Recently, several separate points in my life crossed. One is that several podcasts that I listen to all referenced the same Pseudo Science – mediatation – wackadoodle Guru named Wim Hof. He has a method of controlling one’s normally autonomous functions like heartrate, body temp, immune system, breathing, and resistance to cold that seem to leverage ancient eastern yogic techniques to defy western science’s understanding of how the human body works. If you have ever heard of Buddhist monks or Yoga masters doing seemingly incredible “mind over matter” tasks, then you know what I’m taking about. There was a television show on in my childhood called “That’s Incredible!” that would showcase every so often a shaved head bald guy in a brown monk’s robe doing something wondrous.
I was still young enough that I believed magic was real and these tricks seemed more like something that a magician would do and that made it entertaining at least.
Wim Hof’s name appeared in my media stream during topics on both the Rick Roll and Effortless Swimming podcasts. One was describing using his breathing technique to help with better swimming efforts (which you will come to learn as training ramps up, is my weakest area in Triathlon) and the other was a book “What Doesn’t kill you” by Scott Carney (I need to insert an Affiliate link here!! Until then, go buy it on Amazon).
The other crossing point was a Groupon for CryoNC Cryotherapy (http://www.cryonc.com/). One of Wim Hof’s tennants to mind over body is heavily leveraging our evolutionary adaptation to cold. Our ancestors were cold adapted to live during winter with far fewer clothing options than we have. I’ll ink some articles discussing additional details on why that is a good thing.
So I bought the Groupon for CryoNC and will be using it tomorrow after my next PT appointment. I’ll write that experience in my next post.