Ask any healthcare professional, and they’ll say that recovery is equally as important as your nutrition plan and fitness regimen. To further encourage Malaysians to pay more attention to our rest and recuperation, Peak Fitness Premier, the brand’s flagship gym located in The Exchange 106 TRX, includes an exclusive revive recovery zone. It is the first (and, so far, only) space in Malaysia to offer a triple contrast therapy zone. It comprises a far infrared sauna, a hot plunge pool, and a cold plunge pool. In a nutshell, your recovery flow starts with a session in the sauna, followed by alternating dips in the hot pool and cold plunge pool. The benefits include improved circulation, refreshing your mental state and focus, and, of course, boosting recovery. Robb Report Malaysia was recently invited to try out the revive recovery zone as well as a suitably challenging workout to make it worthwhile.
It started with a “beginner-friendly” high-intensity interval training (HIIT) session, which turned out to be anything but. The 30-plus-minute session included medicine ball slams, sled pushes, weighted lunges, and shoulder presses, as well as core-centric finisher sets. The workout, as well as the impressive array of fitness equipment at Peak Fitness Premier in the HIIT zone—which also includes sandbags, ropes, balance boards, and more—are certainly primed to help gymgoers hit their goals in efficient amounts of time. And if you really want to challenge yourself, Peak Fitness Premier is the official HYROX Training Club in Malaysia, so you can tune yourself for the global sensation (and gruelling challenge) that are the HYROX fitness races.
Then, I was guided to the revive recovery zone. For the purposes of hygiene and civic-mindedness, everybody who enters the zone must first rinse off their sweat, dirt, and grime accumulated during their respective workouts. Emma, an instructor from Peak Fitness Premier, suggested that I undergo the beginner flow of the triple contrast therapy, which is tailored for post-workout relief: 10 minutes or so in the sauna, and three sets of 60 seconds in the hot pool alternating with 30 seconds in the cold pool. She recommended to complete the pools cycle three times, and perform this entire routine one to three times per week. Emma also advised me to listen to my body, and to spend longer in each space if I felt comfortable.
Unlike a traditional sauna, a far infrared sauna uses light to generate heat. I won’t bore you with a physics lesson here, but the word “far” indicates where the infrared waves are on the light spectrum. In a normal sauna, the air around you is heated up, which may cause breathing discomfort for certain individuals. But in this far infrared sauna, the light heats you up directly and can penetrate up to seven skin layers. The benefits include helping to boost your circulation and metabolism, making your skin glow, and even burning up to 100 calories in just 10 minutes (depending on your body type). I’ve always avoided old-fashioned saunas prior to this due to the aforementioned breathing issues, but I felt no such discomfort in the far infrared sauna. The heat (which ranges from 45 to 65°C) felt uncannily calming, inducing copious amounts of sweat gently without making me feel like a rotisserie chicken.
After 10 surprisingly pleasant minutes in the far infrared sauna, it was time to begin the second and third steps of the triple contrast recovery process. Although Emma had earlier said my time in the sauna could be flexible, she recommended being more fastidious for the hot plunge pool and cold plunge pool dips. For my beginner sets of 60 seconds paired with 30 seconds, I could easily track the time thanks to the countdown timers on the walls in the revive recovery zone.
The hot plunge pool varies from 37 to 40°C, but during my visit, it was at 41°C. Whenever I’m in Japan, I frequent onsen or sento hot baths, so I was able to adjust quickly (and most do, according to the gym team). A dip in a hot pool helps to relieve muscle soreness, improve blood flow, and relax you overall. I was rather tempted to soak my woes away in the hot plunge pool. Alas, the countdown timer ticked to zero, so I dragged myself out and made my way to the neighbouring cold plunge pool. This is usually set at 12 to 15°C, but it was the latter during my visit. I learnt something new the moment I dipped my toes in.
A 15°C autumn day can be briskly blissful. Put on a couple of adequate layers, and you can go about your day comfortably. Put on the right kind of single layer, and you could even go for a nice jog through a picturesque park. But plunging your entire body into a 15°C pool is an extreme experience. I screamed the entire time I forcibly lowered myself in. Whereas I wasn’t even looking in the general direction of the clock in the hot plunge pool, now I was fixated on them, waiting for every second to elapse. Mind you, I didn’t even dunk my head in. Why do this, then? According to the Peak Fitness Premier team, these frigid dips help to reduce inflammation, increase recovery time, sharpen focus, and build resilience, among other things.
The second dip into the hot plunge pool felt like sweet relief after that first battle with the cold plunge pool. I stayed for longer than a minute, and steeled myself for the second spar with 15°C water. It didn’t get any better. I now understand why certain monks stand underneath waterfalls in order to attain enlightenment—because surely one can only survive such torrents if they’re in an ascended state of mind and being.
Despite myself, I completed three sets as instructed, and I began to appreciate how 40-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo—devoted proponent of saunas, hot plunges, and cold plunges—is still playing elite football at a high level. Later that day, after I thanked the Peak Premier Fitness team, savoured some light refreshments at the Peak In-club cafe (thirdspace operated by Bengbeng Sourdough), and returned to my workstation, I noticed that I felt more alert and refreshed than I usually would be after a HIIT workout. In fact, I cleared all my tasks and checked off every item on my to-do list much quicker than normal. The next day—when I am sometimes victim to delayed onset muscle soreness—proceeded relatively pain-free, so much so that I even considered going to the gym again (I didn’t). I later learned that very advanced practitioners of this flow spend 15 minutes in the sauna, 10 minutes in the hot plunge pool, and 3 minutes in the cold plunge pool—four rounds at a time, five times a week. Perhaps I, too, could become superhuman if I could endure the gruelling workouts paired with such demanding recovery sessions.
Its name says it all: the revive recovery zone’s triple contrast therapy will help you recover quicker than merely lazing about on a sofa, and will revive you from the inside out and onwards to the peak of your health and wellness goals.
