G
Gabriel
Guest
I watched a television program about a common practice in Russia and Finland, among many families
who bathe in a frozen lake (after digging a hole in the ice), even with their children. I was very
young then, and thought 'Well, this is just a movie', but seeing it many times later I wasn't very
confortable living in denial, and decided to practice that. The temperatures in my area are almost
never below 5 C in winter, so I thought that would make it easy. Every day, I took a cold-water
shower, never using the hot water, starting from summer and going-on through winter, hoping that my
body would acclimatize to the gradual change. However, as autumn passed by, I was among the first
people to be sick. I have also realized that the 'ritual', so to speak, had an opposite effect: It
was becoming harder day-by-day to deal with the cold water.
I have abandonned this ritual for 15 years, and later heard about another training in which one
starts with a warm shower, and periodically shifts from warm to cold water and vice-versa. This
time, it has been successful. I could pass through the wide range from warm water to almost outdoors
temperature, I would feel lots of ease doing this many times, and feel more refreshed after that.
There are some risks which I realized later, although I did not become sick:
1- I have realized that the back is more sensitive to cold and hot temperatures than the chest and
abdomen. Would there be any risks to the kidneys ? 2- showering the head with cold water is also
tricky. Yesterday, I accidentally sprayed cold water on my head. I had an instantaneous reaction
that felt like an inrush of hot blood into my head, accompanied by a sensation of high pressure,
like that in a balloon. The feeling was like that caused by the flu with a high fever, and it lasted
for more than 24 hours.
In the winter, I engage with on-land activities, and all outdoors pools would be closed anyway, so I
don't have the chance to do a workout in cold water. Would this type of training (switching between
hot and cold water) give me any cold weather tolerance, or am I just wasting my time ? What am I
supposed to do, if I want to start swimming in the open in winter ?
who bathe in a frozen lake (after digging a hole in the ice), even with their children. I was very
young then, and thought 'Well, this is just a movie', but seeing it many times later I wasn't very
confortable living in denial, and decided to practice that. The temperatures in my area are almost
never below 5 C in winter, so I thought that would make it easy. Every day, I took a cold-water
shower, never using the hot water, starting from summer and going-on through winter, hoping that my
body would acclimatize to the gradual change. However, as autumn passed by, I was among the first
people to be sick. I have also realized that the 'ritual', so to speak, had an opposite effect: It
was becoming harder day-by-day to deal with the cold water.
I have abandonned this ritual for 15 years, and later heard about another training in which one
starts with a warm shower, and periodically shifts from warm to cold water and vice-versa. This
time, it has been successful. I could pass through the wide range from warm water to almost outdoors
temperature, I would feel lots of ease doing this many times, and feel more refreshed after that.
There are some risks which I realized later, although I did not become sick:
1- I have realized that the back is more sensitive to cold and hot temperatures than the chest and
abdomen. Would there be any risks to the kidneys ? 2- showering the head with cold water is also
tricky. Yesterday, I accidentally sprayed cold water on my head. I had an instantaneous reaction
that felt like an inrush of hot blood into my head, accompanied by a sensation of high pressure,
like that in a balloon. The feeling was like that caused by the flu with a high fever, and it lasted
for more than 24 hours.
In the winter, I engage with on-land activities, and all outdoors pools would be closed anyway, so I
don't have the chance to do a workout in cold water. Would this type of training (switching between
hot and cold water) give me any cold weather tolerance, or am I just wasting my time ? What am I
supposed to do, if I want to start swimming in the open in winter ?