The morning routine protocol: sequencing cold, light, and heat to start the day

What you're looking at — and what the numbers are

Everything in the model is drawn at true scale: one unit is one foot, and each piece of equipment is sized to its published commercial footprint. The spec cards carry the planning facts that decide whether a station fits a room — footprint with service clearance, electrical demand, plumbing demand, and realistic throughput.

These layouts are illustrative reference plans built from published commercial equipment dimensions. They are not Praxium installations, not measurements of any real studio, and not outcomes — no figure here describes a result. They exist to make one thing concrete before you talk to a vendor: how much room the equipment actually takes, and what the building has to provide.

Layout

A flagship footprint for a full contrast circuit plus private suites: what an operator builds when the membership model supports staffed bodywork and premium modalities.

Trade-offNine rooms cost real money before revenue: more wet-area waterproofing scope, more mechanical, and the hyperbaric and bodywork suites only earn their keep if staffed hours match member demand — an empty premium room is the most expensive kind of quiet.

View

Protocol

The morning routine protocol: sequencing cold, light, and heat to start the day

Step 1 of 4

Visit shape

34–47 min visit · every stop

2–4 mornings a week anchors most members; daily works once cold tolerance is established. Save the sauna add-on for time-rich mornings; the short standalone version is the one that survives a busy week.

1Red light + warm-up
10–15 min · +3 min transition · elapsed 10–15 min
10 minutes as the default morning session; toward 15 when the schedule allows, within the panel's own guidance. This stop doubles as the warm-up before cold — and it supplements outdoor daylight rather than replacing it.
Wavelength
Red ≈ 630–680 nm; near-infrared ≈ 800–850 nm
Source: published commercial practice
2Short morning saunaoptional
10–15 min · +4 min transition · elapsed 23–33 min
10 minutes if heat is new or the morning is tight; toward 15 with established heat tolerance. Deliberately shorter than an evening sit — the cold close is the point of this visit, and a long heat soak works against it.
Temp
120–150 °F
Source: published commercial practice
3Cold plunge finish
2–5 min · +5 min transition · elapsed 29–42 min
2 minutes for a first visit or anyone new to cold — that's a win, not a short session. Move toward 5 as tolerance builds across visits, not within one. The visit always ends here: cold last is what this morning is for.
Temp
45–59 °F
Source: published commercial practice

Runs 1 station at peak

Before the visit

Come in within the first hour or two after waking — this visit is built around the natural morning cortisol rise, not against it.
Get a few minutes of outdoor daylight on the way in if you can; the panel is an addition, not a substitute for real morning light.
Hold your coffee until after the plunge; cold already lifts alertness, and many members find they want less caffeine on plunge mornings.
Walk or cycle in if it's practical: a little easy movement beforehand warms the body and makes the plunge noticeably more tolerable. Bring swimwear and a towel.

After the visit

Have your coffee now if you want it — after the plunge rather than before spaces the two stimuli.
Dress warm and keep moving until any shivering settles; let it pass fully before you drive.
Many members find the alertness carries well into the morning. Put your hardest work in that window and see how it lands for you.
No heat after the cold close — the visit ends on cold on purpose. Tell us next time how the morning went so we can tune your plunge time.

Front deskIt's our morning starter: some red light while you wake up, an optional short heat round, and a cold finish that leaves you switched on for the day. Most people are in and out inside 45 minutes.

Ceiling in this plan: 6–9 visits/hour

constrained by Red light + warm-up (2 stations)

Ceiling from station math at back-to-back admission on a reference plan — not a forecast, not a promise.

Full protocol

Share

The link carries this exact view — layout, camera, protocol, and step.

Floor math for The morning routine protocol: sequencing cold, light, and heat to start the day in this plan — station counts, cycle ranges, and the visits-per-hour ceiling, as pasteable text.

Ceiling from station math at back-to-back admission on a reference plan — not a forecast, not a promise.

Recovery Studio Economics Calculator

Loading studio

Every sequence against every footprint

The table below runs each published protocol against the three reference plans. Every count is computed step-service — the steps of that sequence at least one placed station in the plan serves — not a rating, and not an outcome. Each plan's trade-off is listed with it, because a bigger footprint is a cost as well as a capability.

Steps of each published sequence that at least one station in the plan serves — computed from the layouts’ placed equipment, not a rating.

For each published protocol, the number of its steps served by at least one station in each of the three reference floor plans. Each count links to that protocol running in that plan inside the studio visualiser.
Protocol	Boutique Studio1,800 sq ft	Gym Annex650 sq ft	Flagship3,200 sq ft
The post-workout recovery protocol: what to do, and in what order	4/4	4/4	4/4
The sleep optimization protocol: how to sequence sauna, cold plunge, and red light for deeper sleep	4/5	3/5	5/5
The longevity stack: a practical protocol for long-term health and recovery	4/4	3/4	4/4
The contrast therapy protocol: rounds, ratios, and whether to end hot or cold	5/5	4/5	5/5
The athlete recovery protocol: what to use, when, and how goals change the answer	4/4	4/4	4/4
The biohacker starter stack: how to begin with cold plunge, sauna, red light, and compression	4/4	3/4	4/4
Post-surgery recovery: how to sequence lymphatic drainage, red light, and hyperbaric oxygen	2/4	1/4	3/4
The inflammation protocol: cold, red light, and PEMF for acute and chronic inflammation	4/4	3/4	4/4
The morning routine protocol: sequencing cold, light, and heat to start the day	4/4	4/4	4/4
The jet lag recovery protocol: resetting your body clock with cold, heat, and light	3/4	2/4	4/4
The desk worker recovery protocol: countering a day of sitting	4/4	3/4	4/4
The immune support protocol: what sauna, cold, and contrast can and can't do	2/3	2/3	2/3
The stress and burnout protocol: modalities for nervous-system recovery	3/4	2/4	4/4
The pre-event priming protocol: getting ready to perform, not to recover	4/4	4/4	4/4
Tradeoff	No private suites and one shared wet room: bodywork and red light sit a wall away from the contrast circuit, so peak-hour noise and schedule spacing are on you, and more than about ten concurrent visitors will queue.	One wet-capable room means no steam and no built cabin; the barrel and the plunge share air, bodywork gets no privacy at all, and your electrical budget is whatever the host panel has left after the gym floor.	Nine rooms cost real money before revenue: more wet-area waterproofing scope, more mechanical, and the hyperbaric and bodywork suites only earn their keep if staffed hours match member demand — an empty premium room is the most expensive kind of quiet.

The virtual studio

What you're looking at — and what the numbers are

The morning routine protocol: sequencing cold, light, and heat to start the day

Every sequence against every footprint

The morning routine protocol: sequencing cold, light, and heat to start the day