Freezing out sports injuries with a cold bath

A new facility in the healing of sports injuries has become available in Galway, with the service endeavouring to reduce the amount of time sportspeople spend on the treatment table, particularly those who sustain hamstring injuries.

John Butler Sports Injury Clinic will launch its new Cryotherapy Spa Bath – the first of its kind in Galway City – at their premises in Kilkerrin Business Park, Liosbaun Industrial Estate, Tuam Road, Galway this Saturday.

As part of the celebrations, owner John Butler is inviting the public to come along and sample the Cryotherapy Spa Bath in exchange for a voluntary donation to local charity, ‘Voices for Galway’.

Voices for Galway, which is under the auspices of Down Syndrome Ireland, provides speech therapy to children and adults in the Galway community. It is a parent lead charity that receives no Government funding and must fundraise 100% of its annual costs. Consequently, all of the monies raised from the cryotherapy launch will go directly to the charity.

A selection of local sporting celebrities, past and present, will make appearances throughout the day on Saturday, between 10am and 4pm, while both the All-Ireland U-21 and minor hurling cups will be present.

As for the spa bath itself, Birr native Butler believes the facility will have a major impact in the treatment of sport injuries in Galway. “The idea of it is that it improves the rehabilitation of injuries and it has been scientifically proven to improve hamstring injuries, if you can get into the bath in the first 12 or 24 hours after the tear happens. It brings the injury on by two to three weeks, so that is massive in bringing players back”

Unlike the full body cryo-chamber found in Whites Hotel in Wexford – a dry air facility which operates at temperatures ranging from -60 to -110 degrees – the spa bath just targets the specific injured area.

“This is more specific,” reiterates Butler. “When you go into the water, you can pick the area to submerge. You can bring the temperature down then to zero degrees; you don’t go below that. It is the depth and the turbulence that does the work for you.

“So, you have this very cold water penetrating the skin, dispersing any fluid – such as bleeding that could be going on – or fluid that has built up around an injury, which is the body’s way of protecting the damaged area. Sessions last about 10 minutes and if you are after getting a tear, you go into the bath three times in the first 24 hours. That is the crucial period.”

However, the 36-year-old adopted Galway man stresses that the cryotherapy spa bath’s function is not just to treat injuries, noting that it is also geared towards rehabilitating the body after strenuous work-outs.

“Everyone wants to train more often and harder – to get one-up on their opponents – and we are going to give them a tool for that so they can train harder and more frequently. At the moment, if you go do a heavy session on a Monday, you wouldn’t be fully fit again until Wednesday or Thursday to do another one. Now, though, you could do a session on a Monday, take your bath, and on a Tuesday or Wednesday, you could be back doing a full training session again.”

Butler – who has trained a number of teams, including Castlegar, Kinvara and the Mayo hurlers – says there has already been a huge response to his new spa bath, indicating it’s an ill wind that blows! 

“The huge problem for [GAA] teams, particularly at this time of the year because the championship is in such a mess, is that having done nothing for the summer months – only go on their holidays and the Galway Races – they then, all of a sudden, end up having four or five or six championship games in a row. That, though, has really helped the business. 

“We have got a lot of clubs that wouldn’t have come here previously for injury treatment. They would have had their own people out in the country areas but now they are coming here and they are getting their injuries treated here as well because it is handy to get it all done under the one roof.”

For the last decade, though, the name of John Butler has been synonymous with the treatment of sports injuries in Galway, with the Offaly native – who hurled with Birr up to U-21 level – having worked with a plethora of Gaelic games, rugby, soccer and triathlon clubs in the county.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.