Irrespective of the stage you are in your sports journey, whether an amateur or a professional: we are all prone to injuries once in a while, and as an athlete, it can affect our performance level and also 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
Guess you’ve been hearing about this form of therapy. Well, this therapy is capable of assisting athletes recover fast from various injuries to stay healthy. Top professional athletes today utilize this therapy for recovery from different injuries, like worn-out muscles, concussions, and joint pain. The increase in oxygen, which is evident in the 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, a retired linebacker, utilizes the effects of this therapy to combat the lingering results of over 20 forms of concussions that affected him during his 16 years sports career. He was then treated by Dr. Scott Sherr, and amazing 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 focusing, 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 keynote 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 be in good condition, as well as boost their output and avoid the occurrence of injuries. Let’s take Michael Phelps, for instance. He’s popular for his casual body workouts as well as recovery regiments that were acknowledged in an Under Armour ad where he was seen climbing into an HBOT chamber. Michael Phelps used this therapy to gain full body recovery after strict workouts during training for the Summer Olympics held in 2012 London.
Other notable sportsmen who use 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 benefit 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 aids your muscles recovery 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 workouts puts your cells at a high risk of damage. Why this happens, though, isn’t clear enough, but the use of HBOT has been shown to help reduce cells from beaming oxygen-starved from smelling.
The use of HBOT can benefit any type of tissue; is it damaged tissue that requires multidisciplinary therapy or 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 the same effect as your normal air circulation. However, a pressurized environment and oxygen together provide exponential results and can be accessed only via a hard hyperbaric chamber.
HBOT AIDS IN HEALING CHALLENGING INJURIES
In sports, tendon and ligament 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 with injuries in these parts of the body. The study of the effects of HBOT on athletes is limited but proves successful.
In a study review, HBOT showed good improvements for sports injuries relating to areas of muscle that are 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 tend to have a slower healing rate because they don’t actually have the same level of circulation as other body parts like the muscles. Your tissues require 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 need it. Instead of depending on the blood vessels for oxygen delivery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy pumps more oxygen into the bloodstream with pressure.
HBOT BOOTS THE PROCESSES REQUIRED TO RECOVER OVERLY USED MUSCLES
Heavy workouts and exercise tend to remodel skeletal muscle. However, an overuse with intense workouts often leads to 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 to have access to 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.
