The Power Of Floatation Is Behind This Year’s Superbowl Faceoff
It’s no secret that all the athletes that make it into the Superbowl are playing at such a high level of skill that a victory may often come down to a matter of inches. That means that to play at peak performance levels, players need to have incredible focus and the ability to recover quickly between games.
So it’s no surprise that both contenders for the 2015 Superbowl, the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, use floatation tanks for sensory deprivation as part of their strategy to achieve greatness on the football field. Float Seattle reports that many Seahawks float there to “quiet their mind in an effort to develop that championship mentality”, and Superior Float Tanks has reported that the Patriots have ordered their second float tank at the beginning of 2015.
FLOATING IN PROFESSIONAL SPORTS
“No doubt about it if you conquer doubt and fear, you conquer failure. If you don’t doubt, if you know you’re going to do it, it’s easier. Your muscles are more relaxed, and then you perform what you have practiced in the tank.”
-Dallas Cowboy Kicker Rafael Septien on what he experiences when floating
The NFL has been using the power of sensory deprivation since the early 1980s to gain optimal conditioning and hyper-performance. The Dallas Cowboys were very active users of float tanks to help visualize field strategies and implant a sense of “flow” into the players.
Other pro teams like The Philadelphia Eagles, the Denver Broncos, the Philadelphia Phillies, Peter Reid (Ironman Champion), Amanda Allen (World Masters Crossfit Champion), and many others attribute the use of the tanks towards their success.
Allen says, “With a regular routine of floating I am able to recover more quickly and completely, which means I can train harder sooner, which translates into better overall athletic performance and progress.”
RESULTS GROUNDED IN SCIENCE
“The float tank is not a hypothetical laboratory phenomenon, but a viable, proven technology”
–Dr Henry Adams, NIMH.
It may be tempting to write these things off as anecdotal. However, the scientific community has produced a wealth of research papers showing the benefits of Restricted Environment Stimulation Therapy for professional athletes.
The absence of stimulation lowers stress and cortisol. The weightlessness removes the unconscious need to fight gravity. Muscles recover. Lactic acid is reduced. It was found that there was “a significant impact on blood lactate and perceived pain compared with a 1-hour passive recovery session in untrained healthy men.”
Are you a football player? Crossfit enthusiast? MMA fighter? Marathon runner?
Why not give yourself an edge with floatation therapy? Your competition may already be!
Sport Benefits of Floating
How can floating help a sports person like a Golfer?
The answer is in more ways than one. First there is rest and recovery from injury, golf can be bad for your back.
Secondly there is focus, this is a demonstrated effect of floating before competition. Floating allows your subconscious to concentrate. Why is this important? Did you hear about the championship golfer who lost his edge when he took time out to write a book about technique? It turns out that a sure way to put any athlete off his stride is to ask him to explain in detail how he does it. The conscious brain is too slow and maybe "in the wrong place" for a good golf swing. The physical coordination to catch a ball, to strike a ball, even just to walk along is housed in our subconscious, and stress interferes with its function.
So that is how floating helps a golfer, by allowing the vital process of relaxation to occur in a profound and complete way.
Here is an experimental challenge: arrange to float in the hours before a round and feel for yourself the effects. It will give you a competitive advantage to relax.
If on the other hand your are in pain after a round, arrange your float session to be afterwards. Better still, before and after, we are open from ten till ten every day so you can fit it in!
Practice makes Perfect, Floating makes perfect sense.
Obviously all sports men and women can benefit in both the after sport rest and relaxion and the pre-sport focus and preparation. The classic study was done by prof. Fine in USA with college rifle shooting teams. Those who floated before competition scored better than the control group with bed rest. The scores reversed when he reversed the groups.
Float pods were used by the Australians in the Australian Olympics and teams around the world are coming to realise how important relaxation is in preparing for competition.
GB Olympian says Floating is the key!
July 2008
Triple jumper Phillips Idowu (GB)
In an interview with Mark Ashenden (BBC journalist) Phillips Idowu said floating in a float tank was one of his reasons for his successful year.
World Indoor Championships Gold 2008 Valencia
Commonwealth Games Gold 2006 Melbourne
Commonwealth Games Silver 2002 Manchester
European Indoor Championships in Athletics Gold 2007 Birmingham
"It's been a great year," he told me. "It feels great performing at my best. I've already won a gold and it looks like I'm working through to another one. People have shown a lot of belief in me and it's great to pay them back."
"The word potential has been used a lot and there was a danger it was just going to turn to waste. I'm injury-free, world number one - I couldn't ask for anything else from a year for the Olympics."
He puts his success down to many things. Lying naked in the darkness of a floatation tank was one of them.
Extract from BBC Sport interview with Mark Ashenden 11 Jul 08
Triple jumper Phillips Idowu
Idowu out to sink his rivals
Aug 2008
Triple jumper Phillips Idowu (GB)
PHILLIPS IDOWU has been banking on a flotation tank to sink his Olympic rivals.
The Londoner spent last year battling a back injury and the floating treatment has paid off.
Triple-jumper Idowu, 29, now goes into the Beijing Games as the only British athlete ranked No1 in the world.
He leaped 17.58 metres at the Olympic trials last month as he warmed up for his attempt to follow in the footsteps of world-record holder Jonathan Edwards and win gold.
He said: "Most days before I came out here I was in a flotation tank for about an hour."
"I started it last year and it really eases the pressure on my back. And it's very relaxing."
Extract from The Sun, reporter VIKKI ORVICE in Macau, Published: 05 Aug 2008
portsmen and women from many varied athletic disciplines use floatation to get the most out of their training routines or to speed up recovery from injuries. In fact, the Team GB and Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) see the use of the float tank as an integral part of its athletes’ training regimes.
Accelerates recovery from injury
Ideal space for visualisation
Increases energy (ATP)
Reduces lactic acid
Boosts immune system