Why everyone’s talking about... Wim Hof

The BBC is making a celebrity survival series with Wim Hof. But who is Wim Hof?

A 62-year-old extreme athlete known as ‘the Iceman’ for his superhuman feats, most done semi-naked. He’s stood in a box of ice for 112 minutes; climbed 23,600ft up Everest wearing nothing but shorts and shoes; swam 189ft under ice causing his corneas to freeze; run a half-marathon north of the Arctic Circle barefoot; run a marathon in the 40C (104F) heat of the Namib desert without drinking; and hung by one finger from a rope suspended between two hot-air balloons a mile up.

The big question: why?

He has said his stunts were partly a reaction to his wife’s suicide in 1995: ‘When you are heartbroken, you constantly worry… when you go into the cold, you cannot think.’

The Dutchman also believes a daily combination of freezing showers or ice baths, meditation, yoga and a breathing cycle of hyperventilation, holding your breath and a recovery breath can have physical benefits. This is the Wim Hof Method and it’s become a hugely lucrative lifestyle brand with retreats, video courses, books, T-shirts and even its own catchphrases (‘breathe motherf ***** !’).

Does it work?

One scientific study found the method could enable someone to control their nervous system and immune system. But some of the more extravagant claims his followers make, such as suggesting it can tackle cancer or Covid, range from unproven to impossible.

Hof himself tends to evangelise in nebulous mottos and pseudoscience that is hard to directly challenge. Certainly not everything he’s done is recommended: in 2008, he sat on a powerful jet fountain in an Amsterdam park to give himself a DIY enema, and suffered horrific internal injuries.

Yet he’s an inspirational figure?

Absolutely. Devotees are said to include Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, David Beckham and Holly Willoughby, who is fronting the forthcoming BBC1 series Wim Hof’s Superstar Survival. And he featured in Gwyneth Paltrow’s Netflix show Goop Lab – of course he did.

A film about his life, starring Joseph Fiennes, is also in the pipeline. Hof will be hoping it doesn’t get a chilly reception.