A YouTube demonstration (Ben Greenfield) of whole-body cryotherapy at Cryohealth in Dubai. Staff explain the procedure and claimed benefits for athletes (faster recovery, reduced lactic acid, improved circulation) and note that sessions are short (machine switches off after three minutes). Temperatures mentioned: up to −160°C; Ben's session noted at −144°C (≈−244°F). Post-session warming (e.g., light exercise) is recommended.
Questions this video answers
Minus 160 degrees Celsius.
Three minutes.
Minus 144 degrees Celsius (reported as about −244°F).
Chapters
Foreign.
Hey, I'm Ben Greenfield. I just finished breakfast and I'm walking through a mall in Dubai, about to go freeze my ass off. The name of this place is Cryo. Cryo. And apparently they have these cryo chambers that you climb into and freeze inside. Sounds like fun, huh? Let's go give it a try.
Morning, man.
Hello.
Welcome to Cryo.
I've heard this is the place where you come to get cold.
It's the place to recover like no other place in the world.
All right, cool. So can you show me how this thing works?
Everything from beginning to the end. How you feeling today?
I'm feeling super duper hot, so I'm.
Hoping this is gonna help out.
Good. All right, cool. All right, let's do this.
Oh, geez.
Here we go, folks. All right, so I have some special, special mittens that you saw earlier. I'm going to put these bad boys on. Or not. I'll just hold them. I'll keep my hands up. So. Alright, so I've got my colleague down here who's going to explain to me exactly what's going on, as I am, as you can see, enveloped in a freezing cold chamber. So what are some of the reasons that somebody wants to do something like this?
Hollow body cryotherapy, predominantly used by athletes, sportsmen and women as a means for muscle recovery, almost as a substitute for an ice bath. The sort of physiological reaction that takes place during an ice bath is multiplied inside the whole body, quite sore, without the pain of ice and the duration required as well.
So are there like athletes, teams, people like that actually using this and finding it beneficial?
So in Europe and in the States, there's the Welsh rugby team. Huge advocates of whole body cryotherapy. NFL teams in the States, you've got the likes of Kobe Bryant and Cristiano Ronaldo. I would have to be in their homes. I'm aware of Floyd Mayweather using it as well as Frank Ribery. So Mikal from all sorts of sports, you know, Usain Bolt, Mo Farrow. Any field of sports where you're using your body, you know, the quicker you can recover, the quicker you can.
It's starting to get cold in here. How long do I need to stay in that?
So you've been in there at the.
Moment for a minute. So. Right, so like halfway there, halfway there.
The majority of the blood sugar rush to the core and it's circulating the core now, but you're inhaling the normal amount of oxygen. Just means that the blood concentrated in the core has more oxygen Going there. So the moment that you step out, all that oxygen enriched blood just gonna rush through your body, get rid of all that lactic acid buildup, increase the circulation and delivery of oxygen, minerals, nutrients while you're in there is why your body's.
So basically I'm gonna feel like a freaking rock star when I step out of.
Exactly. And while you're in there as well, there's a lot of adrenaline endorphins rushing through the body just to make sure.
Does anybody ever like stay in here like for a really long time? Like is everybody just like hop in here for like 15 minutes? No, no, no, no.
The maximum the machine switches off after three minutes.
Nobody's gonna like die in here.
Yeah, we don't want to warm stuff.
Wow, this is crazy. So why is there, why is there an exercise bike behind you?
So here it's just to get your blood back out of the absolute strength. Just get that circulation going so your body doesn neglected it. We want to make sure everything is fully working. So warming up is extremely important after whole body cryotherapy.
Gotcha. And how cold does this thing go to?
It can go up to minus 160 degrees Celsius.
What am I at right now?
Right now you are at 144.
So minus 144 Celsius.
Yes.
Do you know what that is in Fahrenheit for our US?
About 250 up to 240.
Wow. Alright. Wow. I am. I'm chilly. I'm chilly. That was amazing. So cool. Pun intended. My thoughts on this. I am not wet, which is really nice. Compared to the cold water immersion and the cold showers that I usually do. I'm just as cold, but it's kind of a different type of cold. It almost feels like it kind of penetrated the skin almost. And it's cold like a little bit, a little bit deeper than what I'd get with water. Unlike the water, I'm not shivering afterwards even though I'm cold. So I'm curious to see how I feel in like 15, 20 minutes. But it definitely. It's mid morning. I wasn't super tired going in there, but it definitely kind of woke me up and gave me this little burst of energy. So I was supposed to ride a little bike for a little while and warm up afterwards. I skipped that. So I'm probably a little bit colder than I should be. But either way this is really interesting stuff. And if you want to look this up, it's called cryotherapy. The place that I'm at is called cryohealth here in Dubai in the Jumeirah Emirates Malls. They've got a few other places in the United Arab Emirates. But if you're interested in cryotherapy, I can attest to the fact that you will not die after three minutes of extreme cold temperatures. It's actually kind of cool, the sensation that you feel. It definitely wakes you up. And there's a lot of sports teams, a lot of athletes now kind of tapping into this. So check it out if you get a chance to. I would Google perhaps the name of your city and the word cryotherapy. It's worth dipping into a chamber at least once. All right, later.
