Famous Men Who Ice Bath

Cold plunging isn't just a locker-room habit anymore. From basketball courts to football pitches to the beauty and wellness world, some of the most recognisable men on the planet have shown their fans exactly what it looks like to get into seriously cold water — and why they keep doing it.

From LeBron James and Cristiano Ronaldo to David Beckham, Hugh Jackman, Harry Styles, and Wim Hof, the reasons vary: game-day recovery, muscle repair, mental clarity, or simply the challenge itself. What they share is the same as with any cold plunge — no amount of fame changes how the first thirty seconds feel.

Who's Doing It, and Why

LeBron James: Recovery Built Into Every Game Day

At 39, LeBron James has spoken openly about the discipline behind his longevity, and cold plunging sits right at the start of it. In Netflix's docuseries Starting 5, he described waking at 6:30 a.m. on game days and beginning with a cold plunge before moving into warm-ups — part of a wider recovery regimen reported to cost him around $1.5 million a year.

For a player who was the top pick of the 2003 NBA draft and is still competing at an elite level more than two decades later, that consistency is the whole point. The plunge isn't a one-off recovery tool; it's a fixed, non-negotiable part of how his day — and his career — is structured.

Cristiano Ronaldo: Taking Cold Exposure to the Extreme

Cristiano Ronaldo has built a reputation for extreme dedication to fitness, and his cold-water habits go further than most. He's been filmed taking a plunge in −20°C conditions in Lapland, Finland, alongside his more regular use of cold-water immersion as part of match recovery.

Ronaldo's approach illustrates something worth remembering: what an elite professional athlete does to manage recovery at the very top of a physically brutal sport isn't necessarily the protocol anyone else should copy. It's an extreme end of the spectrum, not a beginner's benchmark.

David Beckham: Recovery After the Final Whistle

David Beckham shared his own ice bath routine in a 2024 Instagram video, citing reduced inflammation and faster muscle repair as the reasons behind it. For a former professional footballer whose career depended on repeated high-intensity matches, that recovery focus tracks with decades of established sports-science interest in cold-water immersion for managing post-match soreness.

Hugh Jackman: From Polar Plunges to Cryotherapy

Hugh Jackman has long documented his cold-exposure habits, from open-water polar plunges to trying whole-body cryotherapy — chambers chilled as low as −218°F — as far back as 2017. For an actor whose roles have repeatedly demanded significant physical transformation, cold exposure fits into a much broader recovery and training toolkit rather than standing alone as a single wellness fad.

Harry Styles: Cold Water for Mental Clarity

Harry Styles has spoken about using ice baths and cold outdoor swims, framing the appeal less around muscle recovery and more around mental clarity. His openness about it has helped shift cold plunging's image away from being purely an athlete's recovery tool and toward something anyone might use simply to feel more level and present.

Wim Hof: The Figure Behind the Method

No conversation about famous men and cold exposure is complete without Wim Hof, the Dutch extreme athlete known as "The Iceman." Hof built an entire method — combining breathwork with deliberate cold exposure — that has become the reference point for much of today's cold-plunge culture. Many people who now casually cold plunge at home, or reference "training your nervous system," are drawing directly or indirectly on techniques Hof popularised over decades of extreme cold-exposure feats.

Where the other men on this list adopted cold plunging as part of a wider routine, Hof is arguably the reason the wider trend exists in its current form at all.

What Their Routines Actually Have in Common

The point isn't to copy any one of these routines exactly. An NBA player's game-day recovery needs, a footballer's post-match protocol, and an actor's between-films reset are all solving different problems — and Ronaldo's −20°C Lapland plunge is a genuinely extreme outlier, not a template for a Tuesday morning.

What connects them is simpler: each treats cold exposure as a fixed, repeatable part of their routine rather than an occasional stunt. LeBron's plunge happens every game day at the same point in his morning. Beckham's is tied to recovery after matches. Hof's entire career is built around consistent, deliberate practice rather than one dramatic dip. The specific temperature and duration differ enormously — from a controlled plunge pool to sub-zero Lapland water — but the discipline behind showing up for it repeatedly is the actual throughline.

Bringing It Home

You don't need an NBA training staff, a Premier League recovery team, or a Hollywood transformation schedule to build cold exposure into your own routine. At its core, it's the same simple decision for everyone: get in the cold water.

The real obstacle for most people isn't understanding why elite athletes and performers do it — it's making the practice convenient enough to actually repeat. That's exactly the gap Ice Cold Spice is built to close: a carefully selected range of ice baths and cold plunges for home use, so you can build the same kind of consistency LeBron builds into his game days or Beckham builds into his recovery — without needing their support team.

Whether you're drawn to the recovery angle, the mental clarity Harry Styles describes, or the discipline behind Wim Hof's method, having your own plunge means the cold is ready whenever you are.

Explore our range of ice baths and cold plunges and build a routine that works for you.

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Cold-water immersion may not be suitable for everyone, and extreme cold exposure carries real risks. If you have a medical condition, particularly cardiovascular disease, or are unsure whether cold plunging is appropriate for you, seek medical advice before starting.