Sports Medicine and Floating: The Healing Power of the Tank

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Sports Medicine and Floating: The Healing Power of the Tank

The industry of sports medicine is focused equally on preparation, prevention, and reparation. Simply put, it’s about ensuring that athletes are taking the right level of care of their bodies and minds to reduce the risk of injury and aid in repairing the body when injury occurs. How does floating fit in with this? Let’s take a moment to look at some of the basic components of floating.

You’re lying in a warm bath of magnesium-rich Epsom salts that help alleviate sore muscles while enhancing the flow of blood, deepening the breath, and flushing lactic acid from the muscles. You’re horizontal, removing the impact of gravity on your spinal column, allowing for decompression and relaxation that no bed or flat surface can provide. There’s no light, sound, or distractions anywhere near you, allowing you to focus your thoughts on what matters to you.

In other words: this is the perfect environment for athletes of all kinds. So it’s no wonder why professional athletes everywhere are working floating in as part of their pre- and post-game regimen.

The Seattle Seahawks are Floating

sports medicine and floating for the Seattle Seahawks

Our friends at Float Pod and True REST detailed in a blog post last year that they had the pleasure of hosting both the Seattle Seahawks and Super Bowl XLIX rivals the New England Patriots in the week leading up to the big 2016 game. As it turns out, many members of both teams regularly float at home and away, as an important part of their pre-game regimens.

Seahawks floaters that week included Tony Moeaki, Luke Willson, Steve Hauschka, and Drew Nowak; Patriots floaters were Julian Edelman, Matthew Slater, James Develin, Ryan Wendell, Nate Solder, and Nate Ebner. Tom Brady has also been known to float, and even has his own float tank!

Why are these big-time athletes taking time out of their day to do nothing at all? With benefits like minimized pain, muscle tone stimulation, injury prevention/recovery, and reduced lactic acid production, floating can help the strongest of the gridiron to perform at their peak, and you’d better believe the Super Bowl requires the best of the best.

Steph Curry is Floating

sports medicine and floating for Steph Curry

Floating benefits athletes of all types, not just the ones that regularly hit each other. Stephen “Steph” Curry of the Golden State Warriors is proving himself a wonder of the court, breaking 3-point records and dribbling circles around his opponents. One of his secrets is now out though: he is a big fan of floating.

“I spend about an hour, hour and a half in the pods, probably once every two weeks or so. It helps you recharge and refresh and allows you to just be you and your thoughts for an hour, which is obviously hard to come by in our fast-paced society,” Steph recently told Tech Insider.

“Obviously with the Epsom salts and magnesium that are in those tanks, they’re helpful with recovery and relaxing your muscles and things like that. And also, the sensory-deprivation aspect of it. It’s one of the only places where you can really get unplugged from all the noise and distractions that goes on with daily life.”

Floating and Visualization

Visualization is the use of the imagination through pictures or mental imagery to create visions of what we want in our lives and how to make them happen. Along with focus and emotion it becomes a powerful, creative tool that helps us achieve what we want in life.

Athletes spend many hours each week honing their bodies to achieve peak performance, but of equal importance is the rigorous mental training required to perform. Practicing visualization to pass the ball, score the goal, deadlift the additional 10 lbs., etc., is an important step to taking that performance to the next level.

How does this fit with floating? When you’re floating, there’s nothing to distract your mind, allowing it to wander or focus as you see fit. This makes for the perfect environment to practice visualization. Athletes are able to focus on the objective, to see the very thing they are attempting to accomplish clearly, and to manifest it into reality before they even begin the competition.

Floating: It’s Not Just for Professionals

Regardless if you’re a paid professional, an aspiring collegiate, or a casual weekender/intramural league player, regular floating yields the same benefits for athletes of all types. If you’re ready to take your performance to the next level and feel the best you’ve ever felt while doing so, come see us at Float Rubicon and book your appointment today!

#CrossTheRubicon #Embark #SportsMedicine

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