Designing Sanctuary: The Engineering Mindset Behind Modern Contrast Therapy - Full Transcript | Contrast Collective

Full Transcript: Diving into Contrast Therapy with Greg Aguilera

Podcast host Trevor Gordon interviews Greg Aguilera, founder of Revive Contrast Therapy in Toronto, while experiencing the cold plunge firsthand. This unscripted conversation captures the raw reality of contrast therapy—discomfort, discovery, and transformation.

0:00 — Introduction & Facility Tour

Trevor Gordon: Genuine enthusiasm. Today I am going to do a cold plunge with Greg, the founder of Revive. Come on in.

[Tour begins through the facility]

0:28 — The Five Temperature Tubs

Greg: Welcome to our contrast therapy. You can see behind us we have five tubs, five different temperatures, because we know from science that we need different temperatures at different times. We've actually named all our tubs, which is really cool. So, Kazanski, starting over here, he is our coldest tub. He's Iceman from Top Gun. Elsa from Frozen. Qua from Mortal Kombat the computer game. Jack as in Jack Frost and Bobby of course Iceman from Marvel movies.

Then we got our amazing overhead rain shower with a dunk bucket. And last but not least, our amazing 38 person sauna. It's a dry finish style sauna. We hold it about 92°. We have lots and lots of air flow because we actually pump air into the sauna. This gives a lot of a softer sauna feel, make you sweat faster, but it's more gentle for your body. So that is the contrast therapy.

1:33 — Treatment Rooms & Coffee Bar

Greg: And then we have our relaxation area here. This is our relaxation area. And this is the area you come to between cold and hot. This is our treatment room. It's pyro, kinesiology, physiotherapy, and RMT room. We also offer osteopathy services and reiki out of here where you can really have treatments that are complimentary to contrast therapy.

Here we have our amazing coffee bar. We sell coffee, electrolytes and we sell protein bars as well. Super important after doing contrast therapy you get some protein in your body. One of the really interesting things that we don't do in our coffee bar is we do not charge you anything for milk alternatives. We believe coffee should be your way at the same price.

2:24 — First Plunge Begins

Trevor: Greg, where did you get into this? What's happening here?

Greg: So, you said to me you wanted to do a podcast or an episode.

Trevor: Yeah. I thought we do this on chairs.

Greg: I thought we were going to do this in the chairs and then I decided why don't we do this in the cold plunge. So, how about we get in or get started? Does that sound good?

Trevor: Okay. And can you introduce me to this?

Greg: Absolutely. That is Frank, our emotional support duck. And he helped people out in their first, second, or even their 30th time in the tubs. He's an interesting duck and he's expressionless and if he can do it, you can do it.

[They enter the cold plunge]

3:11 — Interview in Cold Water

Trevor: You just got right in.

Greg: Oh yeah. It's like you run this place.

Trevor: Some say I did a lot of work. Um, so I might do this as a progression throughout the interview.

Greg: That's okay.

Trevor: Okay. So, let's just get right into it. As I get my questions all ready. Have you ever did a podcast like this before?

Greg: Not in cold water. And um ironically when we were talking about this I was going to turn the tubs up a little bit so they weren't quite as cold like the dog. I'm a little bit absent minded and now I'm suffering but never done a podcast like this actually.

3:51 — Origin Story: Finding Contrast Therapy

Trevor: All right. Well so yeah we'll start off. Um what inspired you Greg to launch Revive?

Greg: So I was going through some stuff in 2023 and I found contrast therapy is really the only way to calm my mind. I have a mind that thinks on lots of different subjects at all times. And this particular is the one thing that I can be present in the moment and focused. And so it was like it was a no-brainer for me because I want to bring this to other people as an art science to help them that no longer suffer.

4:32 — The Reality Check

Trevor: By the way, I'm not going to lie, this is hard to concentrate on this, but I I'm glad I'm glad we're doing this in real time. And it's also I got to tell my audience here, normally I have my questions in front of me with a teleprompter, but this is why I'm holding a phone and I am very very cold.

4:54 — The Automotive to Wellness Pivot

Trevor: Now, Greg, you didn't come from the wellness industry. You came from the automotive industry. So, what made you pivot from the automotive to this industry?

Greg: Like I said, I found contrast therapy is something that helped me get my monkey mind under control. But then also coming from an engineering background, I wanted to really engineer the best place possible for people. So our sauna was engineered with airflow in mind. The way that the building is structured, we don't have any hallways. Got one very small hallway. We don't have doors. So it's a very open concept. You can see everything from the sauna. So I wanted to bring that design philosophy of cars—of luxury automotive—into this and that's really why I decided to pivot.

6:05 — What Makes This Layout Different

Trevor: This was built from the ground up. What makes this layout different?

Greg: Really, what makes this different is we have a fully functioning coffee shop. We have a treatment room that is a standard size treatment for physio, kinesiology, and all sorts of other treatments. Our sauna is designed like a stadium and you'll feel that when you go into the sauna in a little while. And here our tubs are actually at different temperatures. So what your listeners may not know is you're actually in our warmest tub.

