How an Emphasis on Recovery Is Changing Athletic Training Facility Design

The use of tricked-out facilities as an athlete-recruiting tool is a widely accepted practice among D-I athletics departments. Luxury features such as video games, ping pong tables and lazy rivers have all been carefully added to facilities to entice young athletes. However, that all may be changing in an era when parents and athletes alike are realizing that caring for the whole athlete is the name of the game.

“For a long time, schools were adding lots of fun recruiting features — fun stuff like barber shops and waterslides,” says Kelli Pugh, associate athletic director of athletic training at the University of Virginia. “And now, as the student-athletes are getting revenue through NIL or through the upcoming House settlement, they and their parents are realizing that their body really is a commodity, and so they’ve got to start taking care of it, and they’re realizing that at a younger and younger age.”

So what are today’s recruits prioritizing? It ranges from cryo chambers, nap pods and red-light treatments to cold plunge pools and nutrition centers.

“Previously, you would try to educate all these student-athletes on all of these things, and it really wouldn’t kick in until it was time for them to start training for either their last season or for their professional tryout — the combine, the draft,” Pugh says. “And now we’re seeing freshmen in college coming in saying, ‘Oh, well, I saw a chiropractor once a week.’ Or, ‘I’ve had dry needling before.’ Or, ‘You know, I love Normatec boots. They saved me.’ It is really interesting how much more educated young kids are these days.”

Photo courtesy of ZGF Architects 

The philosophy shift

This evolution represents more than just new equipment — it signals a fundamental shift in how athletics departments approach athlete development. The traditional “go, go, go” mentality that dominated coaching for decades has given way to a more holistic understanding of human performance.

“The availability of the players is critical,” Pugh notes. “If they’re not taking care of themselves on the front end and the back end, that increases their risk for injury. You have a player out from injury, now your load on the other members of that position group increases, which increases their risk for injury.”

At Clemson University, which debuted a player slide at its new football complex in 2017, this evolving philosophy has been embraced at the highest levels of leadership. “Our coaches have realized less is more,” says Natalie Honnen, the Tigers’ senior executive associate athletic director of student-athlete services and performance. “For our student-athletes — or any individuals — to really perform at their highest level, you can’t overrun the body and the mind. You cannot be your best when you are stressed and sore. You have to take care of the little things for you to be able to perform at a higher level.”

This shift is reflected in Clemson’s core values as an athletics department. “We talk a lot about growth and family and joy and excellence and innovation,” Honnen says. “When we think about those words and what we stand for as a department, this rise in the recovery space hits all those buckets for us.”

Photo courtesy of Clemson University 

Clemson’s ARC

Clemson’s commitment to this new philosophy is perhaps most visible in its standalone Athletic Recovery Center (ARC). Originally developed to serve the school’s football program, the facility has evolved into something much more comprehensive.

“Football was kind of on the front edge of recovery equipment and what was important for people to feel good,” Honnen says. “How do we make sure that we provide all the tools possible for our student athletes to take control of their own recovery, as opposed to mandating treatments from athletic trainers?”

The ARC houses nine different recovery modalities, each designed to address different aspects of athlete wellness. Megan Cato, the ARC’s wellness coordinator, oversees everything from yoga sessions and isometric stretching to infrared saunas and whole-body cryotherapy chambers that reach -125 degrees.

“We’ve got cocoons — infrared saunas that are massage beds with heat up to about 145 degrees,” Cato says. “We call them nap pods because they put everyone straight to sleep. We have red-light therapy beds with four different wavelengths of photobiomodulation to aid in recovery by elevating ATP levels [adenosine triphosphate, the primary energy currency for cells] and reducing oxidative stress.”

But perhaps the most significant aspect of the ARC isn’t the equipment — it’s the philosophy behind its use. The facility operates as what Honnen calls a “disengagement space” for student-athletes.

“So often, all the spaces that student-athletes walk into, they’re mandated to go to,” she says. “We’re like, okay, how do we create a space where it is their space? It’s disengagement. It’s not countable hours. No one can mandate that space. And then it also becomes a space of community and belonging.”

The ARC is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, with no requirement to sign up for time slots. “It’s literally walk through the door, first come, first serve,” Cato says. “We’ll take you for whatever time you have, rather than needing you to fit into our schedule or 500 other athletes’ schedules.”

UVA’s Football Operations Center

While Clemson opted for a standalone facility, the University of Virginia took a different approach with its Hardie Football Operations Center, integrating recovery red-light modalities throughout the building’s design. Brian Earle, an architect with ZGF Architects who worked on the project, explains that this integration was intentional from the beginning.

“There was a renewed focus on what we call the full athlete — body, mind and spirit,” Earle says. “Taking care of them and treating when they need recovery, but also strengthening all those aspects of the individual in support of the team.”

