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August 25, 2025 12 mins

Evy Lyons from Apex Cool Labs explains how palm cooling technology is revolutionizing athletic performance by cooling blood and muscles during intense activity.

• Palm cooling accelerates recovery in competition and training by utilizing hands as the body's natural radiators
• Our palms get 10 times more blood flow than other skin areas when we're hot
• Cooling your palms helps lower core temperature, accelerate heart rate recovery, and extend muscle stamina
• Heat inhibits performance, but we lack internal temperature sensors to detect when our muscles are overheating
• Optimal cooling temperature is 50-60°F (10-15°C) - ice is actually too cold and causes vasoconstriction
• Athletes using palm cooling can add extra quality volume to workouts, leading to compound performance gains
• Evie doubled her pull-up max from 7 to 14 in eight weeks using palm cooling between sets
• Narwhals devices are now used by elite athletes across all major sports leagues and in the Olympics
• Beyond athletics, palm cooling provides critical benefits for "industrial athletes" in firefighting, construction, and manufacturing
• Heat is the number one climate-related killer globally, making cooling technologies increasingly important

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What is going on, guys?
Welcome back to another episodeof the Athletes Podcast,
episode 264.
Today we have an awesomeinterview for you.
A couple weeks ago Dave and Iwere out in Denver at the
Cook-Stark Management Mile HighSummit where we brought a bunch
of our top, high level women'shockey players down to Denver,
had them do a mini training camp, did a bunch of stuff.

(00:20):
We did a Red Rocks hike.
We did a a rockies gameprobably the craziest baseball
game I've ever seen 17, 16 walkoff, two run home run for the
rockies after a 9-1 first inningthat we missed crazy stuff.
But evie from apex cool labswas kind enough to come down to
one of our skates, bring somefor narwhals with her, let the
players try them.
They absolutely loved them anddave was able to sit down with

(00:41):
evie for about 10 minutes.
You're're going to see theinterview here.
It was fantastic.
Lots of great stuff in thereabout the narwhals, the creation
of it, what they do, theimportance of palm cooling, how
it can help you recover.
All that great stuff.
You're absolutely going to loveit and we will have some future
stuff for you about the MileHigh Summit.
We got so much good content atthis summit.
It's going to be awesome.
You're going to love it.
So stay tuned for that.

(01:02):
Keep your eyes peeled.
To be awesome.
You're going to love it, sostay tuned for that.
Keep your eyes peeled.
One last thing before we get inhere, I need you guys to check
out Perfect Sports.
They've got the bestsupplements, the best protein
powders.
All their stuff is awesome.
You are going to love it, Ipromise you.
And if you head to theirwebsite to buy some product,
make sure you use the code AP15at checkout.
It's going to save you 15%.
It's going to help us keepdoing what we're doing here.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
So You're the most decorated racquetball player in
US history, world's strongestman, from childhood passion to
professional athlete, eight-timeIronman champion.
So what was it like making yourdebut in the NHL?
What is your biggest piece ofadvice for the next generation

(01:43):
of athletes, from underdogs tonational champions?
This is the Athletes Podcast,where high-performance
individuals share their triumphs, defeats and life lessons to
educate, entertain and inspirethe next generation of athletes.
The athletes podcast, wherehigh performance individuals
share their triumphs, defeatsand life lessons to educate,
entertain and inspire the nextgeneration of athletes.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Here we go you got a sim card, you're good, okay, uh,
mile high summit cook.
Stark management here with apex, cool labs, and we have evy
lions here on the podcast we'recalling an impromptu podcast we
have the narwhals, the new andimproved second generation.
I've been training with themfor the past six months since
you guys sent me them, and whattwo years now total since we had

(02:20):
you on the podcast originally Ithink it's about that.
Yeah, absolutely and I can't sayenough good things about them.
I was telling the gals beforethey stepped on the ice that
they're gonna love being able touse them during the session in
between when they're skating.
But people don't really knowwhat palm cooling is still, so
maybe break it down for us.

Speaker 4 (02:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
Palm cooling is basically a wayto accelerate recovery in
competition and in practice.
So the way it works is that ourpalms are the radiators for the
body.
We actually get 10 times moreblood flow here in our palms
than in other skin areas whenwe're hot.
So if we can cool our palms, wecan cool our blood, and that is

(02:59):
going to have a whole bunch ofreally great benefits in terms
of enabling us to push harderlonger.
So that's really the short ofit.
By cooling your palms, you'reable to cool yourself down,
accelerate heart rate recoveryand extend muscle stamina over
the course of a game or practice.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
I was telling Ryan before even I am mad when I
don't have these during myworkouts, and you actually
posted a little bit on LinkedInafterwards and it's.
I can't even explain thefeeling, other than I don't have
the same kind of capacity orenergy to perform when I don't
have them.
Is that basically the gist ofit?

