Dmytro Babelyuk, Lviv "Rukh" doctor, about the practice of using droppers to rehabilitate football players.
Dmytro Babelyuk "Have sports doctors ever put you on a drip? I think 99.9% of domestic athletes will confirm that they had experience with drips in one or another professional club.
The myth that magic drips help players perform at their best on the field and then with the same fluids and recover faster is deeply rooted in the minds of experienced sports doctors, coaches, club managers and players themselves.
Doctors are looking for the most effective "cocktails", mixing everything they have at hand, inventing "Milano cocktails" and spreading stories about the fact that "well, they drip everywhere, they just don't tell."
So the truth is that they do not drip. First, any direct manipulation of blood is prohibited by WADA. Only 100 ml is allowed in more than 12 hours, which is a very small amount of fluid.
Secondly, this is a senseless intervention. Droppers are needed only for those people who cannot receive liquids by mouth. Another necessity is a sudden loss of fluid (for example, in case of poisoning), when it is necessary to replenish the fluid balance in the body in the shortest possible time.
Instead, post-Soviet sports medicine developed a clear postulate that a cool sports doctor should know and be able to prepare several recipes of different "cocktails" for different purposes. Get rid of a hangover before the game, tone the body before the game, recover better after the game. This scoop approach is still found in most UPL clubs, not to mention the lower leagues.
There is no confirmed data that vitamins, cardio-, hepato-, cerebroprotectors and other meaningless drugs have any positive effect on the human body. Instead, ask which of the football players was forced to do drips as one of the recovery methods after difficult loads? The statistics will surprise you.
Meanwhile, nobody in Europe had ever heard of baking players with magic liquids. There are specific protocols, there are specific conditions and specific indications for the use of specific liquids in specific institutions. No self-activity and no creativity.
One of the stages of the doping test at the Europa League level is the ultraviolet illumination of the players' veins for puncture marks. If such is found, there is a risk of a ban for a period of 2 to 4 years, regardless of what was entered. The method itself is prohibited.
And if we want to move Ukrainian football and, accordingly, sports medicine around it forward, then shouldn't we abandon the long-forbidden methods and build a modern European effective medical approach that has been working successfully in developed championships for years?" — wrote Babelyuk.
