Recovery
Sleep and Recovery Fundamentals
Sleep duration and timing, training load management, and an honest read of the evidence tiers behind popular recovery modalities.
7 min read · Published 15 Aug 2026
Recovery & therapies
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy in Marbella
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves breathing oxygen at pressures above atmospheric inside a chamber, raising the amount of oxygen dissolved in plasma.
It is a genuine medical treatment for a defined list of conditions, and separately a wellness product sold with much broader claims. The distinction matters clinically and legally.
Established medical indications
Recognised indications include decompression sickness, carbon monoxide poisoning, gas embolism, certain problem wounds such as diabetic foot ulcers, osteoradionecrosis and late radiation tissue injury, and some severe soft-tissue infections. These are delivered in hospital or specialist hyperbaric units under medical supervision at defined pressures.
Coastal Spain has a diving-related medical need, so hyperbaric capability exists here in a genuinely clinical form.
Wellness and performance use
Wellness chambers typically run at much lower pressures than clinical protocols and are marketed for recovery, cognition, skin and longevity. Evidence for those outcomes is preliminary — small studies, short follow-up, few replications — and low-pressure sessions may not reproduce the physiology of clinical protocols at all.
In Spain, treating a medical condition is a regulated medical act. A wellness venue offering HBOT for a diagnosis, rather than a doctor doing so in a supervised setting, is a strong reason to walk away.
Before you book
HBOT is not risk-free: barotrauma to the ears and sinuses is common, and oxygen toxicity, and pneumothorax risk in some patients, are real considerations. Untreated pneumothorax, some lung conditions and certain chemotherapy agents are contraindications.
Ask what pressure the chamber runs at, who supervises sessions and with what qualification, what the specific target outcome is, and what evidence supports it at that pressure. Discuss it with your own doctor first.
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