“The water is at 2°C, I take an ice bath every morning, the skin is starting to burn, we must not stay too long”: since the start of winter - and for some for longer - Dozens of people on social networks have challenged themselves to take an ice bath (between 0°C and 10°C) every day.
These men and women who film themselves on their terrace or in their garden extol the merits of these daily immersions in a trash can.
Across the Atlantic, some content creators are pushing the limits of the challenge by exposing themselves for long minutes, in areas where outside temperatures are already negative.
An American woman followed by more than a million people has continued to take ice baths since announcing her pregnancy.
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These Swedes bathe in icy water during a cold snap
According to each Tiktoktor who posts their videos, this initiation would make it possible to “better understand negative temperatures”, to benefit from “better recovery from sport”, to be “in better health”, to improve “their immune system”, to “never get sick”... In short, the ideal method to make your body more resistant to microbes.
Icespiration, a French brand that sells portable ice baths, even tells its subscribers that it helps you lose weight.
To verify this information, we met Martin Ducret, sports doctor, who practices in particular at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in Paris (IVe) and at the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (Insep) in which he works with high-level athletes, who are regularly exposed to very low temperatures via cryotherapy sessions and cold baths.