WVU football team receives cryotherapy machine in fitness facility
The WVU football team is now on the cutting edge of fitness technology.
With the addition of a new cryotherapy machine, the WVU football workout facility has endless possibilities for its workout center. The team seems to have taken a liking to this machine for post-workout recovery.
A cryotherapy machine is something that people talk about, but not really something that everyone uses. We hear a lot about the controversy of former baseball star Ted Williams being preserved in a similar contraption, but apparently this is important for today’s athletes to use as well.
Players have been seen using this new machine after practice, but even head coach Dana Holgorsen has went inside for a period of time, he told reporters this week.
"“Yeah, I’ve been in it a couple of times,” Holgorsen said in a BlueGoldNews report. “For an old, fat guy it speeds up your metabolism. Good stuff. The players like it. It’s quicker than sitting in a cold tub for 15, 20 minutes, that starts to hurt a little bit, or at least hurts until it’s numb.”"
Apparently, the traditional cold tub is a thing of the past. Players from pee-wee leagues up to the NFL have been filling up cold tubs with ice for post-practice recovery. It looks painful and irritating, but it is the best way to regain lost energy from a recent practice.
Until the cryotherapy tub came along, ice baths were popular at all levels. Now, maybe more programs will look into this kind of workout enhancements. Recent stories have said that Georgia and Alabama both use a cryotherapy machine, too.
The machine looks like a time machine or a futuristic wardrobe used by the Jetsons. But there future is here in many regards. In a decade, cryotherapy machines may be as common as a bench press in workout centers across the country.
As the future of workouts changes, so does the structure of football practice in general. Holgorsen also touched on these changes from his time as a youth and high school player, to what he has to deal with as a coach of today’s student-athletes.
"“The biggest difference is how you practice now compared to how you used to practice,” Holgorsen said in a WVUsports.com report. “The days of being out there for three hours are long gone, that’s for sure. How did we used to practice with not being able to drink water and sit there and do an inside drill for 45 minutes? We probably get more reps in a 10-minute inside period now than we did 20 years ago, in a 30-minute inside period.”"
Holgorsen isn’t a guy who likes to mess around. He wants to get the most out of his players in the most efficient way possible. He is detail-oriented and organized, so this job suits his lifestyle perfectly. He has been a player and coach over the course of the past three decades and he is at the forefront of adapting to new tendencies.
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Whether these new tendencies are practice times or a cryotherapy chamber, Dana Holgorsen is doing what is right for the WVU football team.