Oklahoma State University Athletics
Orange Power: Athlete Performance at Oklahoma State - Regeneration
July 29, 2015 | Cowboy Football
A look at how Oklahoma State helps its athletes recover from physical stress
STILLWATER – About midway through every season, Mike Gundy is frequently heard telling the Oklahoma State football team that everyone is sore and everyone is tired – not just the Cowboys. The teams that separate themselves from the pack are the teams that can overcome that soreness and fatigue to function just as well when they are tired as when they are not.
Instilling that kind of mental toughness has been a staple during Gundy's tenure in Stillwater, but it goes deeper than that.
Football players at all levels take a physical beating, and as players' bodies get bigger, faster and stronger with age and with training, the collisions become more violent. At Oklahoma State, players benefit from a team of professionals who execute a strategy built around keeping them at their peak level of physical performance. A central part of that strategy is promoting regeneration after hard workouts, practices or games.
Rob Glass, director of athlete performance at OSU, said that after a rigorous workout or game, things like bruising and lactate build-up need to be removed and the fascia need to be made more pliable for athletes to be able to perform at their highest level the next time out.
"Regeneration is a big component now in athlete training and part of them understanding what they need to do to get themselves prepared for the next training session," Glass said. "After a game on Saturday, the Sunday training session is totally geared to regeneration and getting their bodies back so they're able to practice the following day at a very high level and still not have that carry-over from the game."
Glass said his athlete performance team partners with the OSU sports medicine staff to use several techniques that promote regeneration, including foam rolling, deep tissue massages from professional masseuses, dry needling, cupping and hydrotherapy.
"Some regeneration techniques take place in our strength department and some take place in our athletic training room with Kevin Blaske and John Stemm," Glass said. "We also spend a lot of time with our athletes post-practice with our cold therapy. (Sometimes) it's cryospa, getting cold plunges in or contrast work from hot to cold. We try to educate them as best we can on how to do that themselves."
While Boone Pickens Stadium at Oklahoma State has some of the best and most high-tech facilities in the country to execute these regeneration techniques, you may be surprised at the simplicity of one of the areas that Gundy and Glass stress to the Cowboys to help themselves in the regeneration process.
"One big component in regeneration is understanding sleep," Glass said. "We spent a lot of time with sleep scientists out on the west coast trying to pick their brain to understand what we can coach or teach our athletes on how to best put themselves in a position to recover and sleep is one of the biggest components."
It may sound basic, but there's actually more to it.
"There are a lot of techniques that we've coached our guys up on to help themselves get into that deepest level of sleep so they can become fully recovered prior to the next day," Glass said.
The techniques used by the athlete performance and sports medicine teams at Oklahoma State paired with empowering players to take care of themselves by maximizing something as basic as sleep work together to achieve the end goal of ensuring that each individual player maximizes his potential.
Instilling that kind of mental toughness has been a staple during Gundy's tenure in Stillwater, but it goes deeper than that.
Football players at all levels take a physical beating, and as players' bodies get bigger, faster and stronger with age and with training, the collisions become more violent. At Oklahoma State, players benefit from a team of professionals who execute a strategy built around keeping them at their peak level of physical performance. A central part of that strategy is promoting regeneration after hard workouts, practices or games.
Rob Glass, director of athlete performance at OSU, said that after a rigorous workout or game, things like bruising and lactate build-up need to be removed and the fascia need to be made more pliable for athletes to be able to perform at their highest level the next time out.
"Regeneration is a big component now in athlete training and part of them understanding what they need to do to get themselves prepared for the next training session," Glass said. "After a game on Saturday, the Sunday training session is totally geared to regeneration and getting their bodies back so they're able to practice the following day at a very high level and still not have that carry-over from the game."
Glass said his athlete performance team partners with the OSU sports medicine staff to use several techniques that promote regeneration, including foam rolling, deep tissue massages from professional masseuses, dry needling, cupping and hydrotherapy.
"Some regeneration techniques take place in our strength department and some take place in our athletic training room with Kevin Blaske and John Stemm," Glass said. "We also spend a lot of time with our athletes post-practice with our cold therapy. (Sometimes) it's cryospa, getting cold plunges in or contrast work from hot to cold. We try to educate them as best we can on how to do that themselves."
While Boone Pickens Stadium at Oklahoma State has some of the best and most high-tech facilities in the country to execute these regeneration techniques, you may be surprised at the simplicity of one of the areas that Gundy and Glass stress to the Cowboys to help themselves in the regeneration process.
"One big component in regeneration is understanding sleep," Glass said. "We spent a lot of time with sleep scientists out on the west coast trying to pick their brain to understand what we can coach or teach our athletes on how to best put themselves in a position to recover and sleep is one of the biggest components."
It may sound basic, but there's actually more to it.
"There are a lot of techniques that we've coached our guys up on to help themselves get into that deepest level of sleep so they can become fully recovered prior to the next day," Glass said.
The techniques used by the athlete performance and sports medicine teams at Oklahoma State paired with empowering players to take care of themselves by maximizing something as basic as sleep work together to achieve the end goal of ensuring that each individual player maximizes his potential.
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