by Kerry Taylor
I recently had my 23rd celebration of turning 21. LOL. It was a great day, even during Covid times. I was able to have a great dinner with the family, but before dinner, I spent 3 hours relaxing and working on my mental and physical recovery at the Water Journey at the Bodhi Spa in Providence. This is my third time enjoying this journey and it reminded me why I need to go more often. Let me tell you, once I left, I was relaxed and recharged. For those that have never experienced the Water Journey and this form of Contrasting Hydrotherapy, let me try to explain.
Hydrotherapy:
Is the art of healing mentally and physically through the application of water in any form, hot, cold, steam or ice. Made popular back in the 1800s by the Egyptians, Romans and Greeks. Using this therapy was an extremely important part of their culture to aid in recovery and to help in their physical performance.
Contrasting Hydrotherapy:
Is the art of using hot/warm and cold water in an alternating fashion. Placing your body or body parts in hot/warm water dilates the blood vessels to help increase blood flow to an area. Placing your body or body parts into cold water constricts the blood vessels and decreases the blood flow to that area. By doing this, you, in theory, are creating a pumping action within your body to help reduce swelling and muscle soreness.
The Water Journey at The Bodhi Spa consists of 5-6 phases.
1. Cold Plunge @ 55°
2. Epsom Salt Pool @ 104°
3. Dead Sea Salt Pool @ 98°
4. Eucalyptus Steam Room
5. Infrared or Traditional Sauna
Go through a few cycles of this and you will be in heaven and so relaxed you will melt into one of their relaxation recliners.
If the Water Journey is not your cup of tea, you can always start contrasting hydrotherapy at home. Here are 3 simple ways to apply this concept:
1. Contrast Shower
Assuming you take a warm shower, towards the end of this shower, turn the temp down to cool or cold, depending on what you can withstand, for about 30s before you get out. As you continue with this practice and get comfortable, try to make it colder and try to last longer in the cold portion of the shower. Your body will thank you, but you will also get a huge mental benefit, clarity and alertness to continue your day. Turning on that fight or flight response works wonders.
2. Hot/ Cold Bucket Contrast
For smaller areas of the body i.e; Ankles sprains, bruises or strains, get yourself 2 buckets, one with warm water and the other with cool/cold ice water. Place your foot in the cold bucket for 30s - 2 mins, and in the warm bucket for 2-3 mins and alternate back and forth. Do this anywhere from 3-6x or as many times as you would like. If the cold is too much and rough for you, you can wear your socks or use a towel to wrap the area to help slow down the cold sensation a bit.
3. Ice pack/ Hot Pad
Apply the same concept with these 2 tools as I mentioned in the previous example.
If you’ve never tried this therapy to help with recovery, I suggest you give it a try. I’ve been using it in many different forms since my college days playing football, and all throughout my football career and life. I feel it completely helps and aids in my progress to allow me to continue to push hard in my training and activities. Always remember, we must work just as hard, if not harder, in our recovery as we do in our training, that’s where the magic happens. Try it out and let me know what you think. If you take a trip and do the Water Journey here in Providence/Newport or anywhere else, let me know what you think. Until next time, continue to live life 1 degree above the rest