Chris Ballard is best known for his work as a sportswriter, primarily during his time at Sports Illustrated. But once upon a time, he played Division III basketball at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

His passion for the sport led to injuries later in life. Seeking treatment, he tried intense cold therapy. What he didn’t expect was that his health journey would lead him to his next project.

The Plunge: Maverick Swimmers, an Unlikely Quest, and the Transformative Power of Cold Water chronicles humanity’s relationship with cold water.

Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Is this a sports book?

Chris Ballard: “Yes and no, I would say. The introduction, both for me as a writer and personally, is through the NBA. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Klay Thompson, and Steph Curry. That leads me down this rabbit hole, and then it becomes a narrative nonfiction book. Closer to Born to Run, the running book that came out in the early 2000s, where there are characters and narrative, and, hopefully, you’re caught up in the storytelling. At the same time, there’s this secondary theme about a quest to take the extreme sport (of ice swimming) and mainstream it. There’s this Olympic push for this sport, and there’s this crazy South African character (Ram Barkai) who’s trying to get it there. And by the end of this, you realize he might actually have a chance.”

Why should someone buy The Plunge?

“You’re going to learn a lot. There’s a fair amount of science, research, and history, along with practical information. If you’re open to taking a cold plunge or swimming, you’ll learn how it’s good for aging athletes. Swimming, in general, is one of the healthiest sports for you, and you can also read about these extreme athletes.

“I’m always fascinated by why people do it, like the psychology of endurance. How does someone push themselves to run 200 miles? That’s insane to me. How do you swim for 15 hours in a row, face down in the water, and in this case, how do you swim an ice mile?… Who are these people, why are they doing this, and what do they find on the other side of it?”

Three years ago, after a hoops injury, I tried a recovery hack favored by Steph & LeBron.

One thing led to another… and I found myself chasing cold water swimmers around the world.

Frozen lakes. The Baltic Sea. Finnish saunas.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

That… pic.twitter.com/tJL3RxPKP5

— Chris Ballard (@Chris_Ballard33) April 10, 2026

What’s the difference between ice swimming and regular swimming?

“For it to be officially ice swimming, it needs to be 41 degrees Fahrenheit or lower, and all you get are goggles, a Speedo, and a thin plastic silicone cap. So it is as much about the ability to tolerate the cold. It’s a physiological challenge. It’s a physical challenge. And so it really attracts people who are, maybe they’ve done an Ironman, they’ve done something else, but this was an attempt to find something that pushed the extremes.”

How would you describe it?

“If you start running, it’s going to take miles before you start to feel the effects. The second you get into water that cold, your body has an immediate and pretty stunning reaction, going into fight-or-flight mode, so you have to manage that at the same time. And the swimmers who are doing this started out as thrill-seekers or people who wanted to push the envelope, and it has now become something that is recognized in more than 40 countries.”

What prompted you to write about this topic?

“I was a pretty low-level Division III basketball player, but I just loved the game and kept playing after college, putting all this wear and tear on my joints. My body revolted. I had a hip replacement at 42. The doctors were surprised to see someone that young getting one, and they essentially said, ‘You can’t run, you can’t play basketball.’ It hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s identity, it’s stress release, it’s your friends, it’s camaraderie, so I was just looking for anything to keep me on the court.”

What did you do next?

“Through my NBA contacts at Sports Illustrated, there’s a guy named Anthony Katz who runs a recovery company. He always had the latest and greatest ideas, and he texted me. He said there’s a new protocol that all the top players are using, and he mentioned Steph, LeBron, and Giannis. I was really curious, and he explained it’s an intense cold, which didn’t sound that novel because, you know, we’ve been icing ourselves for decades.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m not sure about that.’ But he’s like, ‘No, like 39 degrees, super cold, a plunge tub up to your neck, and then you often alternate with heat.’ I’m game. I’m curious, so I tried it out myself. I found that, at least for me, I felt those benefits, and they helped keep me going during that Sunday game. Then I wrote a Sports Illustrated article about it, which led me down the rabbit hole.”

You participated in one of these ice swims. What was it like?

“I competed at the US Nationals for ice swimming, held outside Washington, DC, and swam the 50- and 100-meter freestyle. I went to a festival in Vermont, where the water was actually 33 degrees and chunks of ice were floating in it. On this frozen lake, they go out with chainsaws and literally carve a pool out of the ice, and they hold a swim race on the ice. I ended up competing at the world championships in Molvano, Italy. And then I attempted to swim a kilometer in 36-degree water in Boston Harbor during a snowstorm. I thought I was going to be a journalist, an observer, and then I realized that to really explain it to people, it would be best for me to take them through it.”

How have you performed in these competitions?

“This is partly because not many people ice-swim, so it sounds impressive. I should include that caveat. I’m currently the age-group national champion in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle. It’s not something I ever had on my bingo card.”

Is there a human-interest story in the book that resonated with you?

“A Canadian named Tom Heyerdahl; his wife got cancer. It was a prolonged decline. One of the things she said to him was, ‘Just don’t go dark on me after I pass away.’ Like, you got to keep living your life. He definitely found that challenging. He gained weight. He stayed indoors. He eventually forced himself to go out and walk around the block. He started jogging and began to get into a little better shape. And then he started thinking, ‘OK, what else can I do?’

“One day, he’s by a lake in Canada. He hears women laughing and having the best time in the water. They say, ‘Come on down, you know, a polar plunger’s kind of thing.’ So he does. He gets hooked on it. And now this guy has done multiple ice miles. Every winter, he carves out his own pool from a frozen river there.”

What’s the key takeaway you hope readers take away from your book?

“Don’t underestimate yourself. I think that’s the one that has really stuck with me. It’s like there are a lot of reasons and guardrails around our lives these days, making it easy to stay in a lane, feel powerless, or feel like we lack agency. It doesn’t have to be ice swimming, but finding ways to bust out of that, bust out of the haze, and challenge yourself a little bit, whatever it is, to wake yourself up is so valuable.”

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