The video explores the significant role of technology in sports as athletes seek a competitive edge. It highlights the substantial investments made annually by companies in advanced sports technologies, from shoes to wearables and data-driven apps. Among the recent technological advancements, recovery technology stands out as a vital tool for athletes to improve their performance by helping them recover from the physical demands of training. Various recovery gadgets and methods, such as massage guns, compression boots, and cryotherapy, are discussed, including their rise in popularity and adoption by athletes like Christian McCaffrey.

However, alongside the enthusiasm for these technologies, there is skepticism regarding their effectiveness. Many products that claim to aid recovery might only offer psychological benefits, making users feel better without substantial scientific evidence to support physical improvement. The video features insights from experts who emphasize the need for more rigorous scientific research in sports science and suggest that existing recovery technologies may largely act as placebos. Nonetheless, athletes continue to invest in them, hoping to stay at the peak of their physical abilities and extend their careers.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. guinea pig ['gɪni pɪg] - (noun) - A person or thing used as a subject for experimentation. - Synonyms: (test subject, experimental subject, trial case)

The best players across sports are willing guinea pigs, and companies from the Fortune 500 to Silicon Valley startups know it.

2. hyperbaric [ˌhaɪpərˈbærɪk] - (adjective) - Involving or utilizing increased atmospheric pressure for therapy. - Synonyms: (pressurized, high-pressure, pressure-related)

Recovery technology includes everything from massage guns and foam rollers to compression boots, hyperbaric chambers, cryo chambers, infrared saunas, and even infrared pajamas.

3. cryotherapy [kraɪoʊˈθɛrəpi] - (noun) - A treatment involving the use of freezing or sub-freezing temperatures for therapeutic purposes. - Synonyms: (cold therapy, ice therapy, freezing treatment)

In her book, Christy points to research that couldn't establish any evidence of recovery benefits in whole body cryotherapy.

4. percussive therapy [pərˈkʌsɪv ˈθɛrəpi] - (noun) - A therapy technique that uses vibration and pressure to relieve muscle tension and pain. - Synonyms: (vibration therapy, muscle therapy, massage therapy)

That first prototype was not a consumer facing device, but the principal idea, what's known as percussive therapy, was there from the beginning

5. amplitude [ˈæmplɪˌtjuːd] - (noun) - The extent or range of a motion or magnitude, used here to describe the depth of movement in a percussive therapy device. - Synonyms: (magnitude, extent, range)

He contends that three factors in the design of the theragun were the amplitude or the depth the massage ball would move up and down, the frequency, the number of times per second it could move up and down, and the torque or stall force.

6. torque [tɔːrk] - (noun) - A measure of how much force acting on an object causes that object to rotate. - Synonyms: (rotational force, moment, twist)

He contends that three factors in the design of the theragun were the amplitude or the depth the massage ball would move up and down, the frequency, the number of times per second it could move up and down, and the torque or stall force.

7. stall [stɔːl] - (verb) - To stop or cause to stop, especially as the result of mechanical failure. - Synonyms: (halt, stop, cease)

He contends that three factors in the design of the theragun were the amplitude or the depth the massage ball would move up and down, the frequency, the number of times per second it could move up and down, and the torque or stall force.

8. therapeutic [ˌθɛrəˈpjuːtɪk] - (adjective) - Relating to the healing of disease; having a good effect on the body or mind; contributing to a sense of well-being. - Synonyms: (healing, curative, remedial)

A treatment involving the use of freezing or sub-freezing temperatures for therapeutic purposes.

9. monetize [ˈmɑːnɪˌtaɪz] - (verb) - To convert into or express in the form of currency. - Synonyms: (commercialize, profit from, capitalize)

There's really good evidence for some things that really do help recovery. It's sleep, it's stress reduction. These are things that, you know, are very hard to commercialize, very hard to monetize.

10. rigor ['rɪgə] - (noun) - The quality of being extremely thorough and careful. - Synonyms: (thoroughness, precision, accuracy)

I think there's a growing recognition now that there needs to be more rigor applied to, to these sorts of studies.

