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Secret meditation room helping Chelsea players put mind over matter

In July I wrote a piece about Bruno Demichelis, a sports psychologist Ancelotti brought with him from Milan. Judging from his experience in setting up the venerated MilanLab, it seemed he had moved to London to help extend the careers of Chelsea’s older players. The latest from Cobham suggests that he’s turning to an unlikely source – meditation – to take the science much further.

A piece in today’s Daily Telegraph is well worth a read and shows just how far football has come since the days of black and white TV and orange slices at half time. Since Demichelis’ arrival Chelsea have set up what is called a ‘mind room’: a relaxing environment in which players can be placed into a meditative state. According to the Telegraph, the Chelsea mind room, the largest of its kind in Europe and a close relative of a similar facility Demichelis set up while at Milan, is being used to both reduce players’ fear of failure and help them conserve energy during matches.

Once in a meditative state, players are hooked up to a variety of sensors and shown video clips of themselves making mistakes. They are then trained to prevent their heart rate increasing as they watch themselves make those errors, in theory allowing them to have greater control when presented with similar situations in real life. The Telegraph article goes into more detail:

“The idea is that when the player then goes out onto the pitch and is presented with a chance to score, or to stop the opposition, he will be so focused and mentally-prepared that he will succeed. At the same time, the player will have been trained so well by Demichelis that he can bring down his heart rate when he does not have to run so that he can conserve energy. And he will also be able to this without thinking.”

Interestingly, the technique is expected to have a positive impact on players’ performances not just psychologically, but also physically. But Chelsea are keeping their mind room a closely guarded secret. Demichelis – who in typical Chelsea style has been nicknamed ‘BB’ or ‘Big Bruno’ by the players - has revealed that it is a ‘specially-constructed space’ that can accommodate six players at a time in ergonomically-designed loungers. Beyond that, we know very little, and the Telegraph can but assume that it follows a similar model to that in Milan.

But anyway, enough of the theory. It’s probably too early to say to what extent Demichelis’ techniques are working, and the ‘mind room’ is just one small part of the performance picture anyway. But the signs are good: so far Chelsea have scored 15 of their 26 goals in the last 40 minutes of games, compared with just 11 in the first 60, indicating improved stamina. Three games have been won from losing positions, indicating mental toughness. And Lampard hasn’t missed a penalty. But are these new traits for Chelsea?

In a football world dominated by machismo – on the terraces at least – the concept of meditation might seem a strange idea. But if it helps Drogba miss less chances, Lampard to keep scoring high-pressure penalties and Essien to stay injury free, it gets my backing. So far, the evidence largely points to it working…

You might also be interested to read:

• Training changes at Chelsea – including information on Demichelis’ MilanLab and what he brings to Chelsea
• Could injuries determine Chelsea’s success – how Demichelis is working to reduce injuries at the club, and how that will affect potential performances on the field

Could injuries determine Chelsea’s success in 09/10?

Chelsea’s injury record over the past two or three seasons has made fairly sickening reading, with Petr Cech’s horrific injury at Reading 2006 kick-starting a lengthy – and ongoing – queue for the treatment table at Cobham. 

I discussed yesterday the potential impact of Bruno Dimichelis  joining the club, suggesting that reducing the number of injuries could be his most significant contribution. And, looking back over the last campaign in particular, that could well be the case.

Essien himself, the previous season’s player of the year who suffered torn knee ligaments, ended up playing 11 premiership games while Joe Cole played 13 and Carvalho just 12. That’s £50m worth of talent that have played just a quarter of a league season each. Drogba and Ballack also suffered early season injuries, making only 24 appearances, and John Terry, Deco and Ashley Cole all had niggling problems. Peripheral players suffered too, with Ferreira not available for most of the season.

Having suffered a number of injuries to key players for three successive seasons, Dimichelis will have to evaluate what, if anything, could be behind what looks more like a worrying trend than poor fortune. One wonders whether Mourinho’s policy of playing top players week-in, week-out in all competitions during his three and a half year tenure have had a long-term impact on the squad…

It looks like Ancelotti has plans of his own to tackle the problem however, and we might see the return (without meaning to sound derogatory) of more ‘tinkerman’ tactics. Speaking last week, Ancelotti hinted that he will look to use the full depth of the squad over the coming season: “I don’t want to choose my first team. Chelsea is a great team because it has 25 great players, and for me it is impossible to choose the first team. It may be that I never want to choose. I want 25 players that can play well for Chelsea”.

Rotation aside, there has been some good news on the injury front for Blues fans over the past couple of days, first with Ancelotti confirming the importance of Joe Cole in his plans (having suffered a setback in his recovery)  and then with Essien insisting yesterday that his long period on the sidelines last season has made him stronger as a player.

United finished seven points ahead of Chelsea last season – I’ll let you decide whether you think having a fully fit Essien and Cole – both entirely unique in the Chelsea squad - could make up that difference. Either way, hopefully it won’t be long before we find out.

Training changes at Chelsea

There’s been plenty of talk over the last week or so about Ancelotti’s reversion to a 4-4-2 formation. The Italian’s arrival has also brought about key changes behind the scenes too, with the introduction of new training regime and the hiring of the man who was behind an innovative new scientific facility at AC Milan.

In direct contrast to Scolari’s methods, training is reportedly now much more focused around working with the ball. This switch in emphasis has been welcomed by Frank Lampard:

"We did quite a lot of running without the ball last year. This year there is a lot more running with the ball and a lot more football-based stuff. That's something players always want to do, espeically if they can bring something new into their game. From the first day I came back we were playing small-sided games, keeping possession and working with the ball".

On his arrival in 2004 Mourinho brought the same focus on ball-work into Chelsea’s regime, and at that time it seemed a culture shock for the players who registered surprise at having a ball at their feet throughout training. It was undoubtedly to Chelsea’s benefit: whilst a free-flowing, pass and move side in (say) Arsenal’s image didn’t emerge, the side arguably became more confident and adept on the ball, especially when keeping possession in tight space. Hopefully a renewed focus on the ball in training is another sign that Ancelotti will be successful in carving out a new fluidity to Chelsea’s play. 

There is also a new figure on the training pitch, Bruno Demichelis, who joined from Milan and linked up with the club during the American tour. There’s an interesting Q&A with Bruno on the Chelsea website (the insight and expertise he reveals is far more impressive than Arnesen’s interview last week, which you can read here). In short however, Demichelis will look after  the performance, medical and psychological side of team preparation and will co-ordinate implementing new ways of assessing players’ nervous systems and new approaches to dealing with the mental side of performance.

Interestingly, Demichelis was a key figure behind Milan’s MilanLab, a scientific body set up by the club in 2002 in the wake of the terrible injury record of Redondo following his big money move to the Rossoneri. MilanLab was hugely innovative in its time, looking at individual player’s physical and mental needs down to finest detail to hone performance and help prevent injury (supposedly it ran a new range of tests throughout the season and could accurately predict when a player needed a rest to avoid injury). Some have suggested that the work of MilanLab has helped extend the careers of Milan’s ageing players and keep their 30-something year olds competitive despite being past their prime. 

It’s probably a little too far fetched to attribute too much of a team’s success to something like MilanLab, but in a sport where the biggest matches are tightly contested affairs, any application of science to help up performance by one or two percent could be invaluable. Chelsea will already have it’s own ‘ChelseaLab’, but if Demichelis can bring something new to the club, and reduce the number of injuries the team have sustained over the last two seasons, he’ll be worth his weight in gold.