Know theScience

The history

Ancient traditions. Modern science.

Winter swimmers stepping into an ice hole, vintage photo

Ice Bath

From Roman bathhouses to today’s athletes, cold water has always been part of recovery.

Read the story

Cold water has been part of recovery for more than two thousand years. The Greek physician Hippocrates wrote about water as a treatment, and Roman bathhouses typically ended in the frigidarium, a cold pool used after the heat. In the 19th century, the Bavarian priest Sebastian Kneipp made cold water therapy popular across Germany, and his methods are still practised in spa towns today. In Finland, Russia and Scandinavia, a dip in an ice hole after the Sauna became a winter ritual. Sports science followed in the late 20th century, when athletes began using Ice Baths to recover between sessions. Today cold water has moved from lakes and locker rooms into homes, gyms and hotels, held at an exact temperature.

Men relaxing in a traditional wooden Sauna, vintage photo

Finnish Sauna

Thousands of years of heat, steam and stillness, still at the heart of Finnish life.

Read the story

The Sauna has been part of Finnish life for thousands of years. The first Saunas were pits dug into hillsides. Later came smoke Saunas: log cabins heated for hours by an open fire, with the smoke let out before bathing. Chimneys and, in the 20th century, electric stoves followed. The heart of the ritual never changed: water thrown on hot stones to create löyly, the Finnish word for the wave of steam that follows. Finland has around three million Saunas for five and a half million people, and in 2020 Finnish Sauna culture was added to UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage. “Sauna” is one of the few Finnish words used all over the world.

Man seated in front of an early infrared heat lamp, vintage photo

Infrared Sauna

From scientific discovery to modern wellness, infrared heat offers a new approach to recovery.

Read the story

The story starts in 1800, when astronomer William Herschel discovered infrared light, the invisible part of sunlight that carries heat. In the 1890s, the American physician John Harvey Kellogg built an electric light bath, a cabinet lined with light bulbs that became popular in European spas. The modern Infrared Sauna came from Japan in the 1960s, where far infrared heaters were developed to warm the body directly rather than the air around it. Japanese doctors later created Waon therapy, gentle infrared heat studied for heart patients. Because the air stays cooler, an Infrared Sauna feels milder than a Finnish Sauna, which opened heat therapy up to many more people.

Doctor treating a patient with early light therapy lamps, vintage photo

Red Light Therapy

From a Nobel Prize to NASA research to today’s LED panels.

Read the story

In 1903, the Danish physician Niels Finsen received the Nobel Prize for treating disease with concentrated light, the start of modern light therapy. In 1967, the Hungarian doctor Endre Mester found by chance that low-level laser light helped hair regrow and wounds heal faster in his experiments, opening a new field of research. In the 1990s, NASA-funded scientists studied red LEDs to grow plants in space and soon saw their potential for wound healing. Since then, hundreds of studies have looked at red and near infrared light for skin and recovery. What once needed a laser in a clinic now fits into an LED panel at home.

The science

We read the studies, so you don’t have to.

Less stress

Lower for 12 hours

Burns more calories

Brown fat active in 23 of 24 men

Faster recovery

Up to 4 days less soreness

Sign up for special offers and discounts.