@jessfirger
FREEZE OUT: The FDA warns that cryotherapy can cause asphyxiation, frostbite, severe burns and other ills. +
BRIAN B. BETTENCOURT/TORONTO STAR/GETTY
FOR YEARS, Kyle Patten, a former college baseball player and competitive powerlifter, recovered from intense workouts with toe-curling ice baths. He’d put on a pair of socks and fill his bathtub with ice, and he was like the olive in a huge gin and tonic. Patten would settle into his deep freeze for at least a half-hour, but that alleviated only the discomfort in his legs, and it was often an intolerable soak. These days, he sticks to golf, but the pain from old injuries hasn’t gone away.