Float Therapy for Sports Performance
Here’s a sports trivia question for you:
What do the New England Patriots, Golden State Warriors, The Manchester United Football Club, Michael Phelps, and Peterborough’s own Cody Crowley all have in common?
Looking at this lineup it’s easy to think “well, these teams and individual athletes all have performed and won at the very pinnacle of their sport!”
And indeed, they are all winners, but that’s not all. They also used float tanks.
And they aren’t alone either.
The New Zealand All Blacks, the Chicago Blackhawks, The Seattle Seahawks, Carl Lewis, J.J. Watt, Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman, and many other professional teams and athletes have added floating into their training and recovery programs to gain a performance edge.
Floating is one of the best-kept secrets used by high-performing athletes and there’s lots of good research that helps to back up why athletes benefit from floating.
Raising the Bar - Performance and Visualization with Float Tanks
If someone told you that laying in complete darkness while suspended weightlessly in saltwater could give you superhuman strength, speed, and accuracy, would you believe them? It’s may not be as bold a statement as it sounds.
Research on floating and sports performance found that high-level athletes who had reached a plateau saw a rebound improvement in performance after floating in conjunction with visualization techniques. The performance increase was seen even without additional physical training.
Therefore, athletes were able to increase their performance just by floating before a competition by using that time for mental imagery of their sport. A follow-up study not only confirmed the results of the original research but showed that floating multiple times between games or competitions led to significant improvements compared to just a single float.
This confirms something that most floaters already know - the more you float the better it is for you.
Improving Accuracy in Target Sports
Beyond just looking at general athletic performance and floating, a few studies from research groups have looked at specific benefits linked to floating in athletes.
Several of these studies have tested how floating affects marksmanship in different fields including rifle marksmanship, darts, and archery.
In the rifle study, 75% of the participants saw a statistically significant increase in accuracy from pre- to post-float compared to no such increase found in the control group that relaxed but did not float.
A similar result was found in the study on darts performance with 80% of the participants' improved accuracy.
In both studies, these improvements were seen regardless of skill level.
While the archery study didn’t see any significant increase in accuracy after just one float session, It did find that the floaters had more consistent scores than the group that sat in a chair and relaxed for the equivalent amount of time. Likely due to the lower perceived exertion and muscle stiffness during the archery test.
Float Tanks Reduce Recovery Time
One of the suggested reasons for the benefits described above and how they lead to improved sports performance is through stress reduction. But there’s, even more, to take into account with how floating can help physical performance.
Going deeper with athletes on a physiological level, researchers in a 2013 float tank study looked at the effect floating has on lactic acid build-up.
Athletes are always looking for ways to mitigate the effects of lactate buildup in the muscles during and after a workout or competition as a way to maximize their performance.
It was found that floating after exercise showed a 62% reduction in lactic acid buildup compared to the control group.
The participants in the study also reported feeling less pain and were able to return to a peak performance level sooner.
In 2016 another study was able to repeat these findings in a larger sample size of athletes over 9 different sports. In this study not only was lactic acid reduced, but there was also a significant reduction in muscle soreness and improved mood and reduced fatigue in the participants that floated.
Looking at the Big Picture of Float Tanks on Sports Performance
Taking all of these benefits into account, it becomes clear why floating has been one of the best-kept secrets of successful athletes. Stress needs to be kept under control to perform at a peak level. On top of this, floating can help athletes stay sharp mentally.
And maybe the best part of all of this is that floating is helpful for athletes at all skill levels. You don’t need to be a professional for it to benefit you. whether you’re recovering from a long run or a weekend baseball tournament, floating can help your recovery to keep doing what you love.