The Questionable Science Behind Sports 'Recovery' Tech

Technology has long been an athlete's secret weapon, searching for the slightest competitive edge. The best players across sports are willing guinea pigs, and companies from the Fortune 500 to Silicon Valley startups know it. Tens of billions of dollars are spent every year on everything from the newest shoe to wearables to big data driven apps. But one of the biggest technologies to emerge in sports over the last decade is aimed at doing something you don't traditionally see in the classic training montage. Recovery technology aims at helping athletes bounce back from the intense training and activity their bodies go through and make the most of those high octane workouts. You do not get stronger that moment that you're lifting the barbell. You get stronger as your body is making repairs. Making recovery recovery is a win, and how you get fitter faster, stronger.

Recovery technology includes everything from massage guns and foam rollers to compression boots, hyperbaric chambers, cryo chambers, infrared saunas, and even infrared pajamas. And athletes are partnering to become investors to take those products mainstream. When you look at tech and sports right now, it's completely innovating the way training's going, completely changing the way recovery is going. Sky's the limit as far as where it can go. But while some of these products can feel amazing, it can be difficult to differentiate between what really helps the body and what just tricks the mind. So many of these things end up not holding up. Every time you're chasing the latest, greatest, newest tool, you're probably chasing a mirage. So I'm a former d one athlete myself, and nearly a decade ago, recovery looked a lot different than it does now. We made sure to recover from injuries, but for professional athletes who have made it their job to keep their bodies operating at peak performance, even into their late thirties and sometimes forties, recovery is touted as one of the most important tools to both prevent injury and elongate their careers.

I feel like it makes me feel better and helps me recover faster. This is an opportunity for me to take care of my body. No pain, no gain. Recovery has also been a big source of business for athletes. While many athletes have appeared in marketing for various products, many are also making direct investments into them as well, including all pro running back Christian McCaffrey, who not only uses products created by company Hyperice, but he became an investor in the business itself. When I first started talking with everyone from Hyperice, I had actually been a fan of the product myself for a long time. I think the biggest thing you get when you're dealing with recovery, and the biggest thing that athletes want is convenience. Obviously, having suffered a few injuries these last two years, it has been very tough. And having products like Hyperice have been huge for me, not just being able to recover and come back quickly, but also in training in general and just staying at the top of my game at all times.

Christian and other athletes have pointed to the convenience factor of these products, giving them the ability to work on their own bodies outside of a training room. The amount of recovery that you can do is limitless. You don't have to be in the training room twenty four seven to be able to recover. You can kind of take ownership of that at your house as well, not just sit there in soreness and say, well, hopefully I feel good tomorrow. No, I can do something about it now because I have something in the palm of my hand. In 2020, the NFL made hyperice their official recovery technology partner. Following investments from athletes like Patrick Mahomes, JJ Watt, Jarvis Landry, and McCaffrey. Players have been investing more and more in other technology as well, some with clearly questionable scientific support. Tom Brady's sleep pajamas, for example, rely on infrared technology that they claim helps promote better sleep. But not only is this not approved by the FDA, the best studies for such technology come from experiments with rats. Still, recovery's importance for athletes has led it to become a big business.

Hyperice is one of few major brands that have taken recovery tools used by professional trainers and elite athletes and marketed them for everyone. Hyperice has partnered with some of the largest sports brands and is estimated to be valued around $1,000,000,000.01 of their biggest competitors. In this space is therabody, the company that created the original theragun, which was made by this guy, Jason Worsland. 2007, I was in a motorcycle accident as a chiropractor. I knew the things that I needed, and most of them were in my office in my practice, and I can't bundle them up and take them with me. So I just went to my garage and I grabbed some tools and brought them in, and I started messing around with them, and I just made something and I started using it on myself. And when I tell people that it worked, meaning the pain stayed away for minutes, 20 minutes at a time.

That first prototype was not a consumer facing device, but the principal idea, what's known as percussive therapy, was there from the beginning. percussive therapy as a concept has been around for centuries. You can see it in a sweetest massage technique known as tipotemonthe, where hands and fingers are used to rhythmically drum on the body. Here in the 1920s, you can see a similar percussive therapy device. This stuff's been around since the forties and fifties. I mean, they used to take, like, a blender sort of design that had an up and down motion to it. And the doctors would use that on patient orslan would begin to tweak his original design and started to use his device on other patients facing similar pain. He contends that three factors in the design of the theragun were the amplitude or the depth the massage ball would move up and down, the frequency, the number of times per second it could move up and down, and the torque or stall force, how much pressure you could apply before the motor would stall.

