Cryotherapy in Sports

Cryotherapy is the well-kept secret of the world’s best athletes including Matej Tóth, Christiano Ronaldo, Floyd Mayweather or LeBron James. In the playing field, ring or pitch, it’s the small details that make the winner. Cryotherapy can be the most crucial one.

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How cryotherapyin sport works?

Step 1: Sportsman enters the cryosauna

After entering the cryosauna, a cold flow of nitrogen and air mixture activates thermoreceptors in the skin. These start to send electrical impulses to the brain. The CNS identifies a state of threat. This activates a complex adaptive reaction focused on defending the body to survive in an extremely cold environment.

Step 2: Vasoconstriction

The central nervous system sends signals to the muscles and vascular system, invoking contraction of muscles and narrowing of the blood vessels. This accelerates the flow of blood, nutrition and other resources from peripheral body parts to the body core.

Step 3: Detoxification and blood enrichment

In order to swiftly supply enough nutritional substances to core organs, the body starts hyperproduction to enrich blood with erythrocytes, oxygen, collagen and other essential substances. Metabolites and toxins are quickly degraded and eliminated.

Step 4: Vasodilatation

After leaving the cryosauna, thermoreceptors recognize the return to normal environment, which triggers vasodilatation and the return of enriched blood to peripheral body parts. Nutritional substances transferred by blood are absorbed by peripheral systems – muscles, tissues, joints and skin.

Local cryotherapy for sportsmen

Health and peak performance are essential for the success of every athlete. Whether professional or recreational, modern sports often place extraordinary, sometimes extreme, demands on the human body. It is almost inevitable that athletes will face some form of injury, ranging from minor strains to more serious issues.

In cases of significant injuries to the musculoskeletal system, or even small repetitive microtraumas caused by intense physical activity, the local application of nitrogen at temperatures as low as -130°C can be highly effective. This intense cold helps to reduce pain and significantly speeds up the healing of tissues, allowing athletes to recover more quickly.

Furthermore, nitrogen therapy can aid in increasing the range of motion, which is crucial for athletes during rehabilitation. This broader range of motion allows them to regain their flexibility and continue with the recovery process without being held back by physical limitations.

By reducing pain, this treatment also helps athletes stay motivated throughout their recovery. It enables them to continue exercising and remain active during the healing process, something that would otherwise be difficult or impossible due to pain and discomfort.

Whole-body cryotherapy for sportsmen

Whole-body cryotherapy is widely recognized as the most effective and comprehensive method for recovery and rejuvenation of the musculoskeletal system. This advanced treatment is known for its exceptional ability to enhance recovery, which is why it has been adopted by athletes, gyms, and sports clubs around the world.

Thanks to its unique benefits, whole-body cryotherapy is now a key part of the training and recovery routines of top-tier sports organizations. Elite clubs like Juventus Turin, Udinese Calcio, Inter Milan, and the San Francisco 49ers have integrated cryosauna sessions and cryotherapy into their regular training programs, helping their athletes to recover faster, reduce muscle soreness, and improve overall performance.

Cryosaunas provide an ideal, ergonomic, and highly effective solution for not only sports clubs and gyms, but also for physiotherapy centers and recovery clinics. Individual athletes, too, have found cryotherapy to be a valuable tool in their personal recovery processes, helping them maintain peak physical condition and stay competitive.

Whether it’s used for post-training recovery or to manage and prevent injuries, whole-body cryotherapy has become a cornerstone in the world of professional sports and athletic performance.

Cryotherapy procedurefor sportsmen

During a 2-3 minute session in a cryosauna, the human body is rapidly exposed to extremely low temperatures of approximately -130°C. This intense cold triggers a powerful physiological response, making it one of the most effective recovery treatments available today.

To enhance the benefits of cryotherapy, it is highly recommended to follow the session with 15-20 minutes of kinesiotherapy, such as riding a stationary bicycle or engaging in another form of light aerobic exercise. This combination maximizes the body's recovery process, helping to stimulate circulation and improve muscle rehabilitation.

