What is Heat and Ice Training?

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The hot topic around the gym is the Fire and Ice Challenge (Heat and Ice Training), where we watched the coaches endure the ice baths at the end of August. First, this is not a challenge per say, but a quest for mental toughness. Do you have it? What are the benefits to experiencing this type of training?

Read on.

Heat and Ice Training stems from XPTLife which is a performance lifestyle technique that focuses on breath, movement, and recovery methods (@XPTLife) and was developed by “Big Wave Surfer”, Laird Hamilton, and athlete, Gabby Reece. This training method is designed to test people in ways that allow us to connect the body and mind to reestablish our abilities of being human to “live our best lives.”

XPTLife has four pillars.

They are breath, movement, recover, and water training. The breath circulates oxygen throughout your body and can help in quieting your mind, improve sleep, improve energy, and improve overall health. This method is found to help to control how the body reacts emotionally to stress and can improve performance across an array of activities. The second pillar, movement, helps to improve overall physical movement.

The third pillar, recover, has two phases of heat and cold. The heat phase allows proteins and hormones to activate which create positive processes to continue throughout the mind and body. Another possible benefit is to help cope with diseases such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, CVD, as a few examples. The cold phase helps with cardiovascular health, muscular and nervous system recovery, mental resilience, ability to moderate stress level, pain desensitization, immune function, and ability to adapt to climate change.

The fourth pillar, water training, uses the three previous pillars in combination. Breath, movement, and recover provide novelty, mindset, low-impact, practice, and recovery. Novelty is mentioned because, for a lot of people, this is a new environment and is uncomfortable which means new growth and progress. Mindset is mentioned, because of the mental game or mental challenge which can lead to mental resilience that can be adapted in other areas of life. Low-impact is mentioned as an alternative for rehabilitation to exercise with less stress on joints and tissues. Practiced breathing is mentioned, because you are placed in a forced environment to improve breathing mechanics and abilities. Overall, water training has an added benefit as it is a great recovery for the nervous system and muscles while still maintaining the training effect.

What's in it for me?

Well, the number one thing is, you get to spend more time with Coach Jeb. Seriously though, did you read the above? All those benefits are readily available to you at NorthFit Creamery. Coach Jeb is the only one in the state of Wisconsin who is a certified coach with XPTLife. He had researched this method before and was able to locate the nearest available training in Chicago. This certification is not easily available, with limited spots and locations. The certification course is taught by Coach PJ Nestler who is the Director of Performance at XPTLife and has 11 or more years of coaching athletes, mostly MMA.

Remember, Heat and Ice Training is not a challenge amongst others, but a challenge within yourself. Twenty-four NorthFit Members have accepted the challenge and have succeeded. The question is, how do I sign up? Good news this will training will be coming more available in the upcoming weeks. Email us at cffortatkinson@gmail.com to get your spot with one of the up coming sessions!

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