The result, thera body claims, will increase blood flow and relieve tension and pain temporarily in the treated area, something that worslant initially found useful in treating patients in pain. So how did it go from, like, kind of working on injuries to, I want to do this almost, you know, every day to stay healthy? Yeah. Yeah. So I would actually treat athletes, celebrities, and they would take my product when I wasn't there, and they would take it out on the gym floor. I get so mad at them. And I asked one of them, what are you doing? And he said, oh, dude, this makes my. I don't get sore. And so as he's telling me this, I'm thinking, holy crap. I didn't even realize that therabody would launch their first product in 2016. But that was before any scientific research could be done on the product.

The theragun got out way before we could do studies. That was a tough thing for me because I was trying to hold it back, waiting to get some validation. Theragun would use athlete testimonials to help sell those early products to both other athletes and anyone else who believed it could help, and made headlines when, during the 2017 NBA Finals, Kyrie Irving was spotted using one on the sidelines. But with attention came many companies looking to compete in the space. Today, a simple Amazon search can reveal the multitude of devices on the market, some at a 10th of the price of current theraguns.

In 2020, Theragun would rebrand to Thera body, and the company would expand into other recovery products, continuing to take equipment that originated in training rooms and bringing them to the general population. It's also opening locations like this called reset. The idea for reset came from us seeing these things behind doors and not allowing the general population to experience it. We couldn't, like, ignore it. This room is our theragun and stretch room. So if you were here today, I would take these two and I would treat your body at the same time. Yes. It's called a double gun sweep. The location allows you to choose from a menu of sorts for recovery, allowing you to experience both therabody products used by their staff, but also products you typically wouldn't see outside of elite training rooms. Things like a red light table, hyperbaric chambers, and a cryo chamber. I'm gonna open this just to give you the effect of it. Oh, Lordy, Lordy. Yeah. It's set for two minutes and 30 seconds. It's not that long. Are you gonna try this now? I'm not one to back down from a challenge, so I put on some protective equipment for my hands and feet and stood inside the chamber at negative 141 degrees fahrenheit while the Jonas brothers blasted in my headphones to help keep my mind from freezing for the two and a half minutes.

I couldn't help but wonder, is all of this technology aimed at recovering our bodies worth this little frost on your eyelashes? Athletes should be prioritizing recovery in the same way that they prioritize training. It's that important. This is Christy Ashwandin, a journalist and author of the book good to go, where she wrote about the science of recovery. I read hundreds, probably close to a thousand scientific research articles while I was working on the book, looking at all sorts of these things. And I can just say, having done that and having interviewed hundreds of researchers, that there's not a lot of evidence that this stuff does much. Professional sports teams spend millions, if not billions of dollars each year in various sports science fields.

Players themselves also invest heavily on their own health. LeBron James reportedly spends about $1.5 million on his body every year. I want this stuff to work. I'll tell you what. You know, I was willing to try anything while I was working on this book. I tried almost all of these major recovery techniques that are being marketed now for recovery. But what I found is that most of them, if they made a difference, the difference was very marginal, including, unfortunately for me, cryotherapy. In her book, Christy points to research that couldn't establish any evidence of recovery benefits in whole body cryotherapy. The FDA would also put out a consumer warning about the lack of evidence for the treatment and warned of potential risks.

You wanna see it? Are you sure you wanna see it? Frostbite is reportedly to blame for sidelining Antonio Brown. He reportedly went to France last month to undergo cryotherapy. The source says he didn't wear the proper footwear, and as a result, his feet were frostbitten. Despite this, elite teams around the world continue to use cryotherapy. In 2021, the Dallas Cowboys even announced an official cryo partner.

There's really good evidence for some things that really do help recovery. It's sleep, it's stress reduction. These are things that, you know, are very hard to commercialize, very hard to monetize. What we're seeing now, though, is sports leagues. You know, everyone wants to keep up with everyone else. And when you see your competition using this new device, you think, well, we have to do that, too, because what if it works? And so it's not even about the science necessarily. It's about the culture of, this is what everyone's doing now, so we better be doing it.

