Please, do not click on these pictures of Antonio Brown’s feet. Don’t do it! It won’t make me happy, and it won’t make you happy either.
Brown’s feet reportedly got this way as the result of a cryotherapy session gone wrong. According to a source who talked to ESPN, the Raiders wide receiver did not put on the proper protective footwear before undergoing the procedure, leaving him with “extreme frostbite.” While Brown is expected to recover before long, the timeline for his return is unclear. It isn’t every day that a superstar athlete accidentally freezes his feet into mangled globs of hell-skin.
Cryotherapy is the hottest self-care craze out there for people with immaculate bodies and money to spend on maintaining them. (I mean, it’s the coldest, but you get it.) LeBron James is perhaps the world’s most famous cryotherapy enthusiast; ESPN went to the cryo chambers with Steph Curry and JaVale McGee; many NFL players use cryo; cryotherapy clinics literally advertise how many celebrities partake. The theory is that exposing one’s body to extreme cold aids the recovery process. However, there is no scientific consensus as to whether cryotherapy is beneficial, and frostbite is a distinct possibility. The American Academy of Dermatology recommends against cryotherapy, while the Food and Drug Administration “lacks evidence” regarding whether it works. Brown isn’t even the first athlete to experience cryotherapy-induced frostbite: Olympic sprinter Justin Gatlin hurt his feet in a similar situation before the 2011 World Championships, and put forth one of his worst performances as he dealt with painful blisters. Despite the injury, Gatlin still seems to endorse cryotherapy. (In fact, he dialed in to TMZ to talk about Brown’s scenario from a cryotherapy clinic.)
So, what happened to Brown? And how common are cryotherapy-related injuries? We spoke to Michael Conlon, owner of Finish Line Physical Therapy, a New York–based clinic that has offered cryotherapy since 2017. How does he keep his clients from having feet that look like Brown’s?
Let’s start with the basics. What are the benefits of cryotherapy? Why would you recommend it to one of your clients?
Cryotherapy is a nice way to expedite the recovery process. Simply put, it creates a stream of extreme vasoconstriction to the body. The treatment is only about three minutes long. After that, the body realizes that it needs to get more circulation to the working muscles. It increases the nutrients and helps rejuvenate sore muscles by getting blood flow that has more oxygen. In a nutshell, it expedites the recovery process.
Why would you recommend cryotherapy over, say, an ice bath?
Ice baths are not as comfortable and the temperatures aren’t as cold. You can’t decrease the tissue temperatures as much, so it’s a little bit more superficial in terms of decreasing the temperature in the skin as opposed to deeper tissues.
And I suspect there’s a matter of convenience, too. Cryo is only three minutes.
Yeah, back in the day I prescribed 10 minutes, 15 minutes in the ice bath. And then there’s getting the ice. Not that an ice bath is messy, but it’s not as clean as a cryo session.
So, how could this possibly go wrong? How could somebody develop extreme frostbite from cryo?
We utilize a company called Impact Cryotherapy. They have a pretty standard protocol: Everybody comes in, you go through a detailed analysis of things they can’t do, or shouldn’t do, in terms of undergarments. Guys typically go in with underwear. They have the option to go in without, but I personally don’t recommend it, for obvious reasons.* Girls will go in in their undergarments. Their bra straps can’t have metal on it.
[*I should have asked Conlon precisely what he meant here. Instead, I will direct you to an article entitled, “Here’s What Happens To Your Penis In a -140 Degree Chamber.”]
We give everybody two layers of gloves. A pair of white gloves, a thin layer, and then a pair of what you’d consider winter gloves. And the same goes for the socks. On top of having a layer of wool, dry socks, we have these booties. To read that story about Antonio Brown was shocking. I don’t know how that went wrong, but we don’t let anybody in without the gloves, two layers, and the two layers of socks and booties.
I read that it’s as simple as making sure you’re wearing the correct clothing on your extremities. If people follow those steps, then frostbite shouldn’t be a problem, right?
We’ve been doing this for two years, and never had a problem with the hands or the feet. People with circulation disorders aren’t recommended to go in. I’ve had a coworker or two that have gone in that have Raynaud’s syndrome or circulation disorders with the hands who have kept their hands over their head, so they don’t get exposed to the cold. But I wouldn’t allow somebody who had any circulatory issues to go in.
Justin Gatlin went in with “sweaty socks” a few years ago and reportedly got frostbite. Why is that a concern?
That’s why we don’t allow people to go in with their own socks. Say you walk here. It’s 90 degrees, your socks may be a little damp, that’s not really good to have a damp layer against your skin. There may be dampness in there, and it may not feel wet to you. So we give people a towel and ask them to dry their extremities. And people who just worked out, or are just coming out of a shower, they have to make sure their underwear or the liner of the underwear is not wet. If you have the lining or elastic around your waist, make sure that’s dry or folded over so it’s not exposed or touching the skin. There are a lot of precautions you need to take to make sure someone is dry from head to toe. It would never cross my mind to go in or let someone go in without the booties on, to be honest.
And the body naturally protects the core? That’s why you protect the feet and hands?
The way it was explained to us at Impact is that the body thinks it’s dying. It wants to protect the most important aspects of the body. And then it realizes it’s not dying, so it gets the oxygen back to the working muscles. And that increases oxygen, and as the blood vessels open up and dilate it expedites the recovery process.
So cryo takes advantage of the fact that the body thinks it’s dying.
Exactly.
Some people think that the risks of exposing your body to that type of temperature outweigh the benefits of cryotherapy. What do you tell people about that risk-reward calculation?
Well, you have to be somewhat comfortable with being cold. We explain to people that by assisting them to expedite their recovery, it allows them to train at a higher level, and if they train at a higher level, then their performance is increased.
One session is not going to be the be-all, end-all. The people that stay consistent with it definitely report back that they experience improved performance, recovery, and energy. And we’ve had a few people report back several positive findings, increased alertness at work, things of that nature.
The research on cryotherapy is weak, to be honest. It’s more of an individual thing.
What does it feel like in there?
In the cryo? It’s cold. It’s pretty comfortable at first. It doesn’t go to negative-130 degrees right off the bat. It gets colder and colder. The instruction we give people is to turn their body every five or 10 seconds. Most rotate in a circle for the entire time, almost like a rotisserie. That creates a more even distribution of the air. And when you’re performing a session we typically talk to the person to distract them a bit.
But yeah, negative-130 is cold. And when you get to a higher level, then that’s really cold. But when you come out and get into a light cardio, your body heats up pretty quickly. That’s the beauty of cryotherapy. It brings all the new blood flow to the muscles. That’s where the magic happens.
Are more people asking for cryo over time?
I think people are seeing it, athletes are seeing it. This thing with Antonio Brown could hinder or help. As long as people realize it’s not so much about cryotherapy so much as the fact that he went in without booties, it won’t be a huge downturn in people trying it. A lot of people are looking for ways to expedite the recovery, and this is one of those methods.
Have you seen the pictures of Antonio Brown’s feet?
I have, yes. They are pretty bad! It looks like blistering, and it’s gonna get better. But I was shocked when I saw that. You’re standing on risers—he’s not very tall, so he’s probably standing on a riser to get his head out of the tank. The clavicle level should be the top of the machine. So he’s standing on these foam pads, with a leather or pleather lining, and his feet must have been directly in contact with that. Probably wet, maybe he went in at a really cold temperature. The colder the better.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.