The point of a Russian bathhouse is to cycle your body through extremes. You start in a 113-degree steam room, then progress into an even more stifling brick-walled sauna. Stay there for as long as you can handle, breathing fire deep inside your lungs, then pad outside for a dip in the 45-degree cold plunge.



“This will take your breath away,” Brad Evans cautioned me, a first timer, although he failed to mention the sensation of one’s genitals retreating deep inside one’s abdomen.



This was originally going to be an uncomplicated story about how Evans has coped during his first year of retirement from professional soccer. An invitation to meet up for coffee was answered by his asking if I’d like to follow along with his “retirement routine” some morning, which involved a “full Russian bathhouse experience” — which brings us to the spa, light-headed and trying not to pass out inside one of the...