Shownotes
Most of the people in our society are experiencing some physical symptoms that reflect the negative effects of their lifestyle. Instead of using natural stressors to calm the body and illicit self-healing in the body, we’re taking medications. Wyatt Ewing, founder of The Ice Barrel, wanted to look at natural and effective ways to improve health and escape from this epidemic of overstressed, overworked, overstimulated, and medicated people. Thus, The Ice Barrel was born. It is a custom US-made oak barrel designed for taking ice baths. Wyatt is joined by sales director Chris O’Connor and marketing director Joby Stanford to talk about the health benefits of The Ice Barrel.
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The Ice Barrel with Founder Wyatt Ewing
Radical improvements in your immune system, mood, focus, energy and overall health. Key leaders in all industries including Tony Robbins, Paul Chek, Laird Hamilton and Tim Ferriss are utilizing the benefits of the ice bath. If they’re doing it, why aren’t you?
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We’re joined by Wyatt Ewing. He’s the Founder of The Ice Barrel. Chris O’Connor, he’s the Sales Director and Joby Stanford is the Marketing Director of The Ice Barrel. Thanks for being on Business Leaders Podcast. We’re going to jump right in. Tell us about The Ice Barrel and who it’s for.
The Ice Barrel is a custom US made oak barrel designed for taking ice baths. We are based in Colorado. We started out of a garage. The Ice Barrel was originally founded out of a desire to connect deeper, go further and maintain equanimity through life’s challenges. It’s grown to give a balanced approach to health fitness through practicality and simplification.
That’s a lot of vocabulary. Let’s drill down into it. Let’s talk about how you got the notion about Ice Barrel and the journey to taking it from thought. What got you started down this road?
I was tired of being sick, addicted to stress hormones in the body and being overworked, overworking myself ultimately. I needed something to take me to the next level and to regain health and balance in my life. When I started exploring with cold therapy, I quickly needed to make a water cooler. I was having some amazing changes in my physiology. I started taking ice baths. I was so sick and tired of laying down in my bathtub upstairs looking at the ugly ceiling. Weighing down in the cold water is not a natural feeling to begin with. You’ve got to lean forward and huddle in there. The idea came when I was driving down the road and it clicked. I need to be able to lean forward and gauge my mind in a different way. Not trying to force myself to relax, but let it come naturally. I put the idea together with the barrel. A lot of work trying to design something that would work and be suitable for the product we created.
Let’s bounce off your point. My background is in health and if we look at the state of the way things are and our population and the number of pharmaceuticals that we see consumed every day. The pain epidemics that we see. The lack of strong immune systems and functions that we see. People are sick. Most of the people in our society are experiencing some physical symptoms that reflect the negative effects of their lifestyle. Instead of using natural stressors to calm the body and illicit self-healing in the body, we’re taking medications. There’s a pill for that. Seeing this clearly if you look from a wider lens, you’ll see how much we are not helping in our traditional approach. We’re looking at natural effective ways to improve our health and escape from this epidemic of overstressed, overworked, overstimulated and medicated people. We want to move away from that. We want to give people a new direction, a new path to move forward and experience the benefits that we’ve all been feeling.
For many of the folks out there that think about health, their first order of thought is not, “Let me go jump in a barrel full of ice.” It’s, “Let’s join a health club, go workout, run, walk, modify your diet,” and so on. Within all of that thought process, you have headed toward this particular application or technology. What’s the science behind what you’re talking about?
You brought up a good point with exercise and eating. There’s a simple word, hormesis. This is newer research. What we found is giving the body a short burst of stress like exercise, cold exposure, heat, extreme temperatures, fasting is another one. Giving the body a dose of these short bursts of stress, cold exposure being the strongest trigger, using these little techniques, we can see the body improve across the board.
Meditation is hard. We are always trying to find a way to quiet the mind because we all know that the stressors accumulate and we get foggy.
If you think about that, people would go, “Am I still going to have to work out?” What’s this?
There are only a few ways, a few triggers that the body truly responds to. A lot of times we’re trying to fix the symptoms. We see it in people with pharmaceuticals. Using exercise, cold exposure specifically is the strongest.
On Tim Ferriss’s podcast, he’ll talk about some of the people that are doing cold therapy. Tony Robbins has a plunge tank at his place. It looks like underground refrigerated water. Tim Ferriss talks about getting in the bathtub, getting in horizontal as you do and putting bags of ice in there. Here’s a guy that you talked about, Wim Hof, hiking around in shorts and it’s snowing like mad. Initially, you look at them and we go, “Screw those. You like the pain.” I don’t think people understand the evolution of mitochondria in the body and what it does and replacement, how all of this fits in. You were talking about some of the effects on body fat reduction when you added The Ice Barrel regimen with your workout schedule. What did you see?
