Let me get this out of the way immediately: no, this post is not about a lacrosse glove. It is about a body cooling glove being researched and tested at Stanford, and if the science is right, it could change the training game as we know it. Members of the Stanford Lacrosse club got to experience the glove for themselves, and from the looks of things, everyone has been impressed.
Basically, the glove cools the body back down by cooling (not freezing) the palm of the human hand, where a ton of heat transfer takes place. This means that an athlete that has just finished a grueling workout can go cool down with this glove at a much more rapid rate. When the glove was used in between sets, or in the middle of the workout, the tester seemed to bounce back to full strength, and showed little to no signs of fatigue.
Want to be intrigued? Check out the video below, and make sure you notice the Stanford Lacrosse love!
So did Craig Heller just say that the recovery results you get from using this glove are BETTER than steroids? If true in the long-term this could be a HUGE game changer, but it also raises some SERIOUS questions:
– Is this an unfair advantage? A school like Maryland might be able to buy one for each member of their team, basically giving them all the ability to become super athletes. But a school like Hartford may not get one for the entire athletic department. If this is truly “better than steroids” are we going to see a rapid increase in the stratification of college sports, including lacrosse?
– Should this be an “emergency use only” type of device? If a kid is overheating on the football field, this device could conceivably safe a life, but should it be used for training? Should people rely on it? Will we see NFL players on the sidelines with their hands in cooling gloves?
– Could a device like this have unintended consequences? Could the human body loose the ability to regulate itself if the cooling glove were overused? Are there long-term effects? Can we train our bodies to do this better naturally?
So what do you guys think? Do you buy the science? Would you try the cooling glove? Is it all good? Rife with risk? Or just like everything else… we won’t know until it’s already in use?
Thanks to our man, Kyle MacDonald, for the heads up on this sports training evolution. Science!
