Interview

Bellerin - How sport science has changed the game

The Premier League may have become the most-watched division over the past 25 years, but some of the most significant developments have actually happened behind closed doors.

Having broken into our first team just three years ago, Hector Bellerin is one of the youngsters to have benefitted from the advent of sport science, and the 21-year-old says it would have been ‘impossible’ for the English game to be as successful without it.

“It’s proven that all the stuff in your recovery and working on your power helps when you’re on the pitch,” he told Arsenal Player. “Obviously you need to have the right mentality, you need to be good technically, but football is getting so advanced and the level is so high that every little margin is something that is very important nowadays. 

“All those little margins that you can get by jumping higher, being quicker, recovering better in between games is something that is key these days. At this club especially, it’s something that has been very important over the past two years.

“We have a cryo-chamber here now, which you stay in for three minutes at -130 degrees. I’m sure that if they told the players to do that 25 years ago, they wouldn’t be on it! Stuff like that helps you recover your body, recover your muscles. Having something like that when you’ve got two or three games in a week is something that can give you that advantage in a game.

“One of the things that’s made the Premier League such an enjoyable league to watch is that it’s not just the football, but also the physicality of it. The strength of the players, the speed, that’s what makes the Premier League so amazing and entertaining to watch. If you didn’t have all these techniques or methods of working that we have nowadays, it wouldn’t be possible.”