Stimulating weight loss. Cold exposure will stimulate the growth of brown fat. That’s the good fat. That burns energy and keeps the body warm. There’s great research. Rhonda Patrick is one of the leaders in the field and is putting a lot of beautiful research out as far the effects of cold exposure. When you talk about mitochondria, the stress of cold. Is one of the triggers for the mitochondria in each cell to renew, to restore, to go stronger and to become more active. Even at the smallest level, the cellular level of our body, the natural stressor of cold is a strong trigger to elicit improvements of mitochondria. You say mitochondria biogenesis where you’re creating new mitochondria. Looking at the impacts on health long-term are pretty incredible.
I think about the folks reading and their eyes are starting to cross or going like, “Biology class. Here we go again.” In a course review if folks want to see what the benefits and use of the mitochondria are in the body, they can go to Wikipedia and look into it. Effectively, it’s like the carburetor of the cells. It gets the energy going. If they get tired, they get replaced. If you think about that, what you’re looking at in The Ice Barrel is a mechanism to add an additional step to your wellness or workout regimen.
If you think about most of the problems we have, I work with people their breathing patterns are shortened. A variety of things, inflammation in the body, all these things start to improve.
I don’t think people fully appreciate the challenge of inflammation and the damages that inflammation contributes to those on in the body. It’s counterintuitive to jump in a barrel full of ice water. You had this notion and there’s various applications out there, cryotherapy, places where you go.
What we find so much with cryotherapy, it’s the difference between running on a treadmill inside and running on a trail outside. You’re breathing fresh air when you’re in the ice barrel. You’re getting a different level of renewal of the mind that you’re not going to find when you’re standing in a tank getting sprayed with cold air.
We try to make it easier and more acceptable to the population. That in and of itself is a problem. It is the focus and the strength required of the mind to withstand the cold. That also is a huge part of the benefits that we’re seeing.
The Ice Barrel: Cold exposure will stimulate the growth of brown fat. That’s the good fat that burns energy and keeps the body warm.
There’s the will to get in.
We try and pass that up with most things we do. We want to make exercise easier. We want to take the pill. We want to do these things, but it is that hardship, that trial, practicing daily, and overcoming daily this ability to get in the cold and withstand it. That in and of itself is a catalyst for change. If you think on the level of the ability to focus, the ability to recognize the negative inner dialogue that most of us carry with us through every day, getting in a cold bath will expose you. It will expose that dialogue that tends to run and overwhelm us every day. Once it’s seen, once we can look in ourselves and see, “What am I thinking that’s making me feel so timid about this?” That in and of itself is extremely empowering. It’s a huge part of a piece of the puzzle when you talk about overcoming sickness, improving health and feeling good.
It’s one of those things where the body heals itself. This is a contribution that’s particularly getting to be more well-known. The challenge is if you’re aware of it, have you scratch that itch? If there’s not a cryotherapy thing around, if you don’t have to live in a house or an apartment with the bathtub, you’re challenged on what you can do. You go from thought process to execution. With most people, the idea dies on a kitchen table, so you went further. Let’s talk about the journey from idea to execution.
A lot of time went into manufacturing the barrel to last long to be the correct size for virtually anybody. We offer two different sizes, a 300-liter and a 500-liter. It will fit anybody. There’s a lot of structural engineering that goes into a barrel to get it to contain the water and take the abuse of getting in and out every day. We went through that process of getting these manufactured. A little bit of trial and error there until we got the right product. It was a lot of application. “Let’s test it. Let’s make sure it works. Let’s prove that it’s going to last a long time.” It was a challenge at first, but I was thinking back a little bit. My biggest mistake was not doing it sooner. We have this preconceived idea that timing will be right one day. The timing is always right. It’s always now. When it comes to health, fitness, finances and spirituality, it’s always now that you do it. It’s not tomorrow. It’s not New Year’s Day. It’s now. I look back and I’m like, “I should put it to motion sooner.” I’m glad I did. I did take those steps going through the struggle of getting the product to where it needed to be.
You’ve got your prototype done. You’ve done the field testing. You are the poster child for jumping in and out, drinking your Kool-Aid. You are doing that. You’ve had a big body fat reduction from what I understand. Where did you go from what number to what number?
I know overall you look at that it was fairly low, to begin with but around 15% body fat all the way down to 6.5% to 7% is where I’m at.
You think about that and you’ve had that. You went through all the testing and so on. You’ve got a product that’s ready for market. What did you start doing to take and let the world know what you’ve got going on?
Naturally, we connected on social media, which has been a huge driver of traffic to the product. We have a website, TheIceBarrel.com, where you can go and order the product, review the health benefits. See us jumping in it. Also partnering up with different fitness centers and CrossFit gyms and race facilitators to bring the product to do the ice bath challenge and get into the community with the product. It’s been well-received overall.
