How could a man swim beneath ice, run a barefoot half-marathon above the Arctic Circle, or climb more than 23,000 feet up Mount Everest wearing only shorts? Those feats open Iceman’s Legacy—but they are only the beginning.

Iceman’s Legacy begins with those astonishing feats and then travels far beyond them. Raymond A. Low follows the trail backward through centuries of cold-water immersion, controlled breathing, meditation, and spiritual discipline—and forward into laboratories where scientists have tried to explain what happens when the human body is deliberately pushed beyond comfort.

With clear, accessible science, Low explores the shock of cold, the hidden power and danger of breath retention, the roles of oxygen and carbon dioxide, and the ways the nervous system can be trained to respond differently to fear, pain, and physical stress. He separates what has been demonstrated from what has merely been claimed, while preserving the mystery that has drawn people to these practices for generations.

Part history, part scientific investigation, and part firsthand exploration, Iceman’s Legacy reveals where ancient traditions and modern research meet—and explores the idea at the heart of Wim Hof’s message: that many of the limits we accept are not limits we have actually reached, and that we may be capable of far more than we currently believe.