«វាជិតដល់ការកេងប្រវ័ញ្ច»៖ តើវិទ្យាសាស្ត្រក្លែងក្លាយកំពុងបញ្ឆោតវិស័យបាល់ទាត់យ៉ាងណា

Dr Claire-Marie Roberts was working at Coventry City when she got a call from someone asking if she knew how much oxygen was in the atmosphere. As performance director, her job was to help players reach their full potential. Because of this, she was used to being offered the latest gadget or trick that promised amazing results. At times, she could get up to 50 messages a week on LinkedIn offering a device, supplement or technology that claimed to produce magical results.

The caller told her, “It is only 21%.” She thought that was GCSE chemistry. Then came the sales pitch: “So what we’ve done is put oxygen in a can, and we think you might want to use it.”

ពាក់ព័ន្ធ៖ Premier League៖ ចំណុចគួរឲ្យចាប់អារម្មណ៍ចំនួន១០ពីសកម្មភាពប្រកួតចុងសប្តាហ៍

Roberts laughs as she remembers, “Right … oxygen in a can.” She did not agree to buy oxygen in a can for Coventry’s players from the caller.

Roberts has spent decades working in elite athlete performance and professional football, including nine years at the Premier League and two at Coventry, where she played a key role in their promotion as Championship champions before joining the Formula One team McLaren as director of human performance in the summer. She is shocked by how professional football is being duped by pseudoscience: from coaches and performance staff misled by snake-oil sellers, to players desperate for a shortcut and with money to burn.

“It’s the science-practice gap, which is widening in my experience,” Roberts says. “I think it’s getting much worse. There’s so much sparkly marketing behind all these things. It’s bordering on exploitation.

“They’re taking a population that is very susceptible to: ‘How can I hack my performance advantage? How can I shortcut my preparation and recovery?’ Which I don’t think is a great starting point.”

Roberts says some common practices in elite football are not well supported by evidence. She points to cryotherapy chambers, which are a common feature at elite training grounds. When these are not available, ice baths are used instead. Players enjoy ice baths 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.

“Most clubs have cryotherapy chambers, but most people cannot explain why they use them,” Roberts says. “There is no strong evidence for them, apart from one small study suggesting they might help prevent dementia. The evidence on cryotherapy is very weak.”

Roberts says cold treatments could even harm recovery. "There's a recent suggestion that cryotherapy might blunt muscular adaptation. When are you using it and why are you using it? If you're using it for recovery, sleep and nutrition are your best recovery modalities. No amount of putting anybody in a whole-body cryotherapy chamber is going to help them recover more if those two things aren't taken care of."