Cold immersion is not a new idea. The Coney Island Polar Bear Club is an organization famous for taking chilling dips every year since 1903, and ice baths are a long-utilized method for athletic training in a variety of disciplines.
What’s new to the cold immersion fitness scene though, is cryotherapy, which comes to Santa Maria in March, with a new franchise location of US Cryotherapy opening up on Broadway. Cryotherapy involves a state-of-the-art cooling chamber, which plunges the temperature to negative 160 Fahrenheit over a few minutes.
This method is much more preferable to an ice bath, Ryan Zierman—who owns the Santa Maria US Cryotherapy franchise with business partners John Letters and Matt Knowlson—explained via email to the Sun.
“With Whole Body Cryotherapy (WBC), we can achieve the same outcome, if not better, in only three minutes,” he wrote. “We are able to quickly chill the whole body, whereas ice baths typically only go up to the waist level; additionally, cold air exposure has a much different feeling which provides a quick numbing effect without the pain and discomfort of ice baths.”
US Cryotherapy uses the C1 Cryochamber, and is the sole distributor for the model, Zierman explained. The machine uses a proprietary refrigeration technique that uses cold, dry air to cool clients’ skin by 35 to 40 degrees.
The therapy isn’t FDA approved as a medical treatment, as of yet, Zierman wrote, but US Cryotherapy is working to change that. The company is helping to advance studies into cryotherapy, he said. Portions of studies conducted by the National Institutes of Health are available at uscryotherapy.com as well.
“Clients have used cryochambers and localized devices for cryo facials, skin tightening, toning, and beautification,” he wrote, explaining that clients also use them for “improving sleep patterns, post surgery recovery, acute pain, chronic pain, sports recovery, and general wellness.”
The therapy has gained in popularity, though it’s still a niche market. It doesn’t help that a recent news item included a young salon worker from Las Vegas, Nev., who died in a cryochamber after she asphyxiated. Chalked up to “operator error” by investigators, the young woman was operating the machine alone after closing down the business.
The story came as a shock to many supporters of cryotherapy, but Zierman explained why the type of machine in use at the salon might be more to blame than the cold exposure itself. The type of machine was a “partial-body chamber,” Zierman explained, which uses nitrogen gas to cool clients, unlike US Cryotherapy’s full-body machines. The nitrogen gas most likely suffocated the young woman, he wrote.
“Our machines do not expose the client to anything but clean, dry air,” he wrote. “We did a lot of research on electric versus nitrogen-based cryotherapy products before this incident and determined that US Cryotherapy’s equipment was a safer product because it did not use liquid nitrogen, which can displace oxygen and be potentially harmful.”
Zierman is a Marine Corps veteran and has worked oversees as a contractor, which has taken a physical toll on his body, he explained. The cold immersion from the cryochambers helps with knots and spasms in his back, he explained, and having a safe and reliable machine for cold immersion for himself was a big motivator to invest in the company.
One of his business partners, John Letters, also owns Paragon, a Brazilian Ju-Jitsu gym in Santa Maria, Zierman said in the email. Letters is a black belt in the martial art, and the therapy has helped him stave off the pain from the accrued years of combat.
“I remember our trip to Davis to test this equipment,” Zierman wrote. “[Letters] had just come from competing at the World Championships. He had his shoulder treated with the local unit after a three-minute chamber session. He said his shoulder felt great. He will tell you, cold therapy has kept him competing at the highest levels.”
Zierman, Letters, and Knowlson are excited to get their new location equipped with the C1 Cryochambers in February, Zierman explained, and the business should be ready for clients by March 15. Located near the Broadway and McCoy intersection in Santa Maria, the business is situated to serve everyone in Santa Maria and Orcutt, and is centrally located among a number of local gyms.
“The space is perfect for our center,” Zierman wrote. “It was a hi-end salon before, and is in beautiful move-in-ready condition.”
The Santa Maria location of US Cryotherapy is currently accepting clients and offering a discount on the monthly membership fee for locals who sign up before it opens in March. Those who act sooner can get chilled out as much as twice a day for only $99 per month, Zierman explained, which, according to him, is a great deal to get blasted by subzero air on the regular.
Arts Editor Joe Payne can be reached at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 4, 2016.