The weird treatments injured athletes use to get back to full fitness

Fire, ice, leeches and... cream cheese - here are some of the most out-there methods of getting back to the action

Remember when Mario Balotelli was in the headlines every week - and not always for the right reasons?

Well, the 27-year-old OGC Nice striker was back in fine form last week when he posted a rather peculiar video of himself bent over a bench while his physiotherapist rigorously applied pressure to his posterior (the posh way of saying ‘his bum’).

While the video of Balotelli squirming on a bench is perhaps more risqué, than risky (see Mario's history of bathroom fireworks displays for that) it is pretty funny to watch.

“This is not how it looks, I promise,” the Italian joked. Although he clearly didn’t enjoy the procedure.

The former Manchester City frontman underwent the bizarre treatment as he recovers from a hamstring injury he picked up late last year, but Super Mario's unorthodox massage is by no means the weirdest alternative therapy on the scene.

“You’re never going to believe how I treated my swollen knees,” former Manchester United and Everton striker Louis Saha said.

Saha suffered from a long-standing knee injury throughout his career before he was introduced to leeches.

The slimy blood-suckers helped Saha to drain excess fluids, and the saliva from their bites act as an anti-inflammatory, helping reduce swelling.

“I went to visit my grandparents, who live in Guadeloupe and I put leeches on my knees,” he said. “Since then I have had a knee that is not normal, but given what happened before to my ligaments, I have to accept it. It swells up less and I feel fine now.”

Sounds like an endorsement from Dr Louis - that is, if you’re comfortable having something with the face of Stranger Things’ Demigorgon draining the blood out of you.

Leeches are still farmed for medicinal purposes in the UK and can be administered at leech therapy clinics scattered across the country, ideally with the approval of your GP - however, they're not a common use of medicine to treat patients so don't expect to see one on your next trip to A&E.

Fire cupping is an ancient Chinese technique where practitioners douse a cotton ball in alcohol before setting it on fire, then putting the flaming ball inside a suction cup before applying the hot cup to your skin.

Anthony Joshua used the technique ahead of his heavyweight boxing blockbuster with Wladimir Klitschko in April last year.

Whereas there are some concerns that the effects of fire-cupping can be harmful, other athletes such as Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps have been known to undergo the process before races. This results in bruises, which you may have noticed on Michael Phelps' body.

More intensive fire cupping methods used for acute injures and healing tendons involve making small incisions to the skin before applying the cup, which will then begin to fill up with the patient’s blood. But in 2015, this variety of the practice faced calls for tighter regulation in the UK.

Whereas treatments such as acupuncture can be found on the NHS to relieve muscle tension, fire cupping is very much seen as an alternative procedure that is more popular in private clinics. 

Ex-Fulham defender Brede Hangeland claimed that his former Cottagers manager, Felix Magath, told him to treat a dead leg by combining a tub of cream cheese soaked in alcohol and a phone call to a very special someone.

“He (Magath) said mix the cheese with alcohol and put it on your dead leg overnight and very importantly, just before you go to bed, you have to call your mum,” Hangeland told BBC 5 live.

“The cheese, the alcohol and the biological reaction of the love that you feel when you call your mother will heal your leg.”

Magath, who was later sacked as manager of the club, claimed that the story was distorted by media: “I merely suggested it could be worth trying the old wives' tale of applying quark cheese to the injured area," he said.

Long-distance runner Paula Radcliffe once used emu oil to speed up the healing of cuts and bruises she sustained after colliding with a cyclist during a training session.

The oil, which was taken from the fatty tissue on an emu’s back, seemingly helped Radcliffe’s road to recovery in 2003 as she went on to win the London Marathon later that year.

When the BBC asked Edzard Ernst, a professor of complementary medicine, about Radcliffe’s peculiar recovery technique, he responded by saying, "We have found no evidence that emu oil helps heal cuts.”

“Sportspeople are very sensitive people, and if they have a belief that a remedy helps them, then as long as it does not have any adverse side effects, that is a benefit in itself."

Floyd 'Money' Mayweather took the idea of an ice bath to the extreme with his regular visits to a cryotherapy chamber in preparation for his 2015 fight with Manny Pacquiao.

The misty ice-cold chamber, which is essentially a fridge freezer for humans, uses liquid nitrogen to drop the temperature to -240 degrees for a minute and a half to three minutes.

“The enzymes, proteins and oxygenated blood flow back out and heal whatever, whether you have joint pain or soreness in your muscles from working out,” claims Dave Levi, CEO of the cryo chamber company Mayweather used.

Therapies using extreme cold might have become more common among athletes, external and sports teams around the world, but it's not clear if everyone is following Mayweather's dress code of brightly-coloured chequered boxers, white tube socks and granddad slippers for the win...

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