Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t one to shy away from the discomforts of cold therapy. And the fact that he spent tens of thousands of dollars to have his own personal cryotherapy chamber shipped to his rented mansion in Italy tells you everything you need to know about how seriously he takes cryotherapy for recovery.
Cold exposure treatment from cryotherapy provides a cascade of physical, mental, and hormonal benefits that aid in recovery. For athletes, that means reduced exercise-induced inflammation, improved muscle recovery, enhanced cognitive function, pain reduction, and increased mitochondrial biogenesis.
While cryotherapy shares many of the same benefits as ice baths (both being different methods of cold exposure therapy), cryotherapy reduces the duration of time needed for your body to trigger some of its natural physiological responses.
If being able to perform from training session to training session is your ultimate goal, cold therapy is a go-to modality for reducing inflammation and accelerating muscle damage recovery.
Technique can make or break your workout. And when it comes to perfecting your form and consistency through repetition for sport – ensuring your body is recovered to operate in peak condition through an uninhibited range of motion is the key to maximizing progress.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s recovery regimen is crucial to what separates him from the pack as one of the world’s greatest athletes.
In the highest levels of professional competition, every athlete is incredibly gifted. To become a part of the 1% of the best 1% of athletes in any sport requires both discipline and the willingness to do things your competitors aren’t.
For Ronaldo, this means ensuring his body is in peak condition every day, every training session, and every match by going above and beyond in his recovery regimen.
This article covers everything you need to know about how Cristiano Ronaldo approaches recovery, the tools he uses to get there, and how you can improve your own recovery regimen too.
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Cristiano Ronaldo’s Mentality on Recovery
If you asked a professional athlete what the most crucial aspect of their athletic performance is, you might expect to get answers about highly technical drills or strength and endurance training.
But for one of the best soccer players of all time, Christiano Ronaldo looks at the big picture and attributes a less-talked-about element of his athletic performance to his daily success: Recovery.
In an archived interview of Ronaldo written by Manu Sainz, he outlines just how vital his recovery protocols are to his success as a professional athlete.
“Recovery is more important to me than actual training sessions due to the large number of games I have to play. Winding down and resting is a key part of my day-to-day routine and enables me to perform to the highest level in my profession and prolong my career.”
– Cristiano Ronaldo
Because the secret Ronaldo knows is: If you’re not fully recovered, you can’t train at your best, and you won’t compete at your best. And if you can measure the difference between you and your competitors in sometimes single-digit percentages, you need to ensure you’re at 100% at all times.
How well you recover between training competition is the one critical component that dictates what your maximum effort can be.