6:53 — Why Contrast Therapy as Core Experience

Trevor: But why did you choose contrast therapy as a core experience?

Greg: Because this for me of every therapy that you do and I marathon run, I cycle, I try to work out. Of every therapy that I can think of physically, this is the only one that you absolutely have to be present. There's no margin for error here. You have to be in yourself. You have to be in your body. You have to be focused. And that's why contrast therapy is so amazing. And it's completely drug free. You have everything inside your body to come and do this and we're built for this.

7:54 — The Science Behind Hot & Cold

Trevor: Can you walk us through the science behind the hot cold exposure and why it's effective like sauna, the shower, like you know the whole science of the different levels?

Greg: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, when you get in your when you get in the sauna, you activate your sympathetic nervous system, which is kind of your rest and digest. It's your relaxation. And what we're doing is we're getting you overly kind of stimulated in that hot environment. And that's when your body starts to panic. It starts to excrete all the toxins and that's happening through sweat.

And then when you come into here, we activate your parasympathetic nervous system, your flight or fight scenario. And your brain is in panic. Your brain is flooding the body with epinephrine, with cortisol, with your stress hormone. And then when your brain relaxes, your brain should have started to relax from hopefully that re-uptake. And what we're doing is we're teaching the body with its own mechanisms to deal with stress.

9:09 — Why Five Different Temperatures

Trevor: Elaborate why specifically the five temperatures.

Greg: So we know from all of the studies and one of our pillars is based in science. We know from the studies that extended exposure especially for women in super cold temperatures is not good for them certainly through their menstrual phases. So we set our temperatures, we set our temperatures differently depending mainly for women's health but also for mental health and for mental reset. We don't need to be at 3°C. 15° is absolutely okay and we want this to become part of people's lifestyle not a thing that they do because it's a fad.

If you think in contrast there's roots back to the Greeks 3000 BC—humans have been doing this for 5,000 years using hot and cold as a therapy. It was only now just becoming understood what's going on in the body and that's the beauty of this.

10:20 — Are Cold Plunges Bad?

Trevor: Some people think cold plunges are bad. What is your take on that?

Greg: Honestly my take is—people have often said to me you know what are you doing that's new and different and the answer quite simply is the way we deliver this. Yes there's something new about it with the different temperatures of tubs, our guidance and our team absolutely amazing here, the ability for us to do one-on-one sessions with customers and clients—that's also unique. But contrast therapy is thousands of years old and humans have been getting in cold water for centuries or millennia.

Here's a fun fact, boy. It's no wonder that babies are born and they can swim, but they can't run because to avoid predators, humans used to give birth in running water before hospitals. So, we're built for cold running water. That's just in our DNA. That's just in our nature. So, this we're just going back to where we were. It's brilliant.

11:49 — Moving to the Sauna

Trevor: By the way, I am getting a little bit used to this, but it's still cold. Um, you want me to get out with this and come back in?

Greg: Yeah, why not? Let's pip it.

Trevor: So, you have said you should get out of the tub to do a sauna. What's the process now?

Greg: Yeah. Yeah. So, really, the best thing to do when getting out of the tubs is to let your body warm itself up. Remember we said this is about biohacking. So what we really want to do is we want to now allow our body's natural systems to take place. What you'll start to feel is it'll be bit crampy in your legs. It'll feel chilly. It'll feel cold. Your body is now firing itself up burning brown fat. And now it is your oven. Your internal oven is on. And that's what you want to do. So we want to always take that rest between and not rush between hot and cold.

13:03 — Back in for Round Two

Trevor: Yeah. So, we just got out of the sauna where we just warmed ourselves back up and obviously went into the shower, rinse off those toxins to lower our skin temperature just a little bit. And now what we're going to do is we're going to get back in the tubs and we're going to continue this podcast. But for me, this is going to feel brutal because now we're going to have another extended period in the cold whilst talking, trying not to shiver and talk to you guys. So, you ready to do this?

Greg: Frankie told me to maybe take a break, but I don't know. All right, let's go.

[Re-entry into cold plunge]

Greg: Let's go all the way. All the way in. All the way in. And that's the part where we call this home.

14:02 — Partnership with U of F Research

Trevor: All right. So, we're getting into—Greg, you're partnering with UF and OKAP. Why is science and research important to Revive?

Greg: So, for us, we're partnering with U of F because we believe that although this is an ancient thing to do, there's really not a lot of studies out there. There is a lot of studies on cryotherapy which is being cold and there are a lot of studies on pyrotherapy which is sauna or being hot. Not really a lot on both. So what we're doing is we're providing a place that research people can come and study the effects scientifically of what's happening with the body doing this. And selfishly because the data isn't out there. We're gonna create the data. We're going to do the study here.

14:58 — Physical, Mental & Emotional Results

Trevor: What are the kind of results that people are feeling? Seeing physical, mental, emotional.

Greg: So the physical results that you can expect: fat burning, muscle tension reduction, an overall reduction in cortisol in the body. Mental—the resilience of the stresses that happen on a daily basis. In doing this, what we're doing is we're teaching the body how to deal with stress. So that panic that you're feeling, that cold, that chill, taking the mind to a place where it's not affecting you—that's why contrast therapy helps in both physical and mental.

