1 month of practicing Wim Hof Method (WHM), I tried cold shower > a little ice > a lot of ice. As my previous experience, I feel like I got more lean muscle regarding doing this. Unfortunately someone shown me some studies regarding cold made you lose muscle.
So I did try to experience more to notice how things will turn out. Then the result is beautiful, I always feel a little pain in muscle, the kind of pain u got after every workout, but like X3 or so. I got used to it after years of training, so no problem, I just feel kinda weird as I was not sure if it's good or bad lol. Unfortunately, it's kindda surprise me when I got back to gym the day after, my workout is awesome and I feel load of energy (and the day after too). This means I got recovered a lot faster than usual. I'm amazed. What surprised me more is my strength as I can lift even more weight easily ( a little more,not massive) ,very weird . I didn't expect that.
Another thing is the BIG difference between going into the icebath and ACTUALLY go all in. The moment when I got my head into the water, it's great in cold, ice water but in freezing water with a lot of ice , it's ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MOMENT OF MY LIFE !!! I feel a beautiful sense of letting everything go including my body and my existence. It's black, super quiet, peaceful and nothing....I can't express or find exact word to describe such experience. This beautiful moment inspired me to overcome my fear and keep doing icebath over and over again.
I truly enjoy every bit of it, I haven't passed 2 minutes of holding breath yet under water but I have no intention to push it, it's beautiful just to do this method and enjoy every second of it. Then let the result unfold itself ;)
I'm so grateful for such powerful technique!! I had a little flu symptoms last night. I tried to do 3 rounds of focused breathing and this morning I got up full of energy !! WTF !!
A little of my routines (hopefully it help)
I do 10 minutes each session (exclude 3 rounds of breathing before )
I did 12 minutes once and I can feel the difference, it's a little hardcore and surpassed my limit, so I went back to 10 minutes
I did once 7 minutes of running cold water river ( shaking like hell, running water is the beast). It freezed the shit out of me lol, I got out and during the day I felt like I got TOO HOT. It's kindda bad signal, then I realized that I forgot to bring towel to dry my body well before taking clothe haha, so my body had to keep heating things up to clear remain water on the body. It's worth to notice I think.
It's important to breath deeply at first when I just got into the water ( due to the shock of temperature )
NOTE : It's important not to do WHM standing up, it made our brain ran out of blood and oxygen or something. I'm not really expert at medical terms. I saw a lot of passing out cases due to doing WHM standing up.
-IMPORTANT: I wouldn't advise anyone to do WHM UNDERWATER especially FREEZING WATER alone without supervisor. I just realized there are some risks involved and it's very important that only do this if you know what u're doing and fully responsible for that. As Wim Hof repeated it a lot, never force ;) . Even in the course Wim just let people go down and immediately go up just to get the cold over your head . I did it as I truly enjoy the experience it brought, as stated, it's my personal experience to share, please don't follow blindly, just enjoy the cold & be safe !!! YOU CAN GO DEEP WITHOUT HOLDING BREATH.From my experience, it's important to FOCUS on the process and ENJOY IT, then let the result unfold itself. Please don't focus too much on the result especially result of OTHERS and then "I'm not energized, WHM didn't work. I'm fat, WHM didn't work. I'm despressed, WHM didn't work. I'm passed out, WHM sucks. ". What you focus expand, just consider WHM as another experience in life, give it a try, focus on the process, fully be present with it. ;)
I'm learning more each day, so all kind of comments are welcome !! Thanks mate.