100 Words, 2025, Gatherings, Mysteries, Weather

Polar Plunge

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Watching out the bus window on my way downtown, I saw a young man sitting on the roof of a porch, facing the sun, wearing a pair of shorts.  Nothing else.  It was 12°.  I thought maybe it was some strange life-size blow up doll but then he moved.  

The bus kept going but I haven’t been able to get him out of my head and I haven’t been able to come up with even one far-fetched reason he would have been sitting up there, basically naked, on such a cold day.

Any thoughts?  Ever done a Polar Plunge?

20 thoughts on “Polar Plunge”

  1. Shivering to lose weight. It’s not the best technique considering cost-benefit. Also, sitting in the sun would diminish the shivering effect.
    Diving once into Turtle Lake, Minnesota April 1,1969. Not exactly “polar” but only a few weeks after “ice out.”

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  2. i joined a health club years ago and when they opened a new deluxe branch at the southdale mall i signed up for an extra $10 per month. the benefits are a cold water plunge pool in the locker room( i use it when i get out of their best ever steam room a rooftop pool during summer months i havnt been able to use yet and an incredible workout space

    i talked with a colleague the other day who said he incorporated the cold water plunge into his daily routine and it has made a big difference. i also met an interesting guy in the pool who cuts a hole in the ice in the lake outdide his house every winter to have daily access to a 10 minute soak. he spoke of studying with a guy in europe who is the leader of the cold water plunge movement where his followers get their bodies trained to enjoy naked exposure in below zero weather
    listened to tim ferriss (on of my favorite podcasts) talk about the gurus odd approach and his noteworthy results. im not there yet but those folks exist and ill bet your porch guy is there on non sunny days too.
    im not there yet but do enjoy a cold plunge after a hot steamer ala the finnish sauna crowd

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  3. tried doing a slow entry into a glacieral lake in the canadian rockies with a glacier stuck in the other end of the lake, my feet froze out before i could coax armpits to submerge

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  4. Closest I came to doing a polar plunge was swimming in Lake Superior in August when I was a kid. Lasted about 30 seconds. Even at that time of year, the cold takes your breath away. I have no interest in doing a real polar plunge.

    The guy on the porch roof? No idea, but I’ll go with the above theories to explain it. Also, some people have more tolerance for cold, just as some handle extreme heat much better.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  5. RIse and Catch Some Cold Rays, Baboons

    VS, you are a good observer if you caught this guy on the porch roof. As someone with no internal thermostat that regulates my body temperature, I find his behavior difficult to understand.

    1. Is he a nudist who wants some sun and some time unrestricted by clothing?
    2. Does he want attention? (He got some here but he will never know that).

    That is all I’ve got. I just spent our cold snap trying to stay warm, huddled in my warm woolies and blankets, so I don’t get it.

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      1. PS, on my water aerobics days, I get into a pool that is about 84°. That feels so cold at first but nothing like 12° would feel. The therapy pool at the Community Center is kept at 87° and the hot tub is 104°. But during the subzero cold streak all bets were off. The air temperature in the pool sections of the gym was cold, and the water temps were low as well. All of it felt like 12° and the furnaces there never seemed to catch up. I will tell you that when you spend an hour in the water exercising, every degree matters. Gasp

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  6. I once went from a sauna to a cold lake. People would repeat this 2 or 3 times, get “layers of heat and cold”. Not me – once was enough.

    A friend who lives in St. Croix Falls WI does the polar plunge in the river almost daily. Yikes!

    No idea about the guy on the roof! That would be disturbing to watch, I’d think. Was there snow on the ground, was he going to jump into it maybe?

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  7. As a college student in Southern California 50 years ago, early in spring, I dove headlong into the school’s outdoor pool because, hey, the air was warm enough. The water wasn’t. I’ve taken no cold water plunge since.

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  8. Morning-

    I did a polar plunge maybe in the late 1990’s. It’s become an annual event with hundreds, if not thousands of people jumping. And it raises a LOT of money for Special Olympics. The year I did it was the second year, so they were still figuring out how this was going to work. The guys and gals had seperate trailer homes to change in. It was really cold that year, maybe single digits; I remember all my family came to support me and they were all in scarves and all bundled up. I had ‘rip away’ sweat pants, and a T-shirt that had a red circle and a slash with the word “SHRINKAGE” inside. Remember George Constansa? I remember getting ‘tunnel vision’ as I walked the 50 yards out to the hole, then ripping off my pants, and people cheering, and jumping in. It’s only waist deep, but I figured if I’m in, I’m going under. Lost my hat, one of the firemen / lifeguards handed it back to me.
    Then back to the trailer. Imagine 20 naked cold wet guys trying to change clothes in there… it was something. I skipped the hottub.

    Then Kelly started doing the plunge. She’s done it 5 times. She been part of a group affiliated with Special Olympics, and she gets to jump Friday evening in a small event, rather than Saturday witih the other 800 people. They have large heated tents, they’ve stopped the hottubs, and it’s much more organized. We generally raise $1000 ourselves every year.
    She’s done doing it now, and daughter has mentioed she may do it with some friends from her group this year. It must be coming up…we should look into that.

    We’ve been trying to add cold showers to our routine. Not all cold, just a few minutes of cold. In the summer I can manage about 1 minute. I do like alternating between hot and cold. I haven’t noticed a difference other than it sure is invigorating! Kelly does do a couple minutes of cold.
    But I can’t do it in the winter.
    Maybe when our bathroom remodeling is done, we can try it again with the heated floor!

    Today they replaced the ceiling insulation, the ceiling texture is done, they’ve got the heat wires in the floor, cabinets and plumbing fixtures are in the garage. I think tile is next. It’s getting there!

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  12. I’ve done several polar plunges.

    Many years ago, a bunch of about eight friends, would do a lot of things together. In winter we’d rent a cabin or two “up north,” and go cross country skiing together. One of the resorts was called Earth Homes, a rather “rustic” resort – and I use the word “resort” loosely here – with a few more or less dilapidated cabins and a stand-alone sauna. It was located in the woods, right on the shore of a lake. Somewhere near Itasca, if I remember correctly.

    After dinner, we’d fire up the sauna to get it really hot, and while the sauna was heating, the guys would chop a big hole in the ice. One member of the group was a crazy Norwegian, Knut, an absolutely wild man; lots of Viking blood in him, no doubt. At any rate, we’d all sweat in the sauna together for as long as we could stand it, the run out and plunge into the hole in the ice. Repeat as many times as you could stand it. Three was about my limit.

    After the sauna and the plunges into the icy lake, we’d play games, drink beer, and swap stories into the wee hours. Knut would be out cross country skiing on the lake before the rest of us got eyes the following morning. What great memories.

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