The spread of cryotherapy

NESTLED between a nail parlour and a tanning salon on Wilshire Avenue in Santa Monica, an upscale part of Los Angeles, is a newer kind of spa. Opened last year, CryoZone invites customers to spend $75 for three minutes in a cryogenic chamber cooled to -110°C for fledgling freezers and -132°C for chilling connoisseurs. The treatment is meant to calm inflammation and soothe muscle soreness, but Angelenos swear by it to solve all sorts of ills, from tennis elbow to the urgent need to lose a bit of weight before a daughter’s wedding.

Invented in Japan in 1978 as a remedy for rheumatoid arthritis, cryotherapy is not new. But it was not until European rugby and football teams started freezing themselves in the past decade that it became more popular. America, which boasts at least 400 cryotherapy spas, is the first place to offer wide access to it. Impact Cryotherapy, a group that manufactures cryosaunas, claims to have units in 38 states running more than 10,000 sessions a week. California, unsurprisingly, is in the vanguard: there are around 60 below-freezing-cold vats in the state.