The Narwhals: Portable Palm Cooling - As effective as performance-enhancing drugs.

Like many fitness minded, we learned about palm cooling on the Huberman Lab Podcast in October 2021. The promise of outrageous gains without doping seemed like an unfair advantage worth grabbing by the horns. When our early prototype proved super effective (I increased pull-up volume by 50% in 6 weeks and Ariel found he could climb harder longer), we decided to create Apex Cool Labs! Over the last year, we've been refining the design for a portable and affordable palm cooling device, fondly called The Narwhal! The Narwhals ticks all the boxes for effective palm cooling, which is not as easy as it may seem! - Made to be portable, easy to use, and last several hours. - Engineered to stay cool (not cold) – critical for effective palm cooling. - Named after the ultimate badass of the sea. We'd love to know if you have tried palm cooling! How did you go about it? What effect did you see?

When I first heard about palm cooling, like any good scientist, I was curious (but skeptical). At first, I just tried putting my palms into some cool water between sets of pull-ups -- I seemed to notice an effect but wanted to be more rigorous. I found some of the published research to better understand the parameters for building a palm cooling device and got to work. My first attempt involved some copper pipes for the heat exchange interface, a cooler filled with appropriate temperature water, and a simple recirculating pump. I tested it out with a friend of mine and... WE. WERE. SHOCKED. The very first time using that simple system we basically doubled our normal volume on bench press. Ten sets instead of five, where on the fifth set I would usually be able to just finish, my sixth set felt better than my first! I was hooked. But it soon became clear that having a device that you could bring to almost any environment would be game changing. In that journey, I was lucky enough to meet my cofounder, @evylyons. Together, we strove to build a truly portable device, ready to tackle the gym, the track, the crag, or even the desert. The Narwhals we are launching today are the result of nearly a year of learning, designing, prototyping, testing, and refining. We are thrilled to be able to bring this device to the world and find out about your experiences or curiosities with palm cooling!

Congrats on the launch! Palm cooling is such a new topic. It feels like you guys are waaaaay ahead of the curve on this one, so keep going.