Latest news with #ArtOfCryo
Forbes
22-07-2025
- Health
- Forbes
Visit World's Largest Cryotherapy Chamber In Madeira, Portugal
The cold chamber at Coolzoone, Funchal, Madeira Coolzoone The Portuguese island of Madeira has plenty of attractions but since last year international visitors have been making special trips to Madeira to visit Coolzoone which has the largest, longest and widest walk-through cryotherapy chamber in the world. Cryotherapy (extreme cold treatment) offers appealing potential benefits including stress and pain relief, help with weight loss and increased energy levels. Athletes have also used Cryotherapy to enhance their performance. The "longest duration full body contact with ice" according to Guiness World Records is currently held by Łukasz Szpunar who managed to stay submerged in ice for four hours and two minutes, in Tarnobrzeg, Poland, on 4 November 2023. But this is clearly not for the average person who might want to enjoy the positive effects of cold temperatures without spending four hours on ice. Cryotherapy, which involves short bursts of exposure (usually up to three minutes), sometimes as low as -200 degrees, is more manageable and chambers of varying sizes can be found in European locations like Berlin, Madeira and London and in many North American locations too. Infrared Light and Ionized Oxygen Chamber at Coolzoone, Madeira Coolzoone At Coolzoone Madeira, guests step into German brand Art of Cryo's Unical Vaultz V12, the world's largest cold therapy treatment experience. With room for up to 12 people, it's large enough to have a small party inside. Unlike plunging yourself into freezing water, although cryotherapy does involve temperatures lowered to subzero levels, typically ranging from -110 °C to -140 °C, the dry air cold rather than wet cold feels more tolerable. And you're only in the chamber for a few minutes during which time you want to move briskly, jog or do squats etc. Although there are a few variations of cryotherapy, the most popular one is whole-body cryotherapy which takes place in a special chamber like the one at Coolzoone. The brief exposure to extreme cold is thought to trigger a variety of physiological responses. Cooling the body has therapeutic benefits. Studies have shown an improvement in myocardial function and cardiac performance after a single session of cryotherapy. Infrared Light and Ionized Oxygen Chamber at Coolzoone Madeira Paul Allen / Andfotography2 Cryotherapy is commonly used to manage symptoms associated with musculoskeletal injuries and to support athletic recovery. Its primary goals include relieving muscle pain, swelling and inflammation by toning and tightening the Vagus nerve. This nerve is responsible for reducing inflammation in the body and works to increase communication between the brain and every major organ. Most people who've experienced Cryotherapy immediately notice an increased energy level. Another potential benefits include better brain clarity, improved sleep thanks to quicker blood flow from the extremities to the core. And for people looking to achieve weight loss, during cryotherapy, body fat converts from white fat (the stubborn type we get in later life) to brown fat (the type we have pre-puberty which is broken down and metabolized more quickly). But don't assume this is a magic bullet to a slimmer figure as exercise and a good diet are essential alongside cryotherapy. Coolzoone offers a 30 minute circuit that includes a full body scan which can feel a bit intimidating but it's essential to analyze your posture, muscle structure, body composition and alignment. Following the scan, you maneuver the bottom half of your body into a cylinder to experience the 'Flow System' described as a massage for your insides. It claims to help strengthen your connective tissue, flush out toxins and water weight and boost your circulation. The next stage is a relaxing eight minutes in an Infrared Light and Ionized Oxygen Chamber that promotes cell regeneration and breaks down toxins. Finally, the big chill, in a series of cryo chambers starting with -10°C to -110°C in a few minutes, does leave you feeling super energised. Vidavii London circuit of breathe, freeze and squeeze Vidavii Cryotherapy is offered in various guises worldwide. Similar to Coolzoone, Vidavii in London's Mayfair offers the same 'Art of Cryotherapy' technology in an energy-boosting, 30-minute circuit of 'breathe, squeeze and freeze.' A bonus is the excellent waterbed deep tissue massage before you start the circuit. Before your first circuit you will have a 3D Body Scan, which lets you track your progress by creating a digital avatar and analysing various body measurements such as BMI, weight and hip-waist ratio. The cryochamber is about the size of a shower stall so it's meant for single use and at -85C it's not as cold as the chamber in Madeira but it seems to provide the same energy and mood boost. It purports to boost your immune system and improve circulation. And apparently, the endorphins you release during the therapy can help reduce pain and inflammation. Each of the devices: the Lymphatic Flow System (lymphatic drainage); the Whole body Cryotherapy (cryo chamber); and the Infrared and Ionised Oxygen Chamber (multi-cryo hacking system) can be used alone but Vidavii recommends the entire circuit for the ultimate benefits. Vidavii offers one-off sessions or monthly subscriptions.
