"The last 10 seconds were probably the hardest,” Cindy Lott, of Shreveport, said.
Lott has frequented Shreveport’s new CryoSpa as part of her training regimen while she prepares to run her third full marathon.
“I’m training for the New York Marathon. I can honestly tell you, it helped so much with my recovery after my long runs,” she said.
Located on Line Avenue, the CryoSpa uses cryotherapy (extreme cold temperatures) to help with sore muscles after a workout or rigorous activity, or anything else that causes pain and inflammation. Cryotherapy can be used as an alternative to ice baths or packs.
CryoSpa manager Desiree Bailey said a cryochamber that cools down using liquid nitrogen is the main cryotherapy tool they utilize. Customers wear minimal clothing and stay in the chamber for a three-minute session while temperatures drop to a negative 275 degrees Fahrenheit. The cryochamber can accommodate one person’s body while their head and neck remain outside above the device. Clients can stop treatment at any time.  
Icing muscles after exercise can help preserve them for the next workout. During a strenuous workout, muscles fibers get tiny tears. The tears stimulate muscle cell activity to help repair the damage and strengthen the muscles, but it is also connected to muscle pain and soreness, which generally happens up to 72 hours after the exercise.  
Bailey said cryotherapy works because the cold causes the blood vessels in the muscles to constrict. The swelling in the muscle tissue reduces and gives the muscles time to recover.
Cryotherapy removes the lactic acid and the toxins from the muscles, Bailey said. The extreme cold speeds up the heart rate, which helps to clear out waste products, like the lactic acid. When the body’s extremities warm back up and the blood circulates to the arms and legs, the lactic acid and toxins have been removed. What is left is healthy oxygenated blood.
Cooling treatments like cryotherapy are helpful when working out for several days in a row. Resting after a workout is less effective than a cooling treatment, and pain and soreness will still occur and muscle recovery will not happen faster.  
Lott, who said her legs feel tired and sore the day after a long run, has been to the CryoSpa three times after longer runs of 16, 18 and 20 miles. Lott said her legs felt energized and fresh after treatment in the cryochamber.
The CryoSpa also has the NormaTec recovery system, which are attachments that go on the legs for compression massages.
Kyle Smith, of Shreveport, uses the NormaTec attachments to help with soreness and muscle recovery after a workout. Smith, a former athlete, decided to try cryotherapy. “The idea of it intrigued me. It’s just helped me bounce back to be able to work out harder or as hard as I did the day before,” he said. “Particularly for leg workouts. That’s where I found that I feel that it’s the most useful.”
The NormaTec attachments mold to the client’s body shape and then compress in a pulse and release rhythm. It repeats for each segment of the attachment as the compression pattern works its way up the limb. The sensation is similar to the kneading done during a manual massage.