What is cryotherapy? It’s the secret weapon for professional athletes in the Twin Cities. In fact, it’s where athletes on all levels go to freeze away their pain. Halo Cryotherapy just celebrated their one-year anniversary in Edina and today you’ll learn about what cryotherapy is, what it’s for, and exactly what you’ll feel once you climb into a Cryospa from Halo Cryotherapy’s Jack Younggren.
FULL TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE 42
Tim Murphy: 00:00 You woke up this morning and if you’re like most people, your knees might be aching. Maybe yesterday you had an awesome workout and your muscles are sore. Those squats, a 400 pound weights got you’re really aching and that body just it needs, it needs a jolt of something. Well today we have something brand new for you. It’s called Halo, cryotherapy and so that’s where we’re at today with Jack Younggren in Edina and his shop called Halo Cryotherapy and I think you guys are going to love it. Jack. Thanks for being on today, man.
Jack Younggren: 00:41 Absolutely. Thanks for having me. You’re speaking my language.
New Speaker: 00:45 Yeah, exactly. We all wake up with some aches and pains. Only. Absolute. I don’t care how old you are, but today we’re gonna. Learn a little bit about basically going into a nitrogen bath, which not only does it look cool, but it kind of sounds cool. Yeah, absolutely. So tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, for sure. And how do you, how do you land on something like this?
Jack Younggren: 01:06 Oh Man. So I got into it because I was running marathons, I was training, I was waking up sore like you were describing a, um, but I loved it and it was something that I was passionate about and I, uh, I was a football player in high school and I woke up sore and stiff and I needed to get back and ready for that next training session or that next practice.
Tim Murphy: 01:27 And then like we talked about d jumping into that big ice bath
Jack Younggren: 01:31 Big ‘ol bucket of ice cream minute of it, man, I hated it. And now I, uh, I had a buddy that started something with cryotherapy in the twin cities and he reached out to me and I was like, yeah, I want to try it. So I went in and three minutes later I come out of this extremely cold machine and I feel great. And I’m like, how is this happening?
Tim Murphy: 01:52 Uh, and how long ago was that?
Jack Younggren: 01:54 That was about four years ago. Oh Wow. Yeah.
Jack Younggren: 01:57 So four years later. Here we are, but I got A. I got into it because I needed to recover faster and I needed less aches and pains and I was sick of the ice tub. So
Speaker 1: 02:09 what were you thinking? I mean, it’s your first. Your buddy calls you up says, Hey, you got to come over and try this out. Yeah, I mean, what were you thinking?
Jack Younggren: 02:17 I was thinking that sounds extremely cold. He’s like negative 250 degrees. And I said, I don’t know if that’s physically possible. And he had me come in and just check it out, show me the machines, kind of like we were doing a couple of minutes ago and just seeing how it works and what it looks like and trying to wrap my head around it. And before you knew it, I was in there going through it.
Tim Murphy: 02:40 And when you saw the machine, what were you thinking?
Jack Younggren: 02:42 I thought it looked like a spaceship.
Tim Murphy: 02:42 Right?
Jack Younggren: 02:45 That’s what I said too. It looks like a standing tanning bed that you could fly through outer space and yeah, that’s cool. Um, but it’s uh, it’s a really cool process.
Tim Murphy: 02:55 So when you got in the machine, I mean, what, what did it feel like? It
Jack Younggren: 03:00 feels like you’re outside walking outside your mailbox in your underwear, kind of, um, you know, it, uh, it’s not windy or cold. It’s a completely different feeling. You think you hear those numbers negative 250 degrees and it’s intimidating and it creates some anxiety and it’s hard to wrap your head around, but it’s completely different while you’re in there than what you would imagine it being. It’s a completely external cold and, and, um, and it’s not as unbearable as a nice path is. It’s a lot easier than an ice bath.
Tim Murphy: 03:35 So when you did it your first time, you got out of there and how did you get hooked? I mean, what, what were you thinking? What were you feeling?
