxygen) chamber, or at altitude; the body learns how to process oxygen better and becomes more efficient.

Many of the other understood benefits of this exposure to ultra-low temperatures are similar to the benefits of exercise: an improved ability to focus and enhanced libido are just two of them. It's also an autoimmune tuning, skin rejuvenating, cellulite busting, sleep adjusting panacea. I'm always sceptical about anything that makes this many claims. On the other hand, Charlie looks very fit indeed.

He explains that the treatment has become popular with Olympic athletes and professional footballers. He's currently zapping four of Oxford United's players who have serious injuries. The extreme cold appears to reduce recovery times, and the Oxford manager Jim Smith is very happy with the results - one of the players holds the current low-temperature endurance record of three minutes at minus 140C. That's more than halfway to absolute zero.

Charlie greets us in the clinic's space-age reception area and takes us through the standard consent forms to establish that we are hale and hearty. It's all quite rigorous, yet strangely reassuring. Our blood pressure is taken by a glamorous nurse-type person.

We then have our biological ages measured by a device that slips on the end of a finger and glows. I'm 38 but comparative vascular analysis demonstrates that I am actually 43. I have had an exceptionally good lunch and a flagon of coffee beforehand, but I am disappointed. The last time I had my age measured five years ago, it was 18. That's kids and country living for you.

Measured and tested, we are ready to go. The whole centre looks like an organic spaceship designed by the Eameses.

In the changing-room, I strip to my pants and don long socks, a Mark Knopfler headband over the ears, cotton shorts, gloves, wooden clogs and a thin gown. Charlie stresses that all the garments are made from natural fibres. I can't help thinking a nice bit of Gore-Tex might come in handy where we're going, but for all I know it might shatter at these temperatures, which are way, way below anything found on the coldest parts of the planet.

The VibroGym area, sited on the other side of the changing rooms, is peopled with several fit-looking women doing post-space-age routines.

The cryogenic chamber itself is very impressive. A futuristic-looking control panel and computer screen indicate that systems are normal, the relative humidity is zero and the temperature inside is a spine-tingling minus 107C.

We commence with a detoxifying foot spa of mineral water and Himalayan salt. Sodium ions from the salt are absorbed through the feet, rehydrating and cleansing my 43-year-old corpse. Charlie is a great advocate of the foot spa, but says that, too often, it is totally misused. He becomes very animated about foot-spa salesmen who don't use mineral water and then show you a bucket of black slops and claim that you have been detoxified. "These people are charlatans. The water should only ever turn blue. If it turns black, they're just using dirty water!" I've seen somebody do that black water routine on my wife Claire.

Usually when people start talking about ions in therapy centres, I switch off. But I trust Charlie. There are many latter-day quacks in the spa arena. My particular favourites are the ones who wave magnets around and refer to energy. If anyone ever mentions energy like that, it's best to punch them on the nose before they steal your mind.

Incidentally, there is a very popular horse-magnetising service in the Cotswolds. That's my favourite-ever piece of utter nonsense. But wherever there's cash, there are plenty of people willing to perform miracles. It's odd that pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo is more popular in the 21st century than it ever has been.

Fully cleansed, it's time to tog up for the freezer. We don face-masks to absorb exhaled moisture as it's important that the air in the deep freeze is kept dry. The water-vapour content of air normally varies continuously with temperature and atmospheric pressure. Here in the gym, the relative humidity of the atmosphere is 50 per cent (a humidity of 100 per cent would mean it was raining, and a relative humidity of 0 per cent would be extremely unusual in the biosphere).

Inside the chamber, the air has to be kept absolutely bone dry. Dry cold is more tolerable than the normal damp kind, and condensation on the body can cause scalding in these conditions.

It is seriously, deeply, scientifically cold in there. Urine would freeze before it hit the floor. If you could find your Henry, that is. The last step before entry is to slip a couple of Tubigrips around our knees. It's hard to believe we might be sweating in there, but there is a sweat gland behind the knee from which moisture can flow and cause burns. I also have to be reminded to remove my wedding ring in case it becomes temporarily glued to my finger.

I notice that the indicated temperature has fallen to minus 117C. Charlie says that's nothing. I feel nervous. Next we enter an icy foyer, which is at minus 50C or so. If the door of the really cold room were opened directly on to the ambient conditions, the temperature and humidity in there would rocket, so entry is a two-stage process.

As Charlie opens the first door, a very dramatic, dense mist billows into the room. It's quite exciting. Everyone is smiling and laughing, eyes wide like we are about to jump off a very high diving board, or out of an aeroplane or something. It is an almighty plunge. "Uh oh!" says Charlie, pointing at the screen: "Minus 130." We enter the antechamber.

Minus 50C is pretty nippy in socks and pants, but it's actually not unpleasant. It's more invigorating than numbing, but then it occurs to me that it's about to get another 80C colder. Eighty degrees! It's already pretty bloomin' nippy in the ante-chamber, and losing another 80C is going to be like walking through a door that connects the middle of Saharan Africa in high summer to the top of a mountain in Antarctica in deep midwinter. And I'm wearing clogs!

The chamber, which is about the size of a standard steam-room, holds up to four people. Any more and it gets too damp. The four of us bundle in.

