Ep 56 Ice Baths Testosterone & Taking Ownership of Your Health.
Ice Baths, Testosterone
& Taking Ownership of Your Health
& Taking Ownership of Your Health
The Man Who Accidentally Built the Ice Bath Industry
Thomas P. Seager didn't set out to build a company. He was a 52-year-old engineering professor in Phoenix going through a divorce, running blood panels, and trying to figure out why his health had deteriorated. He needed to do ice baths. The ice kept melting in the desert heat. So he built a machine.
That machine — the Morozko Forge — became the first commercially available ice bath that makes its own ice. It ended up in the hands of Nick Bosa, Gordon Ryan, Joe Rogan, and a client of Josh's in Malibu, CA whose entire family has felt the ripple effects. It went from Etsy to a 600-citation book on the science of cold water immersion.
This conversation goes deep. Pre-cooling and testosterone. Brown fat as a secretory organ. Trauma release in the ice. Green light therapy. His father's health and what it taught him about the medical system. And the simple, unsexy things that will move the needle for most people in midlife — none of which require lifting a single dumbbell.
You will never win against the ice. Even Wim Hof is going to lose every time. And that is exactly why you do it — to train your body to do the really freaking hard things.
— Thomas P. SeagerWhat We Cover
What This Episode Covers
What to Take From This
- Pre-cooling before training — not after — produces a dramatic natural testosterone boost in men. Ice bath first, then exercise while still feeling cold. The sequence matters. Seager documented 1180 ng/dL testosterone naturally at 53 using this protocol. A 1991 Japanese clinical trial backs the mechanism.
- Cold showers and ice baths are fundamentally different physiologically. Partial body cold activates the sympathetic nervous system only — fight or flight. Full body immersion additionally triggers the dive reflex, slowing heart rate and inducing a meditative state. The ice bath is a different tool entirely.
- Brown fat is not a nice-to-have — it's an essential secretory organ. It produces BDNF and FGF21 which protect against Alzheimer's and dementia. It regulates metabolism through thyroid communication. It converts visceral fat to subcutaneous fat. If you don't stimulate it with cold, it disappears.
- Trauma surfaces in the ice. The trembling some people experience is not thermogenic shivering — it's somatic trauma release. Peter Levine's work on somatic healing maps directly onto what happens in cold immersion. Let it come. First responders, veterans, and athletes consistently report this effect.
- Seed oils take two full years to clear from your cell membranes. The omega-6 fatty acids in seed oils are incorporated into every cell membrane in your body as structural material — not just burned as fuel. The membranes built from seed oils malfunction. There is no better time to eliminate them than now.
- The medical system is designed to disempower you. The labyrinth of HMO referrals, specialist approvals, and insurance decisions creates an environment where patients outsource health decisions entirely. You are in charge. Your doctor is a source of advice — not the decision-maker. The labs are your tools.
- The simple stack moves the needle for most people: eliminate seed oils, get sunlight through your eyes for 10-15 minutes daily, sleep in genuine darkness, get a little cold exposure regularly. None of this requires lifting a weight. This is the foundation.
- Green light therapy has a measurable analgesic effect. University of Arizona fibromyalgia study. Morozko's migraine lamp. Closing the eyes and holding the green light against the face delivers enough wavelength through the eyelids to drop pain levels from a 6 to a 2 in minutes. No drugs. No injections.
The Full Breakdown
The Origin Story — From Phoenix to the World
Seager didn't plan any of this. Going through a divorce, neglecting his health, he found his way to ice baths through a former student who dragged him to a Burning Man group doing yoga, breathing, and cold immersion. He hated cold showers. The ice bath was completely different — and the Finnish research on partial versus whole body immersion explained exactly why.
He put together a crude machine. His friends wanted one. It went up on Etsy. Ben Greenfield put it in his book. Then Joe Rogan read Seager's article about testosterone on his podcast with David Goggins. Seager was in Iceland with his girlfriend watching the Northern Lights when his phone blew up. That's how this happened.
Seager and co-founder Jason Stauffer were engineers who figured they ought to be able to build a machine. They did. They didn't know at the time it was the first commercially available ice bath that makes its own ice. They just knew buying 150 pounds of ice every day in Phoenix was unsustainable.
The Pre-Cooling Discovery — Testosterone Nobody Expected
This is the section that went viral. Seager was getting regular bloodwork done — trying to take care of himself after years of neglect. His PSA came back elevated. He got serious about keto and ice baths. His PSA dropped from 7 to under 2. Then he went back to his urologist for the clean bill of health — and the urologist wasn't interested in his PSA anymore. He was staring at the testosterone panel: 1180 ng/dL at age 53.
The urologist tested luteinizing hormone to check if Seager was supplementing. It came back off the charts — meaning his body was producing the testosterone itself. Craig Heller's research at Stanford showed enormous gains in athletic output from pre-cooling. What nobody had connected was that the sequence — cold first, then exercise while still feeling cold — produces a testosterone spike that post-workout cold does not.
Nothing will make you question everything about your life like cold water does.
