- 20 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT WIM HOF
HE IS THE DUTCH phenomenon who has set hundreds of ultra-low temperature world records, from swimming under ice, lying down for ages in the freezing cold or running half-marathons barefoot in the Arctic Circle. He is Wim Hof, better known as The Ice Man. The bearded extreme athlete has developed a system of breathing, yoga and meditation to survive the cold by inducing a state of mental mastery. But what is Hof like underneath that flimsy cape thing he wears? Find out as we tell you...
THE ICE MAN’S full name is Wimbledon Hofmeister, so called because his parents met whilst watching tennis, getting pissed up on truly awful 1980s lager and following a strutting bear wearing a pork pie hat and sunglasses.
WIM’S BODY is so precisely calibrated to ultracold conditions of around -45˚C that he can never enjoy a Funny Feet ice lolly. Were he to eat one straight from the freezer at a mere -18˚C, he would die… of heatstroke!
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, the Netherlands thermomagician doesn’t own a freezer or a cooker. Any food he wishes to store, he keeps down the back of his trousers where the temperature never rises above -30˚C. When Wim fancies a Findus Crispy Pancake, he simply whips one out from between icy buttocks and pops it in the fridge… to cook!
WIM CAME to fame presenting Reality TV’s hit show Freeze the Fear, in which eight celebrities of screen and sport are guided through various frostbite-inducing tasks. The low-temploving lowlander auditioned for the role along with Alexander Armstrong, Bradley Walsh and Ben Shepherd. However, when the prospective presenters were asked to plunge their faces into a bath of liquid nitrogen during the audition, only one man was up to the task. Step forward, Wim Hof.
YOU MIGHT THINK that Wim’s favourite cartoon is Frozen, but you’d be wrong. In fact he has called for the film to be BANNED because the characters are not cold enough, and last winter he led protests outside the Disney store in the northern Dutch city of Groningen wearing only his underpants.
IN HIS SPARE TIME, Wim is a keen musician and can often to be found playing an ice harp on top of a mountain in the Himalayas, bollock naked except for a headband.
YOU MIGHT THINK that Wim loves the music of bands such as Coldplay, Snow Patrol and Nine Below Zero. But ironically his favourite band is The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. “I hate their name,” Wim told the NME. “But I love listening to their music whilst relaxing in a chest freezer covered in bags of frozen peas.”
HOF’S COLD survival methods are partly drawn from the ancient art of Tummo meditation, a Tibetan Monks’ visualisation and breathing technique literally meaning ‘Inner Fire’. It is a tantric practice, but one which keeps you warm rather than one which prevents your cock going off for 5 hours like it does with Sting.
THAT’S STING, the multiple Grammy-winning musician and former bass player from The Police, not the fannybearded American wrestler who, by a one-in-a-billion chance is also called Sting. You couldn’t make it up!
IT IS UNLIKELY that the wrestler Sting would ever get a visit from Wim Hof. Real name Steve Borden, the AEW grapplemonger comes from Omaha, Nebraska where the average summer temperature is 30˚C. In those conditions, Hof would simply desiccate into ash, a bit like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
IN The Empire Strikes Back, a planet in the Anoat Sector of the Outer Rim Territories of the galaxy is named ‘Hoth’, which sounds a little bit like Hof. Coincidentally, this planet is blanketed in snow and ice and unable to support any life forms… except for Wim himself!
AND SNOW LIZARDS called tauntauns, and wampas, which look a bit like a man in a yeti costume.
BECAUSE OF global warming, the future is looking particularly bleak for the ice-loving Hollander. Wim Hof thrives at ultra-low temperatures, and since our planet is inexorably getting warmer, scientists believe that polar bears and Wim could be extinct by 2050.
ALTHOUGH WIM can tolerate lower temperatures than any man or woman on the planet, even he could not survive at Absolute Zero, the lowest temperature possible. At -273˚C, or 0 Kelvin, all the molecules in Wim’s body would cease to vibrate, all his metabolic functions would stop and he would freeze solid. If dropped on the floor or struck with a hammer in this state, the frost-resistant Netherlander would shatter into a million pieces.
WIM WAS BORN in the Dutch province of Limburg, famous for its strongsmelling Limburger cheese. However, if you buy a block of Limburger from the supermarket, it will tell you clearly on the packet that it is unsuitable for freezing, unlike the region’s most famous son.
AS A CHILD, Wim always made much bigger snowmen than his friends. While they were busy wrestling with thick socks, gloves and scarves, the future Ice Man was able to run into the garden in his pyjamas and get started on the construction. And when his peers had to go in after a couple of hours because their hands had gone numb, Wim was able to stay out all day working on his snowman.
FANS OF WIM will be excited to learn that he has written two books – Klimmen in Stilte (Climbing in Silence) and De Top Bereiken is je Angst Overwinnen (Reaching the Top is Overcoming your Fear). However, they will be disappointed when they get to the first page, because they are both written in Dutch and they won’t be able to understand a word.
UNLESS THEY are Dutch, or can speak the language
MATTER EXPANDS as it warms up, and contracts as it cools, so you might expect Wim to become more dense when he takes his morning shower at 0˚C. But you’d be wrong. Wim’s body is composed of 75% water, a substance which contracts as it cools to 4˚C, but then strangely expands as it cools to zero. You couldn’t make it up!
MANY CELEBRITIES have signed up to have their bodies cryogenically frozen after death, but surprisingly Wim is not one of them. “I’ve spent my whole life freezing my knackers off, and I’m ready to be all snug and warm in the hereafter,” he told Titbits magazine.