Meet the Nova Scotian Bros Turning Icy Lake Dipping into a Fitness Routine

There's nothing quite like throwing off the bowlines, sailing away from the safe harbour and catching the trade winds in your very, very cold genitals. Or at least that's the general sentiment behind the motivation of two Nova Scotian brothers who combine fitness and frigidity in their efforts to practice and promote an alternative lifestyle while oft submerged in icy waters from the waist-down (if not their entire bodies).

Six months ago, John and Brad Mayo (25 and 23 years old, respectively), were retired kayakers living at their parents' lakeside home in Lake Echo just outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia, when they decided to create a new brand of healthy living.

Today, the two brothers have a social following of about 12,000, (however both were either inactive or minimal posters on Instagram beforehand) and make cold exposure part of their everyday routine—whether in the form of a cold shower first-thing in the morning, or solving a Rubik's Cube in an ice-covered lake.

It's a very specific and stimulating form of physical and mental endurance, and, if you're already hating on it, you probably haven't tried it. (I haven't either, but my average heart rate is about 40bpm and I need to put heat-packs into my ski boots when I go on the hill for more than 30 minutes, so I'm a bad candidate.)

Essentially, the Mayo brothers use social media to get the word out about cold exposure and its therapeutic benefits, but they're also big into calisthenics, which is sort of like parkour for your muscles. For the record: experts are split on the long-term effects of cold exposure. Some argue it's a pillar of physical fitness, while most doctors will point to the obvious risk of hypothermia.

Dr. Stephen Cheung, kinesiology professor at Brock University told VICE there is no proof of cold exposure boosting the immune system. "If anything, absolute exercise capacity is reduced if your body temperature decreases," he said. "Your muscles are also not as capable of generating force in the cold… so there is an additional risk of injury. However, they probably have a bit of an adrenaline rush from doing something unusual or daring in the cold, so it can feel like a mental benefit."

I found myself both intrigued and confused by all this, so I decided to sit down and hash it out with the brothers to find out why they're into being cold.

VICE: What is calisthenics?
John Mayo: Basically the etymology of it is "beauty" and "strength." So kalos is beauty and sthenos is strength. So just kind of like, functional movements.

Sort of like gymnastics?
Brad Mayo: Yeah, and they etymology of that is "naked training"—training naked. So a lot of body movement without weights and stuff.

So how did you guys get into this? On your Instagram it says "movement"—how do you describe that? What are you guys doing?
John: A lot of people come up with excuses for why they can't work out or think they need a gym membership, and we just kind of became obsessed with this guy—Ido Portal [who's trained Conor McGregor]—and I was like, "wow, this looks way more interesting than just being in the gym doing bench presses," which is what we were used to because we were both competitive kayakers. We did that our whole lives, but weight training kind of got boring, so once we retired from that sport we kind of got bored with what we were doing, [and] we were like, we want to do some cool interesting stuff.

So where does the cold therapy come into this? There are videos of you guys just sort of doing pushups on the ice, so what is that? Is that your brand?
John: I don't know if you're familiar with Wim Hof—VICE did a story on him. He's "the iceman"—that's his nickname. So [reading that] was the first time I heard about that stuff. I was like, "This guy's nuts. I hate the cold I hate the winter I hate everything about it," but I listened to his podcast and I was like, "Man, this guy's the real deal."

Brad: [We] just kinda wanted to turn a weakness into a strength.

John: I just started with a little bit of cold showers here and there, and [it felt] amazing. And then it started to get more and more intense. And then we started doing the calisthenics page, and then we [thought] OK, well the ice has pretty good lighting and it's pretty open, and you're doing cold exposure at the same time—'cause you're outside and you're working out—so you're getting the two benefits in one.

So what are the benefits of cold exposure in your opinion?
John: There's a lot. For one, it combats muscle inflammation, and the mental benefits are mood elevation, energy boost.

Brad: It's way better than coffee—it combats depression. Better fertility, circulation, shiny hair, shiny skin, [and] it boosts immunity. Lots of people think we're going to get a cold or going to get sick, [but] no, you just don't get sick.

For when you're waking up in the morning, I find it more addictive than coffee. Just hopping in a cold shower—there's no way you can't be awake after that. You're freezing cold and your body thinks it's going to die, and then you're completely wide awake and you feel great after.

John: It's the perfect example of immediate gratification.

Do you ever get people saying it's kind of gimmicky looking now at this point? Is it kind of all about the Instagram likes?
John: Some people say that. Before we even started the Instagram thing, we were [already] doing this, so it's just kind of bringing it to life, because there are so many benefits.

Brad: Like, the polar dips are real and that's something we do, but obviously every day we don't do a workout on the ice. But it's almost like doing workouts on the ice will bring attention to it, and then we can go into the benefits of it.

John: Obviously in some of our videos, we are trying to be funny. Like when we're tossing snowballs back and forth, clearly it's just [creating this funny idea] of a Canadian-style workout—we're just trying to get people to laugh.

So when did you take the step from taking cold showers to literally jumping in the lake in the wintertime?
John: We started in the spring waters. And then it just started to turn into a challenge—like, how long can I do that for? And then it just started feeling so good, it was like crack.

Where is the motivation coming from?
John: We're kind of competitive, coming from a race environment. I think we both just want to have freedom in our lives and view everything as kind of a challenge in our lives so we can be the top of what we can be—just making it into a business is kind of the dream.

Do you do consultations and training?
John: Yeah, basically people message us, [and] we send them advice on what we do. We're going to obviously at some point set up a program, but it's not scalable right now.

Have you ever gotten any really weird messages before?
John: Yeah, people love our feet. It's really strange. People [offer to] fly us out to get pictures of our feet. At first, I thought someone was trolling—this one dude was like, "you have beautiful feet," Then more started [messaging]. Like five people. They comment with little hearts and feet on the pictures.

What will happen when the weather gets warmer and everyone is going in the cold water? Will you guys put on a bunch of warm clothes and go over hot coals or something?
John: Everybody's asking that. We're going to try and get creative—maybe buy a kiddie pool and fill it with ice.

Brad: It'll almost be more of a challenge going from the cold [water] to the hot temperature [outside]—more of a contrast than winter.

So just to go back to the cold exposure, [there are] pretty much no negative effects except maybe the shrinkage.
John: Yeah, totally. But the other hand is that it boosts fertility, because hot [temperatures] are what kills sperm. It's totally [counterintuitive seeming].

Brad: I don't know any negative to the cold.

Do you have a secret handshake or do you chug a RedBull or beer before you do any of this stuff?
John: The less you think about, it the easier I think it is. My buddy did it the other day and the anticipation was killing him. [We don't have] a ritual or anything. Just breathe a few times and go for it.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Lead image via Instagram.

Hillary Windsor is a writer living in Halifax. Follow her on Twitter.