Cherie Blair’s sub-zero workout

The wacky workout Cherie Blair is hooked on

Cherie Blair is said to be a big fan of cryotherapy and dons a bikini and thick socks for the treatments.

While some women swear by a gentle massage and a pedicure, Cherie Blair prefers a more challenging way to chill out. To recover from the stresses and strains of a book tour in China, she has been enduring sessions in the extreme subzero temperatures of an ice chamber.

The treatments involved her being blasted with liquid nitrogen at well below 100 degrees centigrade.

The former prime minister's wife was a guest at the Champneys health spa in Tring, Herts, half an hour's drive from her new country home, and where she regularly goes to work out.

Mrs Blair, who was wearing a bikini and a pair of thick socks to stop her toes from getting too cold, joined other hardy health fanatics for the extreme workout. Lawyer Kevin Harris-James and his wife, Christine, who found themselves in the ice room with Cherie, were impressed with her cheerful demeanour.

Says Kevin: ‘She was absolutely lovely and what's more she kept all our spirits up. You have to keep moving or you would freeze and she led the singing and the clapping as we walked around in circles doing our best to cope and keep warm.’

The treatment is said to help with sleep problems, relieve symptoms of tiredness and depression, and revitalise the body.

It is not the first time Mrs Blair has sought unusual treatments in her quest for physical fitness and wellbeing. She took up salsa dancing, and she was once a devotee of crackpot alternative therapist Jack Temple, who said he could cure her swollen ankles by swinging a pendulum and feeding her a concoction of strawberry leaves.

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