City’s first cryotherapy clinic aims to deep-freeze pain
Amy Lokken is from Montevideo, Minn., a little town on the prairie where wintertime temperatures can dip to 40 degrees below zero. Now, she’s brought even chillier temperatures to Chattanooga.
Lokken and her husband Marshall Gladish, just opened Glacé Cryotherapy Chattanooga, the city’s first whole body cryotherapy spa at 13 W. Kent St. in North Chattanooga near the corner of North Market Street and Cherokee Boulevard (behind the Big Chill &
Grill restaurant).
The trendy treatment, which takes
only three minutes or less, is supposed to help reduce muscle soreness, boost energy and reduce inflammation.
To get prepped, a customer goes into a private dressing room, strips down to underwear and puts on gear provided by the business: clean gloves, socks, rubber booties and a robe.
Then it’s time to step into the cryotherapy chamber, a $55,000 machine that’s a padded, upright cylinder that uses liquid nitrogen to chill the air to anywhere from minus 166 degrees (for beginners) to minus 202 degrees (for seasoned users).
Inside the chamber’s privacy, with only their head sticking out, the customer takes off the robe and hands it to an attendant.
Then, as the chamber’s dry, ultra-cooled air blows over the customer’s exposed skin, blood rushes from the extremities to the body’s core to protect internal organs and maintain core temperature.
Then, after the customer puts the robe back on and steps out of the chamber, the process is reversed.
“As blood rushes to the body’s core region, it becomes nutrient-dense. Those nutrients then flow back out to the extremities when the body warms back up,” Lokken said. “This naturally heals a multitude of health issues.”
The therapy gets a thumbs up from Chase Whited, owner of Chattanooga Functional Fitness nearby at 125 Cherokee Blvd. He has used Glacé Cryotherapy a handful of times since the business opened on Feb. 27.
“I can tell a big difference in muscle soreness,” said Whited, who said that cryotherapy helped after he dead lifted weights, an exercise that usually leaves his lower back hurting.
“My back wasn’t sore at all,” he said.
Whole body cryotherapy was invented in 1978 by Dr. Toshiro Yamauchi, Lokken said, and it was originally used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. It’s been embraced in Europe for more than 30 years, she said, and it made its U.S. debut in 2010.
The Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team has used cryotherapy as their “secret weapon” during half-time. And selfhelp guru Tony Robbins swears by cryotherapy, which he uses at home.
Lokken, who works at U.S. Express as vice president of safety and driver training, was inspired to become a franchisee of Glacé Cryotherapy after the California-based chain was featured on the TV show “Shark Tank” in 2016. Glacé is a French word for ice.
Lokken said her husband wasn’t crazy about the idea of a cryotherapy business — until he tried it and it helped his chronic back problem.
“We’re doing it,” she remembers him saying. “We’re in.”