When you follow that call inside, you'll never let yourself down.
When you talk to these folks about your technology and application, what are the typical concerns or commentary that you hear from folks before they can commit to pick up the technology?
A big concern that I hear most is, “How do I get in and out of the barrel? Am I so cold that I can’t get out of the barrel? My muscles are tense and I feel like frozen.” It’s not like that at all. It’s very simple. We recommend using a short-step stool or a stepladder to get into the barrel. We recommend always having somebody else present with you while you’re doing it. Trust me you have no issue getting out of that water. You’re not in there long enough to start the freezing process. You have no issue getting out of the barrel. You pull yourself right up, have somebody grab your hand and help you out. It’s very simple. The barrel looks big, but it’s not as big as a lot of people see in photos and the way they perceive it. It’s fairly easy to get in and out no matter how old you are.
There’s nothing as interesting as seeing someone else suffer. You enjoyed doing that.
You could pick this up for your other spouse to help them get better. You get some amusement. You’ve got the product. You’ve got it out there. People are starting to find you on social media. Before I get too far, how do they find you on social media?
On Instagram, it is @IceBarrel. On Facebook and Twitter, it’s @TheIceBarrel, very simple. You do a quick Google search, you’ll find our website. Also on social media, we’re getting a lot of cross-promotion going on, so you’ll be able to look up ice baths and you’ll be able to scroll through the feeds and see Ice Barrel.
You have a YouTube channel as well.
We do. It’s The Ice Barrel.
That’s going on. Folks are going to want to know what’s the typical price point that they should consider when they’re looking at perhaps committing to buying an ice barrel?
We have a couple different options. For the 300-liter barrel, which is 80 gallons, you’re looking at $1,999.99. For the 500-liter barrel, which is roughly 120 gallons, you’re looking at $2,799. One thing that’s neat is we have amazing financing options from a set rate and a monthly term to no interest-no payments for a set time as well. We’ve made this affordable for every household and everybody. You can review all of that on our website at TheIceBarrel.com.
The Ice Barrel: When you’re improving yourself, at the end of the day, that’s going to come around and help your family.
A lot of times there is the resistance to getting in the car and going to the local fitness center. In this case, this is good news and bad news. There’s no excuse. It’s at your home. You don’t have to get up, get out and get on the road. You go and get in your barrel. I would recommend outside.
The barrel doesn’t leak like you think a whiskey barrel or a wine barrel. When you fill it up, it’s going to leak. We have it completely sealed. We can talk a little bit more about the uniqueness of the product. You can use an interior application as long as you’re okay getting the floor a little wet when you do get in. For different gyms and fitness centers, they have those designs where the waters flow or drains and slopes. We do recommend putting it out on your back patio. We have a design that you order online. We ship it right to your driveway. You get it, you set it up. The product comes with a stand. Put the stand in the desired location either on your patio in the yard. Keep it up off the ground. You put the barrel on top. It comes with a lid. You put the lid on top then a cover that’s a UV-repellent, waterproof preserving the product over time. We have a cool drainage system as well that you can connect to a hose and drain it off into the yard opposed to flooding your patio when you need to change the water out.
That works well. We’ve been talking about that for a bit of time. Let’s shift gears a little bit. As you’re going through this process from idea to design to marketing, what keeps you motivated or inspired to continue to go forward with The Ice Barrel project?
Getting in it every single day.
I’ll speak to Wyatt at this point. I met Wyatt. We’re both coming back from our family vacation and talking to him on a plane and he was sick at the time. He mentioned he’s been sick a few weeks prior. Here we are eight months later. At the time, he was running, had a second kid on the way. The guy is volunteering. He’s doing a lot more than your average 24-year-old is out there. In the last eight months, you’ve seen a guy who’s completely transformed, with just the body fat alone. That’s a small thing but the mindfulness, the immune system, the ability to think bigger and broader and optimize his life, it’s making his personal and family’s health better. In the day-to-day that we live with the number of stressors and external stuff that we have constantly been fed to us, I’ve seen a guy completely transform how he deals with stress and how it’s affected his relationships around him. To speak to Wyatt at that point if that doesn’t motivate you, what does? You’re improving yourself. At the end of the day, that’s going to come around and help your family.
It gets routine where you get in. Do you find yourself effectively preprogramming your mental process when you get in the barrel? Do you try to solve problems? Do you think out things you try to take and go to zero state? What do you do?
I do try to get to that zero state. I also find that I’m there when I’m in the barrel. I love this quote, “An overactive mind is no mind at all.” That’s by Theodore Roethke.
That’s that zero mistake. What is zero state? Zero state is you’re only focused on one thing. That’s complete mindfulness and peace of mind. We would all kill for two minutes of that. Quiet the background noise and that’s it. A lot of that is an internal dialogue. Joby...