Jack Younggren: 03:42 Yeah, so I immediately felt this huge blood flow. Uh, that just went from my core out to the extremities. I felt alive very, very alive. You get this big endorphin release. It’s like that runner’s high or that high. You get after a big workout where everything feels good, your blood pumping and your heart just feels like, you know, like you’re a kid again. Uh, and that’s how I felt when I got out of there. I was like, I’ve never felt anything like this before. And I was hooked immediately. And so I just, I wanted any part of it that I could. So I got a job, I asked for a job, what can I do for you? Sign me up. I need this every day. I got to get into. Exactly. Exactly. And so I started working with them and learning as much as I could. And that was something that I wanted to do because, um, you know, I went to school for Physical Education, kinesiology and I love how the body works and I love figuring out how my body works versus somebody else’s. Everybody’s got their own, uh, their own situations and everybody is different. Uh, and trying to find out how something like this can affect everybody that walks through the door. Uh, and it’s been a really cool process learning that, um, and translating it into my background and my education, uh, has been a really cool process.
New Speaker: 05:08 So you got a job now for sure. You’re going in there every day. You’re like, dude, thanks for hooking me up. Right, right now. But again, like you said, you’re not just doing it because you want to learn or recover yourself. You’re starting to realize, and you kind of talked about this before we got on and you start to realize, wow, look at how it can help other people. So talk a little bit about that experience as your, you know, working there, what are you seeing that really got you hooked? Because now today, I mean you’re running the show so you had to not only fall in love when you got in there, but you had to fall in love with it as you see it, help other people. So walk us through that a little bit, right?
Jack Younggren: 05:45 Yeah. So that’s a great question. I’ve seen some really, really cool things the first time that I really saw how it can extremely change peoples lives. A young Gal came in as a hockey player, she had a hip injury and she needed labor, um, surgery, which is a big deal for 17, 16, 17 year old body. Um, and so she used Cryo therapy for pre and post surgical protocol. So before she had surgery for about a month, she did crowd therapy on a regular basis and uh, it helps to decrease inflammation and swelling in the injury site. And what that does is that it gives the surgery surgeon a very clean workspace so that they’re able to work in that area without worrying about swelling and different things like that.
Jack Younggren: 06:35 And then afterwards she came in and right away when she was able to stand in the machine, she got in with a crutch and she was able to stand on two legs in there and decreased pain, increased a anti-inflammatory proteins in the blood stream to help with the healing process. And that blood flow really, really helps with the healing process. It’s an amazing thing. I’ve seen that with that hip surgery. I’ve seen it with cosmetic surgeries, I’ve seen it with other back surgeries, tons of different things. Like that, but that, that young girl coming in there and seeing how it can help her body to recover faster, uh, was an amazing thing and it kind of opened my eyes to, OK, I got to see more of this and I gotta I got to help as many people as possible.
Tim Murphy: 07:20 And why was that? Why is that so important to you, to you, you know what I mean? Because a lot of people look at me first and then maybe I’ll help somebody else I can tell, you know, just talking to you today, you really about helping people. Why, why is that so important to you?
Jack Younggren: 07:31 You know, I think that, uh, through what I’ve kind of been through in my life and my experiences, I’ve people have helped me so much that it kind of turned my focus to I’m giving back what’s been given so freely to me. Um, so that’s just kind of what my structure and belief system is. Um, because I feel that you can walk through life and be focused on yourself all day, but you’re really going to, you’re really going to benefit from changing your focus to other people and helping other people. And that’s what, what helps me, what drives me on a daily basis. That’s cool man.
Tim Murphy: 08:11 Um, so do you have any other stories that, you know, something also along the way or. Well, you’ve been here at Halo, cryotherapy that just blew you away or a story that just blew you away about how this has helped somebody.
Jack Younggren: 08:25 Yeah, absolutely. So it crowd therapy was created by our rheumatologists for rheumatoid arthritis patients. And the first rheumatoid arthritis story that I had was a of a middle aged gal. She came in and she struggled mightily with her symptoms of Ra. It was ravaging her body, uh, couldn’t grip the steering wheel to drive around a, she was taking prednisone when she had flare ups. And prednisone is hard on the body. All those injections and different. She’d take me on a medication for awhile and then it would stop working and her body and the Ra kind of figured that out and so then she’d have to change meds.