How cold does that cold feel? Well, it's all relative. It feels much colder and more uncomfortable if I crouch down near the floor. Standing up straight again, I feel (relatively) rather warm and well-off. We clop and skip around in a circle. Standing still doesn't feel right at all. I shift my weight from foot to foot. Claire and Charlie are howling and laughing. Charlie announces that he's already done three minutes in here today. "Three minutes!" I say: "How long have we been in here?" "Fifteen seconds!" comes his deadpan reply.

It's so exhilarating in the room that I can't really keep track of time unless I stare at the clock. As we hop around and stamp our feet past the minute mark, it starts to get quite misty. A bucket of water would have frozen solid by now. Shouting seems the only appropriate reaction at this point. Surprisingly, no one is shivering. I feel strangely energetic. My heart is beating fast.

There's a big difference between stepping into a fantastically low temperature for a brief spell and spending a long time somewhere that's just a bit cold. They are both cold, but the latter would be torture. This is uplifting.

We count down the last 10 seconds together and fly out of the door in a cloud of sublimating mist. It has been a bonding experience. We are all looking at each other and saying: "Wow!"

"Move, move, move, keep moving! It's important," says a masseuse. I don't feel cold at all, but I've now started to feel very warm indeed. We warm up a bit more, and have our muscles massaged before entering the vibrating zone.

After detoxification, a good cooling in the nitrogen chamber, another warm-up and another massage, we begin a workout on the VibroGym - a throbbing, wobbling plate that triggers muscle reflexes while you exercise, slashing workout times by three-quarters. It appears to be irresistible to women.

Claire has already been won over by these power plates. Our neighbours have just bought one, and she uses it regularly. Standing, sitting or lying on the vibrating plate causes muscles to contract and release many times per second, in resonance with the oscillations. It's intense; so intense that 20 minutes on one is a thorough session.

It's my first time. I sit as directed on the plate with my tummy muscles tight, and my back and legs raised, as it whirrs for one minute. A slightly different series of exercises from the normal drill follow. I try a few press-ups and leg bends. It doesn't seem to be any more painful than it usually does. It's hard to tell from one 15-minute workout whether these plates work or not, but I definitely want one. Claire swears by it. Charlie is planning to make the whole gym area hypoxic, which would make for the most efficient fitness system conceivable.

As I change back into my clothes, I feel strangely similar to how I might feel had I just come out of a sauna, only more so. I feel absolutely amazing - very alert, but quite relaxed at the same time. I wonder if these iceboxes might take over from those hothouses.

After all, when saunas first arrived, people must have questioned how sensible it would be to sit in an oven. How on earth could that be good and healthy? You'd have to be mad to do that!

Therapies for our times

* VINOTHERAPY

Since the opening of the world's first official wine spa in France in 1999, several others around the world have followed suit in offering vinotherapy. The treatments, which include bathing in wine or grape extract (above), merlot or chardonnay wraps, sauvignon massages and vine wraps with wine mud, are said to firm the skin and slow down the ageing process due to the high antioxidant content of wine.

* STONE THERAPY

The physiological benefits of hot basalt rocks and cold marble stones being placed on the body (above) is said to have been "scientifically and medically proven". The "vascular gymnastics" of the circulatory system assist the body in self-healing, improve the lymphatic and immune systems and normalise body functions. Apparently.

* BEE VENOM THERAPY

Bee venom therapists apply bee venom to specific points on the body's surface (right). Patients are tested first for sensitivity. Bee venom stimulates the release of cortisone (cortisol) and is said to be effective in treating rheumatic diseases.

* MICROWAVE RESONANCE THERAPY

This is a synthesis of acupuncture and biophysics. Acupuncture points are stimulated by high frequency microwaves (52-78GHz). There are claims for "remarkable clinical results" achieved in surgery, ortho-paedics, traumatology, cardiovascular disorders, urology, gynaecology, dermatology, cardiology, neurology and oncology.

* TRANSDERMAL OXYGENATION SAUNA THERAPY

This involves being seated in a steam cabinet, with your head and neck exposed. "Oxygenation" gases are then pumped into the cabinet. It is said to help sufferers of fatigue, ME and bacterial or fungal infections, while increased blood and tissue oxygenation promotes mental and physical alertness.

* ZERO BALANCING

This body-work system aims to align the "energy body" with the physical body. Finger pressure and stretches create points of stillness around which the body can relax and reorganise. Devotees say it can help to resolve trauma (physical or emotional), and help people to cope better with periods of stress or change.

* DO IN

Meaning "self-stimulation" in Japanese, Do In combines some principles of shiatsu and acupressure with stretches, exercises, breathing and meditation techniques, in some cases in tandem with a macrobiotic diet. It's said to gather and strengthen energy (ki) in the meridian systems of the body.

* HOLOGRAPHIC REPATTERNING

This compares a human being to a hologram. The idea is that a holographic plate can accommodate millions of images and one has only to change the angle of the light to see a different picture. The client is required to lie down and the practitioner then begins an "energy transaction". It is said to help with chronic poor health, unhappy relationships, low confidence and depression.

* AUTO-URINE THERAPY

This is age-old practice of India is free and always available. It is considered by some to be effective in treating an array of diseases such as multiple sclerosis, colitis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, hepatitis, psoriasis, eczema, diabetes and herpes. More than three million Chinese drink their own urine, believing it to be good for their health.

Julia Stuart