Water surprise for Dev Squad youngsters

Four members of the West Ham United Development Squad have been making the most of modern training techniques in order to exercise away the injuries keeping them from playing.

Rob Hall, Elliot Lee, Matthias Fanimo and Sebastian Lletget have been using swimming pools to try and rid themselves of injury more quickly.

Tom Smith is the Academy Head of Sport Medicine and Sport Science, and it was his initial idea to use the water in this healing way.

Smith told West Ham TV: "We brought the lads down as they have had various injuries or tightness in their muscles from previous games to use the facilities to do some mobility work and rehabilitation exercises.

"The plunge pool is like an ice-cold bath with nice deep water, so the pressure and temperature of the water both have their therapeutic benefits. The exercises the lads did in there were to mobilise their hips, marching on the spot and cycling their legs. It basically pre-empted the session they did in the swimming pool on a larger scale.”

He went on to detail the players’ injuries; Hall is recovering from a groin operation, Lee and Lletget have tightness in their hips and Fanimo is getting over a hamstring injury. Each player was given a specific regime in the water to target their specific injury needs.

Hall enjoyed the change and said:"We used this visit as a rehab session, whereas we usually use the pool for recovery after games or hard training sessions.”

Whatever works to get these youngsters back in action is fine by us!

By Lucy Woolford, Development Squad correspondent

@lucy_whufc