August 11, 2024
Two World Records in Ice with Wim Hof at the Lanxess Arena
3,500 people in 18 tonnes of ice inside the Lanxess Arena. Field notes from the Cologne event where I joined Wim Hof in breaking two world records in one afternoon.
Last weekend I was in Cologne, in a beautiful part of Germany, inside an almost full Lanxess Arena, taking part in the breaking of two world records with the legendary Iceman, Wim Hof, a man who holds more than 20 Guinness World Records of his own.
The records
The setup
The event ran on 3 August 2024. Greator organized it with the Wim Hof Method team and billed it as the biggest live Wim Hof Method event ever held. The crew brought around 18 tonnes of ice into the arena, set up rows of pools across the floor and around the venue, and filled them with water between 3 and 7 degrees Celsius. Roughly 65 certified WHM instructors took a section of the arena each, so 3,500 first-timers and veterans could run the same protocol at the same time without anyone getting hurt.
Wim has history in this city. Two decades ago he set one of his early full-body ice endurance records in Cologne, and you could feel that in the room when he came back with a full arena and 3,500 people getting into the ice with him.
How the day was structured
The day followed the logic of the method. First the theory: talks on the three pillars of the Wim Hof Method, breathing, cold exposure and mindset, with WHM instructors covering the physiology behind each and Wim on stage in his own unmistakable style. Then the practice: a guided breathing session for the whole arena, rounds of deep, full breaths followed by breath retention, done by thousands of people at once. You have to sit inside that sound to understand it.
Then the horse stance. Feet wide, knees bent, arms moving in rhythm with the group, several minutes of it, until the whole arena is warm and buzzing. That warm-up was the second record. After that came the ice. Section by section, each instructor walked their group into the pools, and 3,500 people used the breath they had practiced an hour earlier to stay calm and hold. Out of the water, straight back into the horse stance to rewarm. An entire arena ran one protocol together.
Why it matters to me
I have worked with cold exposure and breathwork for years, on myself and with the people I mentor and host on retreats. I have written about the mechanism behind how breathwork and cold exposure interact and about what the research says on cold water immersion. I know what an ice bath does to one nervous system and what a breathing session does to a room of forty. I had never seen that same protocol run on 3,500 people at once, and the collective charge in the arena was a different thing from anything I had felt in a small group.
I am proud to have been part of an event like this. I would describe it as an outstanding and positive experience, one that left a phenomenal impression on me and a winning feeling that does not fade. Standing in the ice, in a full arena, part of a number no event had reached before, stays with you.
If you want to work with cold and breath in a structured setting rather than a stadium, that is what we build into every Biohacking Retreat, and the Iceland 2026 retreat is built around this pairing.
Thank you
All credit and congratulations to the Wim Hof Method team for the organization and for the beautiful idea behind it. Getting 3,500 people through breathing, warm-up and ice in a single afternoon, safe and with that much energy, is a serious piece of work. Thank you.