Jack Younggren: 09:05 Uh, and it was a really hard process for her. She’s like, I can’t do the things that I used to be able to do exercise. I can’t, you know, walk my dog at the end of the day. I can’t do the things that I want to do. And by coming and doing cryotherapy on a daily basis, uh, she was, she got off all of her meds. No Way. She never, she didn’t have to take prednisone. She started working out again. She was able to, you know, do the things that she wanted to do, which is really cool. I mean, I just remember when, so you take like a vector score of the, the and your body and she came in with something like a [inaudible] and she, after a year of cryotherapy, her numbers were down in the teens. So 46 out of 100. 40 six is just a kind of a scale.
Tim Murphy: 09:52 Yeah, it’s out of. I think a hundred. OK, yeah. So 46 out of a hundred, let’s say unofficially. And then she went from that all the way down to like a 13 or 17, 17. Wow. I mean, that’s like getting your life back. Right? Right. And I mean, it just changes, changes her whole outlook on life. Um, so those are really cool stories to see and they become part of our community and our family. Uh, because you see them every day, you see these people every day, you know, some days they come in bumming, some days they really need you. And some days they come in on the top of the world and cloud nine, I’m bringing you cookies because they appreciate what you’re doing for them. You know, they’re, they’re just part of who, who we, uh, we associate with. They become one of us.
Tim Murphy: 10:37 Man, that’s awesome. Jack, you know, I can really see how you can get addicted to being a part of all that.
Tim Murphy: 10:43 And, you know, I was thinking to myself before I came in and, uh, really the way I summed it up was that, you know, you guys believe that the human body can overc ome any obstacle thrown its way. All it needs is a little help and a miracle can happen. And maybe the car therapy is the little help that you’re giving people.
Jack Younggren: 11:03 Yeah. We’re giving the body a little bit of a boost. Our body has a, uh, an automatic response to extreme cold temperatures and it’s built in and all that we’re doing is we’re, we’re given that boost as you said, or that we’re tapping in to that resource. Uh, it only takes a couple of minutes and the body does the rest of the work for you. So whether you’re a, a youth athlete or you’re an elite athlete, um, that needs a little bit more recovery. Uh, you know, like some of the Viking guys, like we’re talking about a little bit earlier, um, or, you know, or you have an inflammatory condition, like one of our every day guys had had Crohn’s disease. Uh, you know, those are things that we’re able to help our body to attack. Um, we’re, we don’t want, are those, those inflictions to attack us anymore. We want to help our body to attack it. So cool.
Tim Murphy: 11:57 So, um, the, you know, I kind of want to sum up because this is, I mean I knew nothing about this coming in today and I still don’t know if I understand it completely right. It’s all good. But basically with the use of extreme cold, you’re triggering your body’s natural spa responses, increasing blood flow and releasing hormones that help the body heal. Right? So walk us through the science of that because I think people are, especially our listeners are really going to be curious to understand that.
Jack Younggren: 12:28 So it’s a pretty simple process and what we’re using is nitrogen vapor. Nitrogen in its purest form is in extremely cold, cold, uh, element. So we use nitrogen vapor to surround the body and alert emergency receptor in the skin. I’m only cooling our clients skin temperature. I’m not dropping your core temp and causing hypothermia. I’m only affecting your skin temperature and the body does the rest of the workforce. So what happens after we’re exposed to that cold is the first off. Our body says, Whoa, something’s going on. And it releases endorphins right away. First thing, we’d get this huge rush of endorphins and those endorphins, uh, make us feel really good. They give us that runner’s high. It’s our body’s natural painkiller. So if you come in with aches and pains, those are alleviated right away. So that’s the first thing that happens is endorphins are awesome and our blood vessels in our skin clothes while we’re in there to protect our vital organs.
Jack Younggren: 13:29 And that’s part of the body saying, Whoa, something’s going on. So it sends all that blood to our core to protect the vital organs. And when we step out, we get Vasa dilation of all the blood vessels throughout the body. Those blood vessels expand and all that blood from our core that was picking up oxygen and enzymes and proteins rushes out to the extremities, to the muscle tissue, flushes out toxins in the blood and flushes out inflammation in the joints to help with those achy joints that you were talking about a little bit when we wake up in the morning. Uh, so that vigorous blood flow helps with a ton of different parts of the bodies, you know, the healing process, uh, and there are cytokines in our bloodstream and they have a huge part in our inflammatory response. There are pro inflammatory cytokines that respond to exercise or to inflammatory conditions.