Speaker 4 (03:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, heat is going toinhibit our performance, and
what's kind of wild is that wedon't have any internal
temperature sensors, right, likewe don't know when we are
getting hot, other than we feelsick, for example, all of our
temperature perception isexternal.
So when you are skating reallyhard or you are back squatting,

(03:57):
your glutes are actually gettingincredibly hot inside and you
can see this on infrared cameras.
But what's really cool is so,if you can cool your blood, you
can cool your muscles, you canextract some of that heat, and
so then that heat is no longerinhibiting your energy
production to the same level.
So, people who really knowtheir bodies, if you cool
between sets, you willabsolutely feel this sort of

(04:19):
like, extended like this, thisstamina that, like you didn't
have before.
Or if you're lifting, you'llreally feel this like this speed
, this bar, kind of speed thatyou didn't have.
And what that enables over timeis you can add extra quality
volume, and it's through thatextra quality volume that palm
cooling enables you to getstronger, faster.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
Now I have a bit more of an understanding, because I
feel like people still aretrying to find that next bit of
edge, and these are.
You know, if you can do anextra set every single time you
go to the gym maybe two, three,four sets that's obviously going
to pay dividends over time.
Everyone knows the power ofcompounding.
Can you speak to it like inyour own personal use maybe?

Speaker 4 (05:01):
Absolutely so.
When I first learned about palmcooling, it was through some of
the Stanford researchspecifically on pull-ups.
At the time I had beenplateaued at seven.
Pull-ups for years could notbreak that eight, Couldn't get
to eight.
So I was using one of our earlyprototypes, one of the early
prototypes that my co-founder,Ariel Paul, created.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
The Japanese soup can .

Speaker 4 (05:21):
No, it was actually pre-Japanese soup can.
It was plumbing parts connectedto a Yeti with the right
temperature water and arecirculating pump.
Wow, and I replicated theStanford study.
I did it a little bitdifferently.
I actually did less work thanthey did, but I basically did 10
sets of max effort pull-upswith three minutes of cooling
between sets.
I did that once a week foreight weeks and I went from

(05:41):
seven to 14.
And my overall volume acrossthose 10 sets increased 50, 50,
five, zero percent.
I've since you know I'verepeated that again I've done it
with pushups.
I've gone from 20 to 42 pushupsin eight weeks.
I train with palm cooling.
Every time I lift any compoundlift, I'm cooling between it.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
I originally came across your stuff because I was
in the firefighting space tosome degree, obviously with the
athletes as well, but it impactseveryone.
I think that's the other likeobviously we're focusing here
with athletes, here for the MileHigh Summit, but firefighters
benefit.
World's strongest men arebenefiting from these.
Is there anyone that couldn'tbenefit from palm cooling?

Speaker 4 (06:22):
If heat's not a problem for you, then you
probably don't need to be palmcooling.
But heat is a problem for a lotof people, whether you're an
athlete and you want to performyour best in a game or you're
competing outside in the heatand that heat, that external
heat, is inhibiting you.
Or you're training hard and youwant to add extra volume, or
you're an industrial athlete, soyou know firefighters, or you

(06:45):
work in oil and gas orconstruction or in your
manufacturing and you're in veryhot environments and heat is a
problem.
Palm cooling is actually one ofthe fastest ways to cool off
the body.
The thing is you can't just holdice, and I think that's where
people get this wrong is thatthis vasculature in your palms
is very sensitive to cold, somost people will vasoconstrict

(07:06):
if they hold something that isunder 50 degrees Fahrenheit or
10 degrees Celsius.
So ice is too cold.
You have to hold something thatis in that range and our
narwhals they maintain that 50to 60 degree Fahrenheit range
for a couple of hours and theyalso have a mechanism for
avoiding thermal barriers.
So, without getting tootechnical, you just you got to
hold something that's the righttemp, that's going to be able to

(07:26):
continuously pull that heataway from you.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
And it's the glabrous tissue that's in our hands and
our feet that allow for this tooccur.
Right, it's the absorption.
I am always trying to explainthis to friends, family, people
who are like curious when I theysee me they just holding these
things in the gym.
I'm like to be honest you justhave to try it to experience the
benefits, and most people don'tever get the opportunity.

