With the aim of continuously improving the quality of the facilities offered to its players and thereby further enhancing the professional team’s sporting performance, Palmeiras has opened the Recovery and Neuroscience Centre, located within the Football Academy’s centre of excellence. Forming part of the Health and Performance Centre (NSP), the new facility aims to optimise players’ physical and mental recovery through a range of activities, techniques and therapies, such as neuroscience, Pilates and acupuncture, amongst others.

Daniel Gonçalves, the club’s health and performance coordinator, explains the concepts behind the innovative facility recently created by Brazil’s Most Successful Club.

“A Palmeiras player’s routine includes preparatory activities – that is, those carried out before training on the pitch – and supplementary activities. All of these are based on assessment and diagnosis, prevention, performance and recovery. In this regard, the Recovery and Neuroscience Centre was designed to support us in the post-match period with a more holistic and interdisciplinary approach,” says Gonçalves. “We are using techniques such as massage therapy, transcranial electrical stimulation exercises, Pilates, compression boots, acupuncture, osteopathy, podiatry… all backed by robust research. As well as recovery, we use this new facility primarily for mental, neural and neuromuscular activation. That is why the space is also dedicated to neuroscience and features techniques and equipment, such as smart glasses, which help us improve our athletes” decision-making and focus, amongst other things.”

The mental wellbeing of the Alviverde staff was taken into account during the drafting of the project.

“It’s a holistic approach. As well as recovery, we aim to create a centre for socialising and wellbeing. Palmeiras is deeply committed to the wellbeing of its players and creates environments that foster this. So, we have designed a space incorporating chromotherapy (lighting), aromatherapy and pleasant auditory stimuli, which encourages the players to adhere more closely to the programmes and feel increasingly well looked after and satisfied, particularly during neuromuscular, metabolic and mental recovery,” explains Daniel Gonçalves.