Jack Younggren: 14:18 Those create inflammation in there are anti inflammatory cytokines that fight inflammation for us. All right now as we’re walking around and every day life we have way more pro inflammatory cytokines and we have anti inflammatory. So what crowd therapies able to do is it’s able to increase our anti-inflammatory cytokine levels so that as our body tries to build inflammation, those anti inflammatory cytokines are knocking it down. So we’re even in the playing field between those cytokine levels so that we don’t become so inflamed and were able to skip some of that inflammatory response and go right into healing. So that’s a big part of the puzzle for us.
Tim Murphy: 14:58 Wow, that’s crazy. How many, I mean, I know this is going to vary, but how many times do I have to come into your every day? Do I come in once a week? Once a month? I mean, what is that line of a treatment that is effective but yet not overkill?
Jack Younggren: 15:16 Right. Great question. Um, so the first 30 days is the most important. We all have systemic inflammation of some sort, whether we do have an inflammatory condition like raw or were average Joe’s training to exercise every once in a while to stay fit. That inflammatory response, uh, is winning right now. So that first 30 days we want to flip the inflammatory script. We want to get those anti-inflammatory proteins up. So I like to say about 10 to 12 times in that first 30 days we come in and we do whole body crowd therapy. Get that inflammatory response. Cool. Down a little bit and then we can, you know, find a happy spot for us. I think the one to two times a week, uh, for most people is a good spot to be. If you’re an elite athlete or someone that has a, an inflammatory condition, you might have to do that a little bit more than that. There’s no boundary to how much you can do it. I have a lot of people that do it every day. Me, myself, I’m about four or five times a week just because I like it and it makes me feel good, but everybody’s different and we’re able to personalize that for everybody that walks through the door.
Tim Murphy: 16:25 That’s really cool. That’s cool man. Um, so, you know, you don’t just have the full body treatment, you guys actually have, um, the whole body treatment. You have a local cryotherapy and then you also have a cryo facial. Yes. Or I mean you guys got it all covered here today, so go into that a little bit. I think people are, I was kind of astonished that you had of a cryo facial,
Jack Younggren: 16:47 right? Right. Yeah. So the crowd facial is really cool. It was created in the late two thousands, uh, and it helps to boost collagen production and slow down the college ace that breaks down or Collagen in our skin. So we’re using cold temperatures to address the head, face and neck with the stream of nitrogen vapor. And what that does is that it increases blood flow to the skin and it cools that surface of the skin so that our body creates new healthy skin cells.
Tim Murphy: 17:15 Give us an example because I’m just thinking, do you know if my wife came in here, she would love this, you know, why would somebody come in here instead of going and getting a full body facial or. I mean tell us a story about that. There’s got to be plenty of ladies that said, you know, I’ve been going to this place to get a massage and do this and that, and then I tried your place and wow, it just, it feels like it’s maybe healthier. I don’t know. Yeah.
Jack Younggren: 17:38 So it’s completely non invasive for one. You can come in as, as a takes 10 to 12 minutes and it gives you just this natural healthy glow. I’m not putting anything on your skin. We’re not any chemicals. I’m not poking you with needles, uh, and it helps the body to do what it’s supposed to do. Naturally. We’re not adding anything to the puzzle. Uh, the body is an amazing, amazing tool and it can do incredible things if we just give it what it needs. So we’re back to that jumpstart kind of an idea that you’re talking about or that boost. We’re using those cold temperatures to stimulate that, that healing process in the body. So a lot of people prefer it because we’re not causing any appealing or you have to kind of hunker down for the next three days before a big event. You can come and do a crowd facial and then go to dinner or a big, you know, a big event that night and look great.
Tim Murphy: 18:33 How does that happen? I mean, how does he do this to your face?
Jack Younggren: 18:35 So it takes the top layer of the skin and it replaces it with fresh, healthy skin cells and it also increases blood flow so that you have that healthy glow to the skin. That’s the first thing that people say is that I my skin looks more vibrant and it feels like I just washed it with like water from a fountain of Youth and it. It’s visible to you getting rid of wrinkles. Yeah, you can. You can see the wrinkles. You need a little bit more time to do it a little bit more of a regular basis to get that college and production up. That’s the slowest piece of the puzzle. And by slow, I mean like a month, month and a half of doing it once or twice a week, you’re going to really reduce the appearance of wrinkles sunspots age.
