SAN FRANCISCO — With Halloween around the corner, we will start here: Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro is not planning to have his head severed and surgically frozen.
Exhale.
But that doesn’t mean he’s giving a cold shoulder to cryotherapy.
Well, actually he is, but not in a Ted Williams cryogenics type of way (if unfamiliar, more on that reference below).
As part of an offseason regimen that has carried over to the regular season, Herro is working with Muscle Lab and performance coach Vatche Ourishian on a muscle precovery and recovery program in addition to his Heat conditioning therapy.
In moving forward with the program, Herro is following in the path of NBA cryo converts such as LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Ben Simmons and previously Kobe Bryant, as well as boxers such as Deonte Wilder, Jake Paul and Oscar De La Hoya. Paul, in fact, returned to cryotherapy in advance of Saturday’s fight against Anderson Silva.
It is a science that is still evolving, with notable wrong turns such as when Olympic sprinter Justin Gatlin developed frostbite on his feet and ankles from a whole-body cryotherapy treatment and then, in 2019, when NFL receiver Antonio Brown missed practice with frostbite during such therapy that later was connected to wet socks.
To some, the treatment is considered somewhat of a placebo effect.
To Herro, it is a legitimate boost to staying on the court.
“It was just over the summer, pretty much like a cryo tank. It gets like negative 230 degrees,” he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “Pretty much you got to stay in there like two minutes. If you stay in there too long, you’ll get frostbite. So it’s like a two-minute therapy. But it like resets your whole body, I feel like.
“It makes me feel amazing.”
Andy Treys, founder of Muscle Lab, further explained Herro’s treatment, stressing the goal of getting the body chilled to 45 degrees.
“It’s almost like your body thinks it’s dying,” Treys said. “So that’s where the process of however your body responds to that is what he’s saying about restarting, refreshing your body.”
Herro said it now is a matter of finding the right time, already with a place to handle it in Miami, with Muscle Lab expanding from Los Angeles to Miami and Las Vegas.
“In summer I was doing it every other day. But in the season I’ll probably do it in the off days in Miami,” he said, with the Heat on Thursday night facing the Golden State Warriors at the Chase Center on the second stop of a three-game trip.
For Herro, 22, an offseason goal was added strength. By keeping his recovery time down and his preparation amped up, he believes it allows him to keep his strength up.
“I’m stronger than I was last year,” he said. “I keep being stronger with my age. I’m still young.”
Young and open to new possibilities to make sure he gets to the court and stays on the court, with the proper safeguards in place.
“After 30 seconds past the amount of time you’re supposed to be in there,” Treys said, “it’ll just stop by itself already. We also always have a therapist at the machine looking directly at the client.”
Of course, when it comes to the biggest of chills, namely cryogenics (as opposed to cryotherapy) and athletes, there also is the infamous tale of the frozen head of Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams at an Arizona lab over the years since his death in 2002.
In 2009, an ESPN report noted that in the book :”Frozen: My Journey Into the World of Cryonics, Deception and Death,” an employee of that lab, “watched an . . . official swing a monkey wrench at Williams’ frozen severed head to try to remove a tuna can stuck to it. The first swing accidentally struck the head.”
Herro said he was thankfully unfamiliar with that piece of sports lore, but also not overly concerned.
“I don’t plan on dying any time soon,” he said with a laugh and a smile. “I don’t plan on dying any time ever. And I don’t plan on putting my head in a tank.”
