SO… HOW EXACTLY DOES HBOT HELP WITH ATHLETE RECOVERY AND INJURY REHABILITATION?
But first the basics…
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) allows us to maximize the oxygen uptake in our lungs and circulatory system so that we can heal and recover at an accelerated rate. The key to this is by providing high quality oxygen under pressure. Hence the benefit of HBOT.
The physics…..
Under pressure, gas – which in this case is oxygen, goes from a gas state into a liquid state. Oxygen is like a baby – it needs to be carried to wherever it needs to be. Red blood cells would usually carry oxygen throughout the body once absorbed through the lungs. However, now also in a liquid state it can be absorbed directly into the blood plasma. In hyperbarics, the red blood cells still carry oxygen, but in addition, it also dissolves in the blood plasma thus increasing oxygen absorption by up to 1 000%
Under normal conditions, the red blood cells are pretty much maxed out at 97-100% carrying capacity. So even if you breath differently or if you breath pure oxygen, you can’t really change the carrying capacity of the red blood cells. But, with hyperbarics we can infuse the oxygen into the plasma and increase your oxygen concentrations exponentially, depending on the pressure of the chamber. The higher the pressure the higher the oxygen concentration and the deeper it is transported into the tissues.
The extra oxygen supplied by HBOT, facilitates the body’s ability to produce both new tissue AND new blood vessels.
HBOT has been reported to speed up healing and provide quicker repair from injuries. Furthermore (and sometimes more importantly) the soft tissue repaired through this procedure has been documented to be much stronger and more tensile than before the injury! This can have a profound impact on athletes or those who are more susceptible to re-injuring the same tissue.
Repeated exposure to HBOT have been shown to cause a strong parasympathetic response. This is the active part of the nervous system during rest, digestion, and repair. So, while HBOT provides so many benefits for tissue repair and regeneration it has also been documented to activate the body’s natural environment to encourage repair and recovery.
The extra oxygen also allows for significant reduction in both swelling and inflammation.
And if you are interested in the science and research behind it…
