It doesn’t matter if you’re on the professional stage, or still on amateur, a high school soccer player, or a product of a top club: we are all prone to injuries once in a while, and as an athlete, it can affect our performance level as well as our general well-being if not attended to. As an athlete, top performance is your primary job, but physical maintenance provides that.
This article today will analyze the various benefits HBOT provides to athletes. So, how does extra energy work for an athlete? Let’s find out.
HBOT FOR ATHLETES-THE BEST RELIEF THERE IS
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a strong anti-inflammatory and fast wound-healing accelerator that’s got the ability to help the athletes recover fast from sports-related injuries and live healthy. Top professional athletes today utilize this therapy for recovery from different types of injuries, including worn out muscles and tendons, concussions, and joint pain. The increase in oxygen which is evident in hyperbaric chamber produces significant changes in the repair processes of the wound that fosters the injury recovery phase.
Let’s have a look at notable athletes who utilize this therapy. Note that in general, the benefits always noted from these athletes include:
- Having a more energized feel.
- Fast recovery from injuries,
- Feeling relaxed after sleeping.
- Fast recovery from soreness.
With that said, athletes who utilize the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy include;
Bill Romanowski: He’s a retired linebacker who uses HBOT to combat lingering results of at least 20 concussions that affected him during his 16 years sports career in the NFL. He was then treated by Dr. Scott sherr, HMS medical advisor and head of innovation and protocol department; and very positive results were recorded afterwards.
Also, Joe Namath who served the New York jets for the majority of his NFL career as an NFL quarterback suffered from head injuries. Due to this, he was faced with memory loss, difficulty to focus, and different feelings of irritability and anxiousness before going in for HBOT.
Today, not only has he received total relief from all injuries, but he’s now a full advocate for HBOT. He was even a key note speaker at the Long Island head injury association’s celebrity sports forum.
Today, athletes aren’t just using HBOT for injuries alone, instead, they use it to stay in good condition, maximize their output and prevent injuries. Let’s take the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps for instance. He’s popular for his strict workouts as well as recovery regiments which were acknowledged in an Under Armour ad where he was seen climbing into a hyperbaric oxygen chamber like this one. Michael Phelps used this therapy to assist his body recover after tough workouts during trainings for the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London.
Other notable sportsman who uses HBOT include; LeBron James, Rafael Soriano, and Rashad Jennings.
WHAT ARE THE SPORTS BENEFITS OF USING HBOT?
Let’s have a little chat on how HBOT is of high benefits to your tissues and general body as an athlete.
HBOT DECREASE THE RATE OF INFLAMMATION
After serious workouts, your body’s prone to have an inflammatory response. This aid your muscles recover but leaves soreness. This becomes more of an issue if you need to perform after the workout. As an athlete, you always need to work out, but too much swelling from frequent workout puts your cells at a high risk of damage. Why this happens though isn’t clear enough, but the use of HBOT has shown to help reduce cells from beaming oxygen-starved from smelling.
The use of HBOT can benefit any type of tissues; is it damaged tissue that requires multidisciplinary therapy or a healthy tissue that only requires rejuvenating? HBOT will be just great at it. Pressure combined with oxygen is what provides the dynamic effects in HBOT. Pure oxygen alone needs a prescription, and when breathed has same effect as your normal air circulation. However, a pressurized environment and oxygen together provides exponential results, and can be accessed only via a hard hyperbaric chamber.
HBOT AIDS IN HEALING CHALLENGING INJURIES
In sports, tendon and ligaments injuries are common. They take a lot of time and may not even heal completely, thereby leading to a decrease in the level of performance of an athlete. HBOT can also help for injuries at these parts of the body. The study of the effects of HBOT on athletes are limited, but proving successful.
In a study review, HBOT showed good improvements for sport injuries relating to areas of a muscle that’s experiencing low flow of blood. These areas include the bones, ligaments, and tendons. These areas pose a lot of stress to heal, making HBOT the ideal therapy option for speeding the healing process.
On a normal basis, oxygen travels to your tissues via circulation. But when you have an injury, oxygen circulation is normally obstructed. Our ligaments and tendons tends to have a slower healing rate because they don’t actually have same level of circulation as other body parts like the muscles. Your tissues requires oxygen to be delivered by the blood vessels, but they don’t actually have enough blood vessels to provide the oxygen they need. When these tissues are torn or exposed, they usually struggle to get the needed amount of oxygen to fix. But with HBOT, there’s a faster delivery of oxygen to the cells that really needs it. Instead of depending on the blood vessels for oxygen delivery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy pumps more oxygen into the blood stream with pressure.
HBOT BOOTS THE PROCESSES REQUIRED TO RECOVER OVERLY USED MUSCLES
Heavy workout and exercise tends to remodel skeletal muscle, however, an overuse with intense workout often leads to a softer tissue damage among athletes. Long-term muscle use needs an extra-oxygen. During HBOT, oxygen at high pressure is pumped into your bloodstream and tissues. This enables your muscles have access to the oxygen faster. There’s no better way to deliver oxygen to your cells other than HBOT. It accelerates your myogenesis (formation of muscle tissue) in soft tissue muscle injuries like bruising. The therapy doesn’t take much time for you to reap the full benefits it provides.