— David Goggins, quoted by Thomas P. SeagerThe Temperature Question — Why Most Cold Plunges Aren't Cold Enough
Most commercial cold plunge setups — including those used by NFL teams — operate in the mid-40s Fahrenheit. That's not cold enough to activate the anterior mid-cingulate cortex — the region Huberman describes as the will to live. The region that builds genuine resilience, the capacity to get up when you're down and keep performing.
34°F with ice chunks floating is the target. Nick Bosa has one. The 49ers replaced all their chlorinated cold tubs with Morozko units after Mitch Wishnowski refused to get in anything with chlorine. The gains at this temperature are not just metabolic — every elite athlete Seager talks to says the benefit is mental.
The Trauma That Comes Up in the Ice
One of the most powerful sections of this episode. A firefighter friend of Seager's — responding to a car accident — encountered a conscious child with the same toy his own son had, asking if his mother was okay. He lost it. He knew in that moment he was no longer qualified to lead his team. He got home and got into the ice bath.
The trembling that followed wasn't thermogenic. It was the release of unprocessed trauma that his job required him to suppress at the scene. Peter Levine's somatic approach to trauma maps exactly onto what happens in cold immersion — the mammalian nervous system processes trauma through trembling. Animals do it. Humans do too, when given the conditions.
His Father's Health — The System That Disempowers People
The most human section of the episode. Seager was angry when his father said his health was his doctor's problem. Then he spent years understanding why his father said it. Born in 1930. Raised in the Depression. Served in the Air Force. A man for whom voluntary discomfort made no psychological sense — because involuntary suffering had been the constant of his formative years.
Then there's the system itself. The HMO labyrinth. Every decision requiring approval from someone else. It's no wonder people disengage from ownership of their own health — the entire structure is designed to make someone else responsible. Brian Bradley of the Egoscue Method put it plainly to Seager: step out of it. You write the checks. You are in charge. Your doctor is just a source of advice.
"I've gone through the same emotional responses. I can't put it all on him and it's actually wrong of me to put it all on him. But we find ourselves in the same boat now. We are both like-minded in the way we take control of our health." — Josh Button
The Simple Stack — What Most People Actually Need
Seager's practical framework for the vast majority of Americans who are metabolically dysregulated and don't know where to start:
Get the seed oils out. They are incorporated into your cell membranes as structural material. The wrong membranes dysfunction. It takes two years of zero seed oil to fully clear them — but there is no better time to start than now.
Get sunlight through your eyes. 10-15 minutes daily without sunglasses. Not staring at the sun — just being outside. This corrects the circadian rhythm, signals melatonin production, and supports metabolic regulation in ways no supplement fully replicates.
Sleep in real darkness. No screens, no artificial light, no wifi next to the bed. The sleep you get from being genuinely dark and cold is not the same as being numbed by a supplement.
Get a little cold. Brown fat is an essential organ. Without cold stimulation it disappears. With it, your metabolism regulates itself, your mitochondria stay sharp, and your brain gets the neuroprotective compounds it needs.
Green Light Therapy — The Accidental Discovery
A University of Arizona study on fibromyalgia patients found self-reported pain scores dropped significantly after an hour of daily green light exposure through the eyes. No drugs. No injections. Just green light in a dark room.
Seager built a portable version — the My Green Lamp — powerful enough that closing your eyes and holding it against your face delivers enough wavelength through the eyelids in 10 minutes to produce the same effect. His girlfriend went from a level 6 headache to nearly gone in minutes with the prototype. The production version is now clearing migraines, cluster headaches, traumatic brain injury headaches, high altitude headaches, and fibromyalgia pain for the majority of people who try it.
Referenced in This Episode
- Morozko Forge — Ice Baths That Make Their Own Ice morozkoforge.com
- My Green Lamp — Green Light Therapy for Headaches migreenlamp.com
- Seager's Science Articles & Journal morozkoforge.com — Science tab
- Craig Heller Research — Pre-Cooling & Peak Muscle Output (Stanford) Referenced at morozkoforge.com
- Breath — James Nestor Available on Amazon
- No More Mr. Nice Guy — Robert Glover Available on Amazon
- Egoscue Method — Brian Bradley egoscue.com
Engineering professor, CEO of Morozko Forge, and author of one of the most rigorously researched books on cold water immersion available — with over 600 scientific citations. Seager discovered the pre-cooling testosterone protocol through his own bloodwork and turned it into a body of work that reached millions through Joe Rogan. He teaches engineering at ASU, leads Morozko, and runs experiments on himself daily. Josh has followed his work for over five years — and his client's Morozko unit in Malibu, CA remains one of the earliest high-profile installations.
Cold Exposure Is Part of the System
Ice baths. Ancestral nutrition. Breathwork. Sleep. These aren't separate practices — they're a complete framework for being hard to kill in midlife. Grab the free ancestral nutrition guide and start building the foundation.
Get the Free Guide Or comment ANCESTRAL on any @stopkillingtheplants post and we'll DM it instantly.Information Disclaimer: The views expressed in this episode are those of the guest and host for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your health regimen, supplement protocol, or training program.
