There will always be injuries among professional players. At some point in their job, every player or athlete, no matter how tough, strong, or skilled they are, is likely to lose.

Of course, injuries can range from minor and not too much of a problem to much worse ones that could end a career. Thanks to progress in medicine, players can now get treatments that look like they came from another planet to help them get back to playing faster than ever.

LeBron James, the star player for the Los Angeles Lakers, seems to be going through his futuristic recovery program. The small forward who won multiple championships and is thought to be one of the best players of all time hurt his high ankle in a game between the LA Lakers and the Atlanta Hawks on March 19, 2021.

Reports say James could be out for at least four to six weeks, but maybe even longer if the injury is really bad. James recently put up a video on his Instagram story of himself lying in a “biodome bed” to help him get better. The man also said that he would be in the bed, or at least use it, every day for the next few weeks.

James is said to have hurt his high ankle, which is not as common as a lateral ankle sprain, which most of us have experienced when playing sports or walking down the stairs the wrong way. A high-ankle sprain happens higher up the leg, as the name suggests. The Prehab Guys say that only 10% of all ankle sprains happen this way.

High-ankle sprains are sprains in the top ligaments of your ankle, which are above the ankle. These ligaments connect the fibula to the tibia and keep the whole area stable for activities like walking and running.

For high ankle sprains, rest, ice, and pain-relieving medicine are common ways to treat them. In LeBron’s case, his biodome bed, which we think is like a Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber (like the one Michael Jackson is said to have used to try to extend his life), has been shown to help him heal faster.

So far, there isn’t a lot of research or knowledge on how such a chamber can help injuries. This suggests that it is still very much a “space-age” or futuristic technology.  One study from 1995, on the other hand, looked at how HBO (Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy) affected ankle sprains and found that players who did HBO got back to their sport “about 30% faster than the control group after an ankle sprain.”

There were many studies and reviews of HBO in 2011, and one of them said, “In hyperbaric therapies, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO) is the administration of pure oxygen (100%) at pressures greater than atmospheric pressure, i.e. more than 1 atmosphere absolute (ATA), for therapeutic reasons.”

“It has recently been suggested in the scientific literature that HBO could be used to treat sports injuries as either the main treatment or in addition to it.”

“HBO seems like it could help high-performance athletes recover from injuries, but more randomized, controlled, double-blind clinical trials with larger samples are needed, along with studies using animal models to find out how it works and what effects it has. Only then can we be sure that it is a safe and effective way to treat sports injuries.”

In the end, Ishii et al. studied the effects of HBO treatment on seven Olympic athletes in 2005. Each athlete got 30–40 minutes of HBO treatment at 1.3 ATA, with a maximum of six doses and an average of two. It was found that the HBO treatment helped all athletes heal faster.

We don’t know for sure if LeBron is getting the same treatment, but we can guess that he is. He’ll want to get back to playing shape as soon as possible to help his team win the Western Conference Championship. The LA Lakers are in fourth place right now, five points behind the Utah Jazz, who are in first place.