Cryotherapy is a rapidly growing trend in the fitness, health, and wellness market due to its many health benefits and overall mental and physical wellbeing. It is becoming more important to understand what cryotherapy is, how it works and what the benefits are. One of the key factors that needs to be considered is the method of treatment used. In this article we will focus and compare the two methods that are used for whole body cryotherapy treatment: electric powered chambers and nitrogen chambers.
WHOLE BODY CRYOTHERAPY TREATMENT
Electric whole body cryotherapy is a treatment that involves exposing an individual's whole body to extremely cold temperatures for up to three minutes depending on the treatment. The extreme cold air produces a thermal shock and vasoconstriction due to a rapid decrease of the skin's temperature.
Reducing the skin temperatures send messages from the peripheral thermoreceptors to the central thermoregulatory centre in the hypothalamus. Thus, creating many physiological changes to the body’s processes which is a key part of WBC during and after the treatment. The blood vessels vasodilate, which drives oxygen and nutrients rich blood back to the outer layers with a release of endorphins.
ELECTRIC vs NITROGEN
Electric - is a dry cold, non-invasive process that uses an electric-powered cooling technique in the chamber that supplies cold air to maximise the cryotherapy experience in a safe standard by using refrigeration compressors.
It consists of briefly exposing the whole-body to extremely cold air by standing in a chamber for a few minutes.
As the whole-body including the head is exposed to the cold temperature, this treatment is known as whole body cryotherapy (WBC).
Nitrogen - uses a cooling technique of vapour nitrogen that is released in the treatment space. The nitrogen is not safe to inhale so the head cannot be expose to the vapour at any time before, during or after the treatment. Nitrogen allows for flexibility of extremely cold temperatures. However, this technology limits the use to a maximum of three minutes.
Cryosuana also known as partial body cryostimulation (PBC) has an open top for the head to be above the treatment space. As over 25% of your body’s receptors are above your armpit, you will not get a whole body stimulation when using this therapy, which is important to get the maximum effect from WBC.
HOW COLD DO CRYOTHERAPY CHAMBERS GET?
Many nitrogen companies communicate that WBC are all focused on the temperature inside the chambers. The perception is that the colder it is, the better it is for you. This is not true. The focus should be on the exposure of the body’s skin temperature rather than how cold the temperature is in the chamber.
Our electric chambers deliver a precise temperature between -85°C and -110°C making the skins temperature the key indicator in the cryo treatment. This safely delivers the combination of using cold temperatures and air flow for consistent cooling over the entirety of the body. This allows us to focus on the important benefits that cryotherapy can provide, rather than how cold the temperature can get.
Nitrogen cryotherapy can vary up to -160°C and mainly focuses on how cold the chamber can get rather than the benefits it can provide through the skin’s temperature change.
We usually educate our customers on all the benefits of our electric chambers but we also recommend trying both options for themselves.
If you are interested in learning more about our electric whole body cryotherapy chambers, please feel free to get in touch or access our buyers guide.