In addition to its well-known benefits for muscle recovery and the locomotive system, cryotherapy stimulates the production of beta-endorphins, often referred to as "feel-good" hormones. These natural chemicals induce a profound sense of happiness and boost energy levels, leaving the individual feeling motivated and uplifted after the session.

The sense of well-being, combined with an analgesic effect that reduces pain and increases resistance to physical strain, will last for 3 to 5 hours following the procedure. This makes cryotherapy not only an excellent tool for physical recovery but also a highly effective method for improving mental and emotional well-being, promoting a positive outlook, and increasing overall activity levels for several hours post-treatment.

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Sportsmen’s reviews

“Cryotherapy is a key part of my year-round training. I take three 10-course treatments annually to recover after intense training. It’s quick, less exhausting than ice baths, and the endorphins boost my motivation. Local cryotherapy has also helped me recover from injuries, allowing me to compete in the London Olympics despite a tibial tendon issue!”

Matej Tóth, Slovak race walker, Olympic champion

"I’ve used cryotherapy for 5 years, 3-4 times a week, for recovery between matches. It reduces fatigue, boosts my motivation, and keeps me feeling healthy. It also helps prevent injuries, and I treat minor ones with local cryotherapy using cryophen."

Tomáš Surový, Ice Hockey

“As an athlete, I’ve had a positive experience with cryotherapy since 2005. It helped me recover from muscle injuries, and since 2012, I’ve taken 10-course treatments during summer to speed up recovery and relax muscles. I also do another treatment before the main season to boost my immune system and aid muscle and tendon recovery.”

Martin Otčenáš, Biathlonist

Cryotherapy In Sport FAQRead all FAQ

What does cryotherapy do for athletes?

Cryotherapy is extremely popular among athletes for its benefits. First of all, it helps to recover faster after serious physical overloads. It also helps to reduce muscle afterward, so that an athlete can quickly get back to training. Second, cryotherapy reduces inflammation, and eliminates pain, helping with faster healing of tissues. Third, cryotherapy helps relax overworked muscles and improve flexibility. All these benefits help an athlete to stay motivated in the recovery process; therefore, cryo sessions became an integral part of the training process for many professional sportsmen.

How does cryotherapy improve athletic performance?

Studies performed on professional athletes found that those who used cryotherapy five days in a row showed greater effectiveness and faster recovery. Moreover, the researchers concluded that whole body cryo sessions after moderate-intensity training are more effective for the recovery process (compared to training without cryostimulation after). The reason is that cryotherapy redirects fresh blood to injured sites, accelerates tissue repair, and reduces muscle pain and swelling.

Are cryosaunas safe?

There are 2 safety things that usually bother people who are going to try cryotherapy for the first time: is liquid nitrogen dangerous and are cryosaunas safe (as a machine)?

As for liquid nitrogen, it is the same nitrogen that makes up the air we breathe (78% of the air is made up of nitrogen). Nitrogen is used for a number of surgical applications; it is even used in modern cooking in gourmet restaurants to prepare exquisite food. However, using it in a cryosauna it is cooled down, so the gas is cold. Therefore, there are a few considerations that need to be made to make sure that everyone is safe – to remove from the body jewelry and any other metal, and ensure that your skin is dry from moisturizers, oils or sweat.

Talking about cryosauna safety itself, much has been done to make this machine 100% safe for its users. Cryomed has developed an innovative safety system (Accident Prevention System) and was the first one on the market of cryotherapy devices who implemented it. It consists of the human-position sensor in the cabin, the door-opening sensor, the session emergency stop button, and ventilation.

The ultrasonic sensor – controls the user’s position in the cabin. It will not allow the procedure to start unless the operator raises the lift step to the desired height. This is made to avoid breathing in nitrogen vapors.
Session emergency stop and ventilation – if anything abnormal occurs during the procedure, the cryo safe mechanism instantly stops the session and activates the ventilation.
The door-opening sensor – if the cabin door opens by accident, another sensor will prevent excessive nitrogen vapors from entering the premises by stopping the procedure.

All these features give us the right to say that cryosaunas are safe for users.