Twenty minutes in a tub of ice water or three minutes in a whole body cryotherapy chamber – that’s now a choice for student athletes at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), thanks to the recent addition of a cryotherapy chamber from Atlanta-based Impact Cryotherapy.
Georgia Tech has become the first NCAA Division I athletic program to adopt Impact Cryotherapy’s state-of-the-art chamber. Cryotherapy is used worldwide by athletes and others to maintain fitness and increase energy. Athletes, ranging from professionals to weekend warriors, claim that whole body cryotherapy gives them an edge over competitors by allowing them to recover faster from workouts and train harder.
“We’re looking at it as a valuable recovery tool,” said Tech’s Director of Sports Medicine, Jay Shoop. “It reduces the temperature in the extremity tissues and drives blood to your core, and once you come out the blood starts coming back, creating something of a flushing process. It gets rid of lactic acid, but mostly post-game, post-workout soreness.” Shoop added that 30 to 40 student athletes a day are currently using the chamber.
“We try to stay on the cutting edge of our industry,” Shoop said. “If there is something innovative out there that is going to help our athletes get better quicker, recover quicker, or have any kind of advantage, Georgia Tech is going to do that.”
“We couldn’t be more pleased that our hometown team at Georgia Tech is the first to adopt the Impact Cryotherapy system,” said Richard E. Otto, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Impact Cryotherapy.
“Extreme cold has been used to treat inflammation for centuries; that’s the idea behind immersing the body in an ice bath,” said Otto. “In the 1970s in Japan, cryotherapy treatments were used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, and that spread to Europe, which developed the whole body cryotherapy systems in use today. Impact Cryotherapy is the only American-designed and American-manufactured system.”
The user stands inside the patent-pending, octagonal-shaped chamber during treatment on an adjustable platform, which ensures their head remains outside the chamber. The Impact Cryotherapy chamber is filled with nitrogen vapor, which drops the temperature to a range of (minus) -140°C to -170°C and temporarily lowers the temperature of the skin’s top layer. This treatment lasts a maximum of three minutes. Once out of the chamber, the body immediately reheats.
About Impact Cryotherapy
Impact Cryotherapy is the national leader in designing and manufacturing whole body cryotherapy systems. The company’s state-of-the-art systems are sleek, attractive single-person chambers that are engineered and manufactured in the United States in an ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified facility. Impact Cryotherapy is redefining the age-old technique of cryotherapy with advanced technology and aesthetics to deliver unmatched efficiency, comfort and reliability. Learn more at www.impactcryo.com.