Talk about a bait and switch…
On this week’s Dale Jr. Download podcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr. told a hilarious story that started with him thinking he was going to day drink with his wife, and ended with him thinking he had frostbite on his back.
It all started when Dale’s wife Amy texted him and told him to meet her for an afternoon surprise. (No, not that kind of afternoon surprise).
“I’m like man, what are we doing? She won’t tell me.
I’m thinking, man, I don’t know what’s going on. This is going to be fun though I’m sure. Going to do some day drinking, I don’t know what the plan is. I’m trying to think in my head, it’s not my birthday, I’m trying to think what we’re celebrating. But we’re getting ready to party.”
Well, not exactly.
Turns out Amy had an afternoon of cryotherapy in store for the NASCAR superstar. (And one of the best parts of this whole story is listening to Dale try to say “cryotherapy.”) Now, if you’re not familiar with cryotherapy, you’re basically put into a super cold chamber, and it’s supposed to help with skin issues, as well as reduce pain and inflammation.
And when I say super cold, I don’t mean just “winter in Wisconsin” cold.
According to Dale:
“These chambers – like the pros, so they’ve got different level of aggression. The pros go in there and it’s -200 degrees. You’re in there three minutes. -200 degrees. Me and Amy got the beginner lesson at -140 degrees.”
Turns out Dale wasn’t too impressed with the surprise:
“It damn sure wasn’t day drinkin’, for one, so big disappointment that I had to shield…
You wanna know what’s tough? Trying not to be disappointed that you’re not day drinking.”
Well despite his disappointment, Dale agrees to go through with his wife’s plan:
“So we’re gonna go in this box. It’s literally a freezer. We open the door, me and Amy step in and we’re in our underwear. We walk in there with robes, you take the robes off, hang ’em up, and then you’re just standing there. We got slippers on, we got gloves on, and a toboggan, in our underwear.
And it’s three minutes. And I’m gonna tell you, at 10 seconds I was like, get me the eff – get me out of here.
I was wanting to open that door so bad. Because you’re not locked in there obviously. And Amy’s standing there not saying a word, standing there just stoic. And I’m like, I’m shaking, moving, jumping, tapping my feet, rubbing my arms. And like, I gotta get outta here. This is awful. This is terrible.”
Sounds like his wife handled it better than Dale did:
“Amy stood there completely fine. And I had to do all types of sh*t to distract myself. I’m speaking in tongues, I’m rubbing every part of my body trying to create some friction.
It was miserable.”
Oh man, I can’t imagine. As somebody who hates the cold way more than I hate the heat, this sounds like my version of hell. There’s absolutely no way. And I’m pretty sure Dale agrees:
“No chance I’m ever doing that again.”
But on the bright side:
“No chance there’s any infections hiding in my body, those are dead.”
Definitely should have gone day drinking instead.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Tries An Ice Bath For The First Time
I’ve never done an ice bath – but after hearing Dale Jr. talk about it, I’m pretty sure I never want to.
On an episode of his Dale Jr. Download podcast earlier this year, Dale Earnhardt Jr. told the hilarious story of his wife Amy tricking him into doing a cryotherapy treatment after making him think that they were going day drinking. Well apparently she got the idea after Dale kept seeing Instagram ads for ice baths – so she surprised him with one of those too.
And according to Amy:
“It’s absolutely f*cking miserable.”
Dale says that when they did the cryotherapy, the workers told them that it wasn’t as bad as an ice bath – and he didn’t believe them, so he had to try it for himself.
“That instantly made me think, ‘Ain’t no way.’ I gotta do it to see. That’s impossible. What I did in the box was miserable and it’s -140 degrees. The ice bath is like 30 to 60 degrees, something, I dunno, but it’s not -140.
So now my interest is even more piqued, cause that was what I wanted to do from the get-go, from the start was the ice bath, cause it’s so easy to acquire everything you need.”
Well, apparently they weren’t lying when they told the Earnhardts that the ice bath is worse than cryotherapy. According to Dale, it took awhile standing outside the tub to psyche himself up to get in:
“This seems like it isn’t that big of a deal, but when you’re standing next to that tub full of ice, and you know you just put 15 gallons of ice in it, and it’s already a cold water spigot from outside, trying to get yourself to climb in there…
And you know if you put a foot in or a leg in, you’re not going in. You gotta go all the way in or you’re not going in.”
So Dale said that he knew he just had to go for it:
“I said ‘I’m going all the way to the shoulders, water level to the shoulders, as fast as I can.’
Because I knew if I stopped at the waist I was gonna chicken out and jump out.”
Well, apparently he couldn’t handle it for all that long:
“I got in, 10 seconds was all that I could do.”
So what did it feel like? Well the couple have an interesting comparison. According to Amy:
“You know how when your cooler’s been sitting outside all afternoon and you have to get to the bottom of it with your arm to get that last beer? Can you put your a** in that? Can you put your neck in that? Can you get your whole body in that? That’s what this feels like.”
Dale Jr. adds:
“What about your private parts? Can you put them down in that cooler with the beer?”
Yeah, when you put it that way, I think I’ll pass.
