Hampered by injuries in the World Cup in Qatar, the Brazilian team has an ally to accelerate the recovery of injured athletes and try to prevent others from getting injured.
Cryotherapy is a treatment in which the body is subjected to very low temperatures.
The athletes enter an ice cabin and stay there for one to three minutes, exposed to a temperature that can reach up to 180 degrees below zero.
The device emits a nitrogen mist and stimulates healing and recovery, among other therapeutic results, being more efficient than the traditional application of ice.
With a ligament injury on his right ankle, Neymar adhered to the treatment, according to Estadão, and has been doing daily sessions inside the freezing cabin called cryosauna.
The team’s teammates said they have been “sleeping” in the hotel physio’s room to be able to return to the national team for the knockout stage of the World Cup.
Neymar has been undergoing intensive treatment in three periods of the day and using technological devices to speed up his rehabilitation.
The star of the team and Danilo did not face Switzerland and will not be able to play against Cameroon in the closing game of the first round, Friday (Dec. 2), at Lusail Stadium, as well as Alex Sandro, who suffered a hip muscle injury.
Tite will field an alternative team composed mainly of reserves. Neymar was not even at the stadium with the delegation in the match against Switzerland.
He stayed at the hotel.
Proponents of the treatment believe the short temperature-controlled shocks activate the release of adrenaline within the bloodstream, which increases heart rate, muscle strength, and blood pressure and improves the immune system.
“It is nothing more than a very advanced ice bath,” defines entrepreneur Lucas Bonini Izkovitz to Estadão.
He is a partner of CryoBrazil, the company that partnered with CBF to provide the equipment.
The contract is in force only during the World Cup in Qatar, but there are negotiations for the entity to buy a machine to leave permanently in Granja Comary, in Teresopolis.
“The equipment reduces the feeling of fatigue of the muscle, besides eliminating all toxins from the body,” says Lucas, who has been working with the technology since 2018.
He came to Qatar and was responsible for the air transport of the machine, with guidance from CBF’s logistics department.
He also attended a dinner with CBF president Ednaldo Rodrigues. In Brazil, Corinthians, Cruzeiro, and Red Bull Bragantino have the equipment in their training centers.
In addition to cryotherapy and conventional physiotherapy sessions, Neymar also makes use of a modern orthopedic boot on his ankle that mixes cryotherapy and compress therapy, as shown by the Brazilian star in a publication on his social networks
The idea of the coaching staff, in conversation with the medical department, is to recover the player by traditional means without having to resort to infiltrations.
This alternative will be used as a last resort, depending on the difficulty of Brazil’s opponents in the Cup or the risk of elimination.
Cryotherapy was invented by Japanese doctor Toshima Yamauchi in the late 1970s but was popularised in sports after star Cristiano Ronaldo adopted the treatment in 2013 and paid €45,000 to install cryosauna in his Madrid mansion when he was playing for Real Madrid.
When he moved from Italy to England to play for Manchester United – a club he has no longer been playing for since last week – the Portuguese rebuilt his empire and spent another £50,000 to bring the “human fridge” from Turin to Manchester He is not giving up this treatment and has already posted pictures on his social networks inside the icy cabin.
“Now I’m going into an ice business to take the pain away. Cryotherapy, you call it, right?”, Tite jokingly said as he closed the post-match press conference after the win over the Swiss, citing the fatigue he has been accumulating due to the pressure he is dealing with at the World Cup.