Cryotherapy chambers and other practices have little evidence behind them, says top performance director.
D r Claire-Marie Roberts was working at Coventry City when she received a call from someone asking whether she knew how much oxygen was in the atmosphere. As the performance director, responsible for optimising players’ potential, she was accustomed to being pitched the latest gimmick promising gains. At times, she could receive up to 50 LinkedIn messages a week offering a device, supplement or technology that claimed to produce magical results.
“It is only 21%,” the caller told her.
“Right … oxygen in a can,” Roberts says, laughing at the memory. Suffice to say, she did not take the caller up on his offer to buy oxygen in a can for Coventry’s players.
Roberts has spent decades working in athlete performance and professional football, including nine years at the Premier League and two at Coventry, where she played a role in their promotion as Championship champions before joining the Formula One team McLaren as director of human performance in the summer.
Roberts says some of the practices commonplace in football have little evidence behind them. If unavailable, ice baths are a fallback. Players enjoy them so much that Harry Kane was photographed standing in a wheelie bin full of ice after a Bayern Munich match at last year’s Club World Cup.
Players from Cristiano Ronaldo to Gareth Bale and David Beckham have been spotted wearing it over the years, often resembling strips of gaffer tape stuck to limbs.