(07:51):
So the, the, the makeshiftmodel, is like more like a what
was it?
An aluminum bottle with someice cold water in it to start.
Hopefully that's like in thatrange of 50 to 60, so that you
can try and see the benefitsright.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
Yeah, you could take a single walled aluminum water
bottle.
You can probably get one onAmazon for like five bucks.
Fill it with ideally like 45degree Fahrenheit water.
That would be ideal.
Usually the water like fountainin a gym is going to be kind of
around this temperature.
So fill it with that water andthen what you want to do is just
make sure you're moving thebottle in your hand so you don't

(08:26):
want to form a thermal barrier.
If you're just holding a can,like you're going to hold your
can of beer right, you're goingto warm that up really fast.
So same thing here.
You just got to make sure youmove it around and in a gym it's
probably going to last 15minutes before you'll want to
refill it.
But it totally works and it's agreat way to try it out.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
I remember distinctly trying it once.
I noticed the benefits and Iwas like OK, I need my new set
because my old ones got stolen.
You guys graciously sent meanother one.
I can't thank you enough.
I'm like I'm not kidding, theseare my favorite gym equipment
accessory to bring, and it's aconversation starter.
You know I'm sure you've gotstories.

(09:01):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean ZachHyman using your stuff to the
Oilers.
That's got to feel pretty coolwhen you've got pro sports teams
taking on this stuff.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
Yeah, I mean, when I saw the narwhals on TV in the
Oilers locker room, that was thefirst time I'd seen them in the
hands of pro athletes.
We knew they had them, but tosee it was kind of next level.
And since then we've been luckyto catch them in the Olympics,
in many pro sports, every majorleague sport in the US and
Premier League and they'reeverywhere and I think a lot of

(09:29):
elite athletes.
Everybody's looking for thatedge and palm cooling is
definitely gives you that edge,because everybody thinks about
hydration.
Today Nobody's going to trainwithout their electrolytes,
right?
Well, tomorrow it's going to bethermoregulation.
You got to have hydration andyou got to have thermoregulation
and you have to have your fuelright, Like that's the trifecta.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
I feel like last time we were on the podcast I don't
remember the exact quote, but Isaid in five years everyone is
going to be aware of and usingpalm coolers to some degree.
I feel like we're halfway tothat mark and I feel like at
that point you guys had soldfour or 500 sets.
Do you have rough numbers thatyou can share now?
Are you allowed to?
I know some details.
Maybe you can't go full into,but I know you had some crazy

(10:09):
cool investors become a part ofit who are testing things out in
the sauna, which I was veryinterested about as well, but
maybe like a company Apex CoolLabs update for those who are
interested.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
Yeah, I mean things have definitely been taking off
because, like as you mentionedbefore, we had our V1 out there
and we were selling a hand-builtversion for over two years and
that took 15 hours for twopeople to build a set, so it was
like really tough to grow thatway.
In January, we released what wecall the next gen narwhals, and
so now we're able to go a lotfaster right.

(10:41):
And where we're seeingdefinitely demand is obviously
in elite athletics, butabsolutely in occupational heat.
Stress.
Like this is where you know Idon't know if you're aware of
this, but heat is actually thenumber one climate killer.
It is not hurricanes, it's nottornadoes, it's heat, and so
people are facing extreme heatstress all over the world,

(11:01):
especially in occupationalsettings, and so you know that's
where we're definitely seeing alot of demand, as in you know,
from these large organizations,like I said, oil and gas,
manufacturing, construction.
These are places where, likeheat, solving the heat issue
isn't just a performance issue,it's a safety issue.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
I love to hear that too.
I'm in the safety space.
I sincerely appreciate youcoming bringing these narwhals
to CSM's Mile High Summit.
I'm excited to get this intothe hands of our pro athletes
and get their feedback.
Thanks, so much Hope.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
You guys all enjoyed that episode of the Athletes
Podcast.
I know it was a quick one, butit was a really interesting
conversation with Evie.
Again, you can learn so muchabout that stuff and pump
cooling is so fascinating.
So please look into it.
Look into their company, apexCool Labs.
Who knows?
You might even like them, mighteven want to try them.
Like I said in the intro, staytuned for more content from the
Mile High Summit.
Dave and I got lots coming inthe works and you have one

(11:54):
obligation when it comes to theAthletes Podcast, and it's to
like, subscribe, share with yourfriends, find us on all social
media platforms.
It really lets us just kind ofkeep doing what we're doing.
Keep having awesome people likeEvie on the pod and it's really
going to, you know, help usmove forward and have more
guests that you want on and justkeep doing what we're doing.
So again, please like, follow,subscribe, share, whatever you
can do.
It all helps, thank you.
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