Telegraph
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
‘Like lying in a space-coffin bombarded with intense heat': My visit to a luxury Dubai wellness centre
Now I know how a Viennetta feels. Left a little too long in the freezer compartment – sorry, Art of Cryo's 'Vaultz V1 Lux' cryotherapy chamber – I have been removed and popped on the table. I look a lot less appealing than in the adverts. It's partly that I'm wearing only slippers, gloves, ear muffs and flimsy disposable spa pants to protect my, ahem, extremities; it's also because all my body-hair has frosted ice-cream-white, like grass on a February morning. According to the treatments menu (and the well-muscled, frost-free man on the front), my nine minutes at -110C should have left me all 'boosted endorphins' and 'immune system activated'. In fact, I'm shivering on the massage table and begging for more of the 'far infra-red' heat therapy I'd had earlier, which was more microwave-meal than frozen dessert. (Or maybe more dilapidated nuclear plant, since I look strangely like Homer Simpson in the goggles they made me wear for this bit.) This is life at SIRO One Za'abeel, the first in a new global empire of 'fitness + recovery hotels', where rooms come equipped with stretching bars instead of minibars, there's biohacking instead of a buffet restaurant, and boxing classes instead of a beach club. A second SIRO opens in Montenegro this May, with others upcoming in Tokyo, Riyadh and Mexico's Los Cabos – but this first one opened last year in, of course, Dubai. The location makes a lot of sense: Dubai is where footballers go to get fat once the season's finished, and fit before it starts again three months later. And since everything makes you sweat here, you might as well make it count. Much in need of a mid-season – ok, middle-age – fitness reboot myself, I trotted excitedly out of the lift (give me a break, Bellingham; the hotel's on floors 30 to 36 of a shiny new tower block) and into quite the most intrusive hotel check-in I've ever experienced. After using a medical-grade Body Composition Analyzer machine to measure my 'skeletal muscle mass', 'fat mass percentage' and 'phase angle' (I don't know either, but 5.6 degrees apparently – much floppier than I would have liked), the in-house nutritionist scurried off to create a personalised meal plan based on my 'individual anthropometrics'. Had I been staying longer, apparently, I could have asked chefs to prepare dishes from it; instead, I brought it home with me as suggested, though I have somehow yet to make myself a bowlful of golden mango turmeric overnight oats for my Monday morning breakfast. I was glad of the excuse to go off-plan, anyway. SIRO is connected – by the world's longest cantilever, a giant 'bridge' sticking out into the thin desert air with nothing visibly holding it up – to its sister hotel, One&Only One Za'abeel, and 11 excellent restaurants. SIRO has a futuristic-looking meal vending machine in Reception, but its 'gluten-free penne pomodoro', though no doubt nutritionally balanced, doesn't sound so tempting when you know you could be having, say, BBQ-smoked chicken in 48-hour stock with foie gras, shiitake, fermented chili paste and black truffle, from three-Michelin-starred chef Dabiz Muñoz's StreetXO restaurant next door. Then again, next-door doesn't have a fitness complex that takes up an entire floor. SIRO's Pilates Studio, Cycle Studio, Yoga Studio, Experience Box and small-city-sized gym wrap around the glass exterior walls of the building so that every sit-up is incentivised with a view across Dubai's sci-fi skyline, shimmering like a mirage in the heat-haze by day, desert-rose peachy-pink by sunrise or dusk. Excellent instruction from the resident Master Trainers renders even the most medieval-torture-instrument-looking machines benignant. My trainer, Runet, makes burpees borderline-fun when she pits me in competition with my girlfriend (though I don't enjoy finding the latter is fitter than me in every sense. No gratuity for Runet today). The sexiest thing here, though, is the room. A gorgeous-to-look-at, calming-to-live-in combination of slightly Scandi light woods and faintly Japanese clean lines, rooms here have floor-to-ceiling windows, serenely shushhh -ing electronic blackout blinds, delectably temperature-controlled beds, futuristic projectors and flat screen TVs pre-loaded with join-along workout and yoga coaching videos – and a cupboard full of what I'm assured is fitness equipment. The spa – sorry, Recovery Lab – is a little enigmatic too, with its Vibroacoustic, Intravenous and Dry Needling therapies (the latter, I thought, was what I'd been doing to the girlfriend since her win at the gym). I have a massage (very nice) followed by a 'Triple Detox by MLX i 3 Dome' (very strange – like lying in a tubular white space-coffin while being bombarded with funny lights and intense 'far infra-red' (FIR) heat. Then it's the cryotherapy, which really does feel exactly like standing in a freezer. I emerge so bone-deep cold that it takes me five hours to get properly warm afterwards, though that's probably my own fault for trying to 'beat' the two or three minutes most people spend inside. I'm not sure I feel much better for it, but I certainly check out of SIRO feeling infinitely healthier than every other time I've visited Dubai and sampled its bottomless-brunch menus. That's worth a little light frostbite, no? Essentials Ed Grenby was a guest of SIRO One Za'abeel (00 971 4 666 1717), which offers doubles from £200 per night including breakfast, and British Airways, which has return flights from Heathrow from £496 per person.
