The Science Behind Today’s Ageless Athletes
LeBron James. Tom Brady. Serena Williams. Shalane Flanagan. You might have noticed that today’s biggest sports stars have something in common: Instead of slowing down once they pass 30—traditionally the age at which elite athletes begin to decline—they, somehow, get better.
There are entire industries behind this longevity revolution. New testing services claim to pinpoint everything from which injuries athletes must guard against to what foods they should avoid. Sophisticated training methods condition muscles more efficiently while avoiding unwanted wear-and-tear. And a slew of new recovery technologies offer the promise of instant rejuvenation for bodies and minds pushed to the breaking point.
Many entrepreneurs are already experimenting with forms of body hacking. Why not take note of what the world’s star athletes are doing? My new book, Play On: The New
Science of Elite Performance at Any Age, details just how the pros do it—and what the rest of us can learn from the techniques they’re employing, from the cutting-edge to the just plain out-there. —JEFF BERCOVICI TESTING
At Causenta Wellness in Scottsdale, Arizona, Thomas Incledon oversees extensive blood testing to detect food allergies or toxin exposures that could affect performance. After a career-best season at age 36, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo credited Incledon’s dietary advice (which included: Stop eating blueberries). Services like Athletigen, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, offer DNA analysis specifically for athletics. Founded by Jeremy Koenig, a collegiate sprinter turned scientist, Athletigen says its personalized training and nutrition recommendations help athletes perform better and avoid injuries.
Every off-season, NBA players flock to P3 in Santa Barbara, California, where Marcus Elliott uses force plates and 3-D motion capture to analyze their movements for signs of old injuries. Those compensation patterns can cause musculoskeletal problems and limit explosiveness.
TRAINING
San Francisco– based Halo Neuroscience released its first product in 2016, and it’s already a must-have in pro and Olympic training centers. Developed by Daniel Chao, it’s a headset that uses transcranial direct current stimulation— zapping the brain with electricity —to speed strength gains and learning skills.
Blood flow restriction training works by compressing veins that bring blood back to the heart during exercise, keeping it where it can trigger an enhanced muscle-building response. Kaatsu Global, led by former Olympic swim coach Steven Munatones, turned the work of sports scientist Yoshiaki Sato into a programmable device that Outside can the sports be world, used it's popular anywhere. among high-performers at Facebook and in the Navy SEALs. buildup Avoiding is key fatigue to maximizing older competitors’ performance. Catapult Sports, based in Melbourne, makes a wearable that monitors training loads and determines when athletes need It's to rest. marketed to pros - the Golden State Warriors use it - but a New York City rec league soccer teamof venture capitalists paid $120,000 for a package of wearables and data analysis.
RECOVERY
Cryotherapy, which uses extreme subzero temperatures to combat inflammation and muscle soreness, is everywhere, thanks in part to famous devotees like Floyd Mayweather and Tony Robbins. Since 2009, Jonas and Emilia Kuehne have been freezing athletes and celebrities at their Beverly Hills clinic, Cryohealthcare. Through a sister company, they sell home cryo chambers: $49,000 for a sit-in unit, $98,000 for a walk-in model.
To know when their bodies are ready to train again, many athletes (including MLS’s Seattle Sounders) use systems like those from the Helsinki-based Omegawave, which measure electrical activity in the heart and brain to gauge fatigue levels in the autonomic and central nervous systems.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is controversial. Practitioners, like tennis champion Novak Djokovic, say sitting in a pressurized pod breathing concentrated oxygen helps them bounce back faster during grueling tournaments, and joe Namath believes it healed his brain from the effects of multiple concussions.
But studies suggest it doesn’t do much, and some scientists believe it could even promote cancer.