When it comes to devices like massage guns, the amount of research is still relatively small. Some studies of recovery technology products have concluded they show beneficial effects. But while the industry has touted such findings, the studies generally use small samples and often themselves call for the need for more research. Some are also not peer reviewed. The quality of the science in a lot of fields of sports science is pretty low. And this is not to slam researchers. It's that these studies are really hard to conduct. It's difficult, particularly if you're looking at elite athletes. I mean, you tell me how you're going to do a study where you take elite athletes and you ask them to change something so that you can study it. They're not going to do that. Most of these studies are very small, and so the results that they get aren't very reliable. There's a lot of uncertainty in them.

So I think we just have to be very careful now. This is changing. I think there's a growing recognition now that there needs to be more rigor applied to, to these sorts of studies. It's not an easy nut to crack. It's hard to get bigger sample sizes for some of these studies. Conclusive scientific research takes time. And with new devices coming out every year and eager athletes willing to try, it may be a while before we could definitively understand what products are actually doing to your body. But it's important to know that while there may not be conclusive scientific evidence of physiological gains, recovery devices, that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't effective, especially when it comes to the mind.

I don't want to be too dismissive of this stuff. You know, some of these massage tools feel really good, and that's worth something. It really is. And if you feel better using these massage tools, I say go for it. The placebo effect is often sort of dismissed as something that's no good, but I think that it's something that we can, in some cases, really, you know, harness for good. I wanted to come to a place where these types of devices were being used. Here at the University of Pittsburgh, athletic trainers work to take care of the student athletes holistically. You'll see many of the same devices here that are used by the staff, but as they explain, they are working not just to treat students bodies, but their minds as well. There's more than one thing that we do. Not a lot, but there are some things that we do that are for the placebo effect, to make someone think we're doing something, you know, there's something to be said for rest.

This is Jennifer Brown, the senior associate athletic director for sports medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, and she oversees all areas of performance, including nutrition, strength, and conditioning, as well as mental health. Rest and recovery is so important, and the more we do this, the more we realize the importance of those athletes. They're competitive. They want to know what they do to get better. Some of them think it's go, go, go, go. Well, we know if you keep going and keep going, no matter who you are, at some point in time, something's gonna break. And do you think that's where some of that recovery placebo tech can come in, where you're trying to get them to understand that they need to rest? So it's like, let's bring this thing in. That makes them think that that's what's happening. Like, they're still doing something, but it's actually just helping them rest a little bit. Absolutely. There's a lot of times where we're like, hey, do this. It's for nothing else than to have them sit down.

They don't like the concept of doing nothing and completely resting, and so what can we do? That seems like something, and that is helping them in some way, but isn't too much or too taxing. I would say the vast majority of these products that target recovery are really just giving athletes something to do while they wait for their bodies to recover on their own naturally. Yeah, that happens whether you use these devices or not. But as Jennifer explains, that time isn't just useful for their body health. The mental side of the game is something companies like Hyperice are already interested in. In 2021, Hyperice bought the mental wellness company Core. LeBron has also gotten in the game and partnered with calm to create content meant to promote mental fitness.

You know, when I was growing up or, you know, some of our coaches, we talk about mental health, had a stick to it. You had a mental illness. Do we really talk about that? Well, that has changed. We certainly have people that are mental health therapists and social workers, counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists, that that's their training. But, you know, as athletic trainers or, you know, even coaches or our, you know, academic advisors, we're all talking to students, and it's just, you know, caring about them, making sure we are genuine, making sure we're, you know, asking people, how are you? How are you? And listening. Not just passing in the hallway, but, like, actually listening to what they say, not judging them.

Everybody's perception is different, but to each individual, what they perceive is what matters to them. What might work for one player mentally could be different for another, and the same is true when it comes to recovery technology. It's all about making sure they feel good. While our most popular games have been played nearly the same way for decades, everyone from coaches to players to owners to your average enthusiast is always looking for the next competitive edge, and technology will always be there to provide at least the chance for the next big advantage.

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