CrossFit athlete Erin Trease of Hilliard to open Icebox Westerville, featuring cryotherapy
A Hilliard resident is combining her passion for fitness and athletic recovery by becoming a franchisee of Icebox Westerville, 683 Worthington Road.
A grand opening is scheduled March 5 at the business that’s in the Westar Neighborhood Retail Center at Worthington Road and Polaris Parkway.
Erin Trease, who qualified for CrossFit regionals in the master division for 40- to 44-year-olds and placed 88th in 2020 and 77th in 2021 in the world, said she turned to cryotherapy as a healing tool.
Cryotherapy exposes the body for three minutes to ultralow temperatures, ranging from minus 180 to minus 260 degrees, she said.
“It’s a dry cold, very tolerable,” Trease said. “You can go in with a robe. Girls usually wear undergarments. You will wear socks, boots and gloves. The extremities are covered.”
Trease, 44, said she always has been into fitness and athletic recovery.
“So this is like the best of both worlds,” she said. “It kind of melds my personal and work life together. I think it’s pretty cool.”
Trease said it's been her experience that anyone just looking for athletic recovery could do cryotherapy before working out or competing to improve flexibility.
“It gives them an endorphin rush,” she said. “I like to do it before competition because it just helps to make me more flexible. I feel like I’m better to go into competitions."
Trease said people she's talked to find they really like it because it not only makes them feel better, but most said they sleep better the nights they do cryotherapy.
“Some people will start to come on a Wednesday in the middle of the day when you need an endorphin rush,” she said. “Some people just use it for that midday boost even.”
Trease said she grew up in Mansfield, lived in Westerville, moved to Pittsburgh and currently lives in Hilliard.
“I used to own a CrossFit gym,” she said. “I lived in Pittsburgh for seven years. Prior to right before COVID, when I moved back here, I was always big into competing and big into recovery. I was always doing cryo with my profit.
"I sold the CrossFit gym and wanted to move back to Columbus, thinking I’d come back to Columbus and open up another CrossFit gym and do it here," she said. "Well, COVID hit right away. I started doing my research, but I was also 'cryoing' during COVID. I was thinking, ‘Man, I love this part of it. I should just open up a business for as much as I spend on it.'"
Trease said she did some research and found Icebox.
“I was using it for athletic recovery,” she said. “That was really all that I knew about it. That’s what a lot of people think. They see LeBron (James) doing it and all the football players doing it."
Powell resident Erin Hoying has been getting a red-light facial treatment at Trease’s home.
That treatment will be available at Icebox Westerville, as well as other "cryobeauty" facials.
“I have been utilizing red-light therapy approximately two to three times a week for the last few months,” Hoying said. “During that time, I have noticed a significant decrease in wrinkles and drastic improvement in my acne. My skin feels rejuvenated with a firmness and glow that I lacked before.”
“Erin has a fund of knowledge regarding her business, and I am so grateful to be in the hands of someone who genuinely wants me to look and feel good about myself,” Hoying said of Trease. “I cannot wait to try out her cryotherapy.”
“We are thrilled to have Erin joining the Icebox family,” Alia Alston, founder and CEO of Icebox Cryotherapy Studio, said in a news release. “Her passion for the therapy and helping others is what Icebox is about. We’re excited to grow our brand and see this as the first of many Icebox locations in Ohio.”
Whole-body cryotherapy has some detractors, including the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, which has expressed skepticism that it could improve blood circulation, increase metabolism, improve recovery and soreness after workouts and relieve joint and body pain.
A National Institutes of Health study, however, concluded that controlled studies suggest whole-body cryotherapy could have a positive influence on inflammatory mediators, antioxidant capacity and autonomic function during sporting recovery; however, these findings are preliminary.
Trease said compression therapy, applying pressure to the lower limbs through the use of leg sleeves, also will be offered as a complement to cryotherapy.
The compression therapy room will feature a Himalayan salt wall with recliners.
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Business hours will be 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays through Sundays.
mkuhlman@thisweeknews.com
@ThisWeekMarla
This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: CrossFit athlete Erin Trease of Hilliard to open Icebox Westerville, featuring cryotherapy
