Danny Welbeck and Theo Walcott have been making use of the Gunners’ new cryotherapy chamber, as the pair prepare for the return of club football.
Theo Walcott posted a picture of himself preparing to use Arsenal’s new chamber on Instagram, along with Danny Welbeck, who is currently returning from injury. Although Walcott should be fit and ready to go, cryotherapy is also used to alleviate delayed onset muscle soreness after exercise, so this is presumably why he’s making use of the chamber as well.
Back in August, Arsenal announced the implementation of cryotherapy to aid them in their current methods of recovery and rehabilitation. This was the first time the Gunners had used a full body version of the therapy, although they had used a mobile solution for specific areas of the body in the past.
Arsene Wenger, however, is apparently not a fan of the therapy.
“The players will have warm-downs, they have all that, everybody does nowadays,” Wenger said in September. “Treatment with the physios, massage, cryotherapy – all the stuff where nobody knows whether it is efficient or not.
“No one knows because you have a lot of science. If you read the science, some have proved it works and some have proved it doesn’t work. The ones that prove it works are usually sponsored by the guys who say that it does.
“Is it smoke and mirrors? Yes. Because at the end of the day, since I’ve been in the job, we have improved a lot the medical treatment. A lot. But, still, if you have a muscle problem, it takes 21 days. It took 21 days 30 years ago.
“We have to respect nature and nobody could make miracles unless they doped the players sometimes. That means they inject players for a big game and the guy plays with an injury, with anti-pain.”
Walcott and Welbeck are currently neck and neck in the goalscoring charts, with three goals each from seven and six appearances respectively. Both also have an assist to their name at this early stage.
However, both have more to aim for as the season goes on.
Walcott needs to try and get back into the starting line up, and push for a place on the plane to Russia with England next summer. Meanwhile, Danny just needs to stay fit, and keep doing what he was doing before his latest injury.