"Talk to anyone who has taken a long, transcontinental flight, and they'll tell you what a toll it takes on the body. The inactivity of sitting on a plane for hours can leave one feeling stiff. Sleep is disrupted, and a person's body clock is off-kilter thanks to traveling across multiple time zones. The impact can last for days."
"Now imagine having to play a competitive soccer match later that week, where performance is still expected to be at or near a player's peak. It makes for a massive task in terms of keeping players ready."
""We try to put every single technology in the market, every single expertise in the market in order to help the players," said U.S. first assistant coach Jesús Pérez. "And there are plenty of protocols assessing and monitoring and taking actions in the recovery lab that we already have.""
Long transcontinental flights cause inactivity, stiffness, disrupted sleep and circadian misalignment, with effects that can last days. Thirteen of the 24-man USMNT roster for this month's friendlies will fly in from Europe. A holistic recovery approach combines fitness coaches, physical therapists, massage therapists, dietitians and technical staff to keep players physically close to peak before and after matches. The program integrates extensive technology, assessment protocols and monitoring in a recovery lab, producing large datasets and focusing on four major recovery domains to guide individualized interventions.
Read at ESPN.com
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