Cryotherapy chambers and other practices have little evidence behind them, says top performance director

Dr Claire-Marie Roberts was working at Coventry City when she received a call from someone asking whether she knew how much oxygen was in the atmosphere. As the performance director, responsible for optimising players’ potential, she was accustomed to being pitched the latest gimmick promising miraculous gains. At times, she could receive up to 50 LinkedIn messages a week offering a device, supplement or technology that claimed to produce magical results.

“It is only 21%,” the caller told her. That’s GCSE chemistry, she thought. Then came the sales pitch: “So what we’ve done is put oxygen in a can and we think you might want to use it.”

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