15:56 — For Everyone, Not Just Athletes

Trevor: Really for everyday people, athletes, all of the above. Like I mean what's sort of like your intention?

Greg: The common misconception of this is it's just about athletes. This is for anybody that's having any form of stress in their life. This will help you to reregulate your stress so quickly. And the really crazy thing is we can do that in 75 minutes and you'll be reregulated for two to three days. So, taking 75 minutes twice a week, reregulating your body, getting you back down to where you're at. We don't really see a benefit in doing it repeatedly more than once a day, but two to three times a week. Amazing.

17:25 — Community in High Park

Trevor: How does community play into your business? We're in the High Park area. So, a beautiful neighborhood, a beautiful vibe. How does community bring this together?

Greg: Yeah. So, we've got an amazing community in the High Park area and I think in here you're definitely in yourself. In the sauna, you have this ability to be in a social setting, to have the most amazing conversations in the sauna, to have the most amazing sense of community and connection with each other when you're in the sauna. So, we have connection with other people in the sauna. You have connection with yourself when you're in here. There is no—you and I are talking—the problems are out there not in here because there's no space. There's no space for problems.

18:30 — Coffee Shop Philosophy

Trevor: The coffee shop, the tea. What was your thought process of including that?

Greg: You know I when I was doing contrast, you know, I hunt these things out when I'm traveling. It was one of those things that I always crave. I crave some things that we crave a coffee afterwards just to be able to sit down outside doing this and just to be—just to sit and just to relax and just to—we call it integration and all it means is just allowing yourself to just be in the moment. So integration is just a posh way of saying just being in the moment.

19:29 — What's Next: 20 Locations & Mountain Dream

Trevor: What's next for Revive in Canada?

Greg: So, we want to have 20 Revives across Canada. And the big bold dream is to buy a mountain one day in South America and to build the world's first contrast therapy studio in a mountain site. So, have the sauna built into a cave and have the cold water being natural from mountain. That's the big whole dream.

19:58 — Final Words of Wisdom

Trevor: And by the way, you've been great, by the way. It's like you're a professional and you're into these themselves all the time, but what would be—what's the words of wisdom you would give to people that are thinking about it, considering it, looking at my facial expressions as I'm in this tub?

Greg: Come down, see us. Come and see the team. We do intro sessions on a daily basis. Contrast therapy doesn't need to be arduous. It doesn't need to be a pain. It doesn't need to be breaking the ice on tubs. Be kind to yourself. Come and try it. Come try it with us. I can't tell you what other people do. I can tell you how we are at Revive. We have an amazing team who look after people, who care about people, and who genuinely care about the community that we're building. So, come down, try it out, and see the big difference for yourself.

What we are doing is quite extreme. This is not what we would advise people to do. But I think you and I are both as crazy as each other. And when you came up with the crazy idea, I just was crazy back and said, "Yes, why not?" So come in, try it, and see for yourself.

21:25 — The Perfect Google Review

Trevor: What would be that perfect Google review that you would hope a customer would leave about their experience?

Greg: I'd like a Google review of how I see contrast, which is: it's changed my outlook on the world. And it sounds corny and it sounds cheesy, but I promise you tomorrow there's going to be nothing that's going to annoy you. You're going to sleep like a baby. Nothing's going to annoy you. You're reregulated. You're back to where you should be. And that's really where it's at.

Give us a Google review the next day and tell me how you feel because I promise you you're going to have the most amazing sleep. You're going to feel a million dollars tomorrow.

23:00 — Trevor's Personal Testimony

Trevor: We can keep this part or not, but I was here a month or so ago with my girlfriend. And I was scared. I didn't know what she was getting into. But we were in here for an hour and a half. The staff was great to us. I had an amazing sleep and I was saying this is like a placebo effect because I woke up in the morning feeling like I could take on the world—that I could run through a building and just be Superman. Like I felt in a way that I've never felt in a long time.

If you come and do this in the morning to wake up and you finish on cold, you'll be super charged for the day. If you come in the afternoon evening and you end on warm, you will sleep like a baby. Absolute baby. So this is biohacking at its finest. It's not placebo. It is your body is doing this. Your body is regulating it.

24:05 — Exit & Closing

Trevor: Thank you such an amazing beautiful experience. I can't thank you enough for this.

Greg: Should we get out?

Trevor: Oh, yes.

[Exit cold plunge]

Trevor: Well, thank you, Greg, for giving me this beautiful opportunity of checking out Revive and getting into a cold plunge. I have to say this is so far my most interesting podcast interview yet. So, again, thank you to all the staff. Greg, Revive, thank you to you watching. Bye, everyone.

Transcript note: This conversation was recorded while both participants were experiencing contrast therapy in real time. Some sections have been lightly edited for clarity while preserving the authentic experience of the cold plunge interview.

Designing Sanctuary: The Engineering Mindset Behind Modern Contrast Therapy

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