The U.S. Men’s National Team success at this summer’s World Cup may be based, at least slightly, on an Ohio State effort to help American athletes better recover between games.. Joshua Hagen is the director of the Human Performance Collaborative at Ohio State, where he applies research to improve performance and recovery with athletics and the military through a partnership with the U.S. Soccer Federation. During the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, a colleague on the U.S. Men’s National Team approached Hagen about installing a recovery facility inside the team hotel, which established a multi-year relationship, according to Ohio State News.. Advertisement. Advertisement. Advertisement. Hagen said understanding recovery is the next vital step after mastering all aspects of training.. “I can quantify how hard things were and how stressful everything was in on and around the body,” Hagen said. “But we got to get them recovered because tomorrow they got to perform again. They got to train again.”. 1 / 13. Attendees listen to speakers during the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s forum at National Veterans Memorial and Museum on Wednesday, June 10, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio.. (Samantha Madar/Columbus Dispatch). Recovery is often seen as purely physical to repair damaged muscle, but it also roams into mental territories.. “The holistic athlete is no different than any of us where it’s like, you have physical workload, but you’ve got life and you’ve got emotional workload and cognitive workload,” Hagen said.. Advertisement. Advertisement. Advertisement. To tackle the mental component of athlete recovery, Hagen initiated a study with a vibroacoustic device, which encourages “sensory enhanced mindfulness” by having an athlete lay in a vibroacoustic bed which provides a gentle massage and time to meditate.. “What’s really happening is they’re doing just an amazing mindfulness meditation experience that, in this case, it’s adding this vibration and sound in a very intelligent way to where it kind of pushes your body into that recovery state, and you can do that with different physiological mechanisms,” Hagen said.. The vibroacoustic chamber can help athletes breathe themselves into a state of relaxation, a needed change from the typical fight-or-flight of a sympathetic state, Hagen said.. Mingwei Jen demonstrates the SAVA machine, which uses sound and vibrations for recovery, to help athletes relax.. Despite all the technological advancements that aid recovery, the No. 1 recovery tool is sleep, Hagen said, but there needs to be protocols in place to ensure quality sleep.. Advertisement. Advertisement. Advertisement. “If all of these things I’m doing can help them stack the deck for sleep at the end of the day, that’s another big win,” Hagen said.. He could not detail exactly how his team is helping out during this year’s World Cup, saying it is a “competitive advantage thing,” but he said great thought and care went into ensuring data and science can back up players’ recovery.. Challenges players face during a World Cup include congested match schedules, high stress and pressure to perform. Hagen hopes his work can help athletes stay comfortable during some of the most anticipated games of their careers.. “Typically, in the clubs that they’re at, they have their home facilities, and they have everything that’s kind of natural to them, they’ve got access to when they’re at home and with their clubs,” Hagen said. “How can you just make them feel as at home as possible?”. Reporting Intern Nora Igelnik can be reached at nigelnik@dispatch.com.. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State science aids U.S. soccer player recovery at World Cup