Review: Nice Rocc Palm Cooling Device

When I ran track in college (10 years ago, sigh), my team’s physical therapists were always pushing us to utilize any and all recovery tools, no matter how ridiculous they seemed to us college kids. We’d leave practice with protein shakes in each hand, our shins bulging with ice bags that were plastic-wrapped to our legs as we waddled on our way to the dining hall. We dutifully visited the training room three times a day to take an ice bath or get an ultrasound, transcutaneous electrical muscle stimulation, or the simultaneously loved and dreaded Graston massage. Foam rolling and mini-band work were staples.

Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated by how trainers and coaches can use recovery methods to make people better athletes, or simply bounce back from marathon training faster. When the Nice Rocc, a new handheld palm-cooling device that claims to improve athletic performance by rapidly speeding up muscle recovery, came onto my radar, I was intrigued.

Even better, the Rocc is manufactured in Boulder, Colorado, close to where I live in Denver. I got to drop by the Nice headquarters myself to see how this thing is made.

Super Fast Cooling

Photograph: Kristin Canning

Palm-cooling, also called palmar cooling or vasocooling, uses the glabrous, or hairless, skin that humans have on the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet. This skin contains special blood vessels called arteriovenous anastomoses that contract quickly and widely, making them a great area to target if you want to cool core temperature. That aids in muscle recovery and helps athletes go harder for longer.

When you hold a palm-cooling device, it sucks heat from the body and sends cooled blood back into the circulatory system, dropping core body temperature fast. Athletes can take advantage of these tools during rest periods in games or between reps in practice. These devices are even being used to help firefighters and military personnel fight heat stress. As a performance tool, palm cooling is research-backed. Today, professional coaches and players in the NBA, NHL, MLB, and NFL, as well as tennis, soccer, and Olympic athletes, are using these products to get an edge in games and during training.

Nice has already established itself as an iceless recovery-tool maker with the Nice1, a portable cooling and compression device, but the Rocc is its first foray into cooling for performance instead of injury recovery. It's a dense, rounded cylinder that weighs 5.3 pounds, but it has several factors that set it apart from other options on the market.

While most palm-cooling devices, like the CoolMitt, require some setup (usually in the form of adding cold packs or water to the vessel), the Rocc utilizes solid-state electronic cooling, similar to that found in mini fridges. Small squares inside the machine contain two different conductor metals that meet at a junction. Sending electricity to the junction triggers the Peltier effect, causing the outward side of the squares to feel cool, white the internal side of the squares heats up. (This heat is released through fans in the middle of the Rocc.)

All this means that you only have to make sure the Rocc is charged before you can use it. It can run for two hours on a single charge. Once you turn it on, it only takes about two minutes for it to reach the proper cooling temperature (50-60 degrees Fahrenheit). Dropping down to a lower temp than 50 degrees causes those glabrous skin blood vessels to constrict too much, meaning they can't receive the beneficial cooling (which is why just holding something frozen isn't the most effective way to cool blood). Lights on the device let you know when it’s ready to go and alert you to the charge status.

Pushing It

Nice recommends the Rocc for anyone looking to amp up their training or competition performance, but you’re supposed to hold onto it for at least two minutes to get the best results. (A haptic timer vibrates every thirty seconds to help you keep track.)

That two-minute requirement means it’s hard to work into certain workouts, like HIIT training or track intervals, that usually have shorter rest periods. I tried the Rocc during lifting sessions at home. This is one of the ways Nice recommends using it, noting that they have ample anecdotal evidence that it helps lifters hit new PRs and train harder. I definitely noticed a difference in my ability to keep pushing in later sets.

During a workout with two one-minute sets of AMRAP (as many reps as possible) pushups, I used the Rocc in between sets and was able to crank out 24 reps each time. (I do this workout regularly, and I almost always have less reps in my second set.) I also noticed a difference in between two 30-second sets of AMRAP bicep curls. In the first set I got 15. Then I used the Rocc and felt way less muscle fatigue and lactic acid buildup, and got 17.

There’s something grounding about holding it. It forces you to focus on your recovery instead of just sitting and zoning out or looking at your phone between sets—and you can feel the cooling effects helping your heart rate and breathing slow down. It’s cold, but not uncomfortable to hold. Especially when you’re sweaty from working out, it’s a welcome sensation.

When I used the device between bigger lifts, like deadlifts and squats, it helped me recover faster and feel better, but I didn’t notice major changes in the weight I was able to pull or the reps I could manage. The same was true when I used it between treadmill sprints—my performance wasn’t noticeably different, but I did feel more recovered after using it. I wished I didn’t have to wait two minutes between sets though; I typically only rest for a minute to 90 seconds between sets, whether they’re lifts or sprints.

That meant it was sometimes hard to tell if all the benefits I was experiencing were from taking longer rest breaks in general or the cooling. But that’s not really a knock on the product itself; that’s just how it’s best used, based on our understanding of the science right now. Either way, I did feel better and stronger, especially with upper body lifts, when I used the Rocc.

I’d love to have a version of this that was more lightweight and portable, so I could take it running on hot days. (Nice is looking into something like this.) If you’re a serious athlete, especially one who lifts or plays sports like basketball, football, or hockey, where you can take longer rest breaks, or you work in a field like construction, this could be a major game changer in your recovery and performance. The team at Nice even recommends using it before sleep to help your body transition into a parasympathetic state. If you have trouble sleeping, I did find the Rocc to be really relaxing.

The device will run you $975, a steep price tag compared to competitors like Narwhals, CulCans, and Ava Cooling Charge Bar. But the device looks sleek, requires no setup, has a built-in timer, and feels incredibly durable. I’m no longer in my competitive track days, so for someone like me who trains for general health and fun, it probably doesn’t make sense to splurge on a Rocc for a home gym. But if you’re training at a high level, you know how much difference even a slight recovery advantage in training and competitions can make. This thing is worth it.