Tim Murphy: 19:20 Wow. Yeah. That’s cool. That’s cool. And then, so the local, I mean, you get, like you said, you have some athletes that are coming in every once in awhile in local, you know, being an athlete myself, I remember, you know, obviously you put the ice pack on your leg or you do the electroshock therapy and you put those patches on there and you’re trying to, you know, get your quad or something like that. I mean, is that how you use the local or you know, how do athletes take advantage of that?
Jack Younggren: 19:45 Right. So the local escrow therapy, we use the same machine that we use for the crowd facials and it isolates and individually area of acute pain or inflammation. Uh, so we see a lot of ankle injuries, a lower backs shoulders, um, a lot of areas that have repetitious task issues. Tennis elbow is a good example, um, but say an athlete comes in with a, with an ankle sprain and they’re swollen and they’re bruised and that blood flow is constricted from all that soiling and compression.
Jack Younggren: 20:16 So we use the localized girl therapy to cool the surface of the skin, increase that blood flow and send a message to the brain, says, hey, something’s going on in this area and I need to address it and the body does the rest for us. It’s a really cool process, but we’re not cooling the muscle tissue or the under the skin temperature like, uh, like an ice compression would, um, that sends blood flow out of the area. What we’re doing is we’re bringing blood flow to the area to help with the healing process. Because if you’re sending, if you’re icing your quad, your son and blood flow away, hoping that it comes back and does some just good for you. What we’re doing is we’re just saying, hey, this area, there’s something going on in here and they need to figure it out, figure it out. And so the body sends blood flow to the area of flushes. All that, those toxins that are causing the inflammation and the swelling gets that stagnant blood flow out and helps with the flushing out and healing process.
Tim Murphy: 21:12 This, I mean, this is, you know, it’s so simple yet, but it’s so cool. It’s like using the body and you’re just, you’re just a spark for the body to really stimulate a lot of different senses and hormones. But, um, we’re, I mean, where is this going to go in the next five years? I mean, is this going to even get more in depth? Is there going to be a lot more ways to apply this technology or this, because this has been around for how long you see the Chinese or Japanese or something’s been around since 1978. So where’s it gonna go? Where do you think
Jack Younggren: 21:45 question? I think, you know, the growth has been really, really rapid. When we got into it, we were, there were less than 10 of us in the country and now there’s over 700 and counting and they’re, they’re popping up all over the place and I think that it’s only going to continue to grow because if it’s not invasive nature, um, it’s really quick and easy. Uh, you’re only in here for 10 minutes unless you want to hang out. You’re more than welcome to news today. Yeah. But yeah, it’s quick and easy. You don’t need to bring anything. We’ve got everything you need for you. So I think that these places in these, in the way that we’re able to not worry about taking medications, we’re not putting anything into the body. Uh, I think that that’s the route that we’re going with our health and wellness care right now. Uh, you know, the insurance systems are kind of goofy for some people. People are struggling to find ways to feel better and I think that we’re, we’re a way that we can really help them out with that.
Tim Murphy: 22:44 Well, that’s awesome. And then, you know, we always like to ask how, uh, we’re big believers in giving back to the community and I thought one thing that you had mentioned is that you’re a big proponent of giving some of this cryotherapy to sports teams in the local areas. Tell us a little bit.
Jack Younggren: 22:58 I think that was cool. Yeah. You know, we, uh, we love support and are low or local sports teams. Uh, you know, they work hard, they’re practicing like crazy. And for me as a high school athlete, if I would’ve had something like this, uh, to try and set up that 50 gallons a, I would’ve jumped on it for, for me and my dad, who also is here with us, he w we grew up as, as a big sports kids. Um, he was a coach, I was a coach and so we know how much work goes into it. So supporting those local teams, uh, and basically given them a bare bones, a price to just cover costs and get in here and get some, some team bonding. Nothing’s, nothing’s more fun than laughing at your Buddy’s house on a pretty cool way to bring them in and get them to do so, uh, you know, just helping our local schools out, you know, whether it’s a silent auction and donate and donating our services to help them raise money, uh, things like that. We love being a part of the community.
Tim Murphy: 24:01 Well I have to see. Jack, this has been one cool experience. So thanks for coming today.
Jack Younggren: 24:06 Thank you. We appreciate having you.
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