The facility’s design started with understanding how players would actually use the space. “It absolutely started with mapping players’ daily flow and how they interact and work,” Earle says.

Pugh, who provided input during the design process, confirms this approach: “We spent a lot of time looking at efficiency. So what is the flow of the guys coming in the building, getting their gear, coming to the athletic training room, going to the locker room, going from the locker room to the training room, the locker room to the weight room, going from the locker room up to the team meeting room. The design was very intentional and discussed at length to try to make it the most efficient, to really maximize their time.”

The result is a facility where recovery is seamlessly woven throughout. “The locker room is connected to hydrotherapy, which is connected to the training room,” Pugh says. “And the locker room also opens directly across from the weight room.” Recovery equipment is strategically placed in multiple locations — massage chairs and sleep pods in the players’ lounge, a separate nap room with bunk beds, and various modalities distributed between the athletic training room and weight room.

“There is really recovery scattered throughout the first floor in any of the spaces a player could be to encourage them to maximize those opportunities,” Pugh says.

Earle notes that this integrated approach addresses the complexity of managing a large football program. “It’s particularly complex with football programs because of the size of the teams and how many people we’re talking about,” he says. “There starts to be this kind of hierarchy of who goes when and how they flow through the facility. By having multiple pathways to get to these places that are all interconnected, it allows them to choreograph that dance.”

Photo courtesy of Clemson University
 Design challenges, considerations

Creating these recovery-focused facilities presents unique challenges for architects and administrators. Space constraints often force difficult decisions about what to include and where to place it.

“We were pretty space-constrained at UVA, and so having separate hydro suites wasn’t an option,” Earle says. “The emphasis was on allowing the training staff to have eyes on as many parts of the process as possible, whether it’s being connected to nutrition, having direct eyes into the hydro suite or being right across the hall from the weight room.”

Budget considerations also play a significant role. “Everyone has a budget, and they have boosters and they have fiduciary responsibilities,” Earle says. “But there’s kind of a base level of functionality that’s the base requirement, and that’s generally not that expensive. It’s where you go from there that becomes a question of what you want to spend.”

One area where institutions are spending more is on the “hospitality experience.” Earle describes a shift toward making training and treatment areas “less medical and more spa-like, because that has tremendous impact on both the players wanting to be there, but also psychologically, how that affects recovery.”

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges in designing recovery facilities is the rapidly evolving nature of the technology and modalities involved. What’s popular today may be obsolete in a few years.

“Part of what we have to do is try to make sure we’re designing these things to be highly flexible and have enough elbow room to add, but also just general flexibility to swap things out,” Earle says.

This means strategic conversations about infrastructure investment. “The pools are a 20- to 30-year decision. The infrared sauna is a two-year decision,” Earle explains. “There’s a lot of conversations around where do we spend our money wisely for the long term, and where do we invest heavily versus where do we acknowledge that things are going to evolve and change and we can pivot?”

Breaking down silos

One of the most significant changes in facility design is the emphasis on interdepartmental collaboration. Traditionally, strength and conditioning, athletic training, nutrition and sports science operated in separate silos. Today’s facilities are designed to encourage interaction between these groups.

“One of the biggest challenges they’re seeing is how do we get all of these different groups to work together and be telling the athlete the same thing and supporting each other holistically?” Earle says. “A lot of the focus on the UVA facility, from a big picture standpoint, was how do we set up the organization of the building to allow all those groups to interact meaningfully so that there aren’t silos?”

At Clemson, this integration extends to mental health services. Cato’s position within the performance and wellness services group, rather than athletic training or strength and conditioning, was intentional. “We look at Megan as the proactive end of the mental health, mental performance spectrum,” Honnen says. Both the ARC and Clemson’s newer Watt Family Performance and Wellness Building include flex offices where mental health clinicians can conduct one-on-one sessions.

The creation of Cato’s position at Clemson speaks to what is perhaps the most significant evolution in athletic recovery — the recognition of the mind-body connection. Facilities are increasingly designed to address mental wellness alongside physical recovery.

“High performance, but high support is really what I find so valuable at Clemson,” Cato says. “You’re going to be expected to perform at the peak level, but at the same time, you’re going to have the support to really fall apart if you need it, or to just sit still if you need it.”

This philosophy is reflected in the types of modalities being offered. Cato notes that at the ARC, dry float beds and a wet float sensory deprivation tank provide “training for people who are needing to slow down that headspace,” and Yoga sessions focus on “getting away from the performance aspect and more into the feeling of our body and slowing down.”

“There’s not a waking moment any of us are really actually being fully present,” Cato observes. “I think it really is just more about leadership believing in the importance of slowing down.”

Photo courtesy of Clemson University 

Looking forward

As recovery modalities continue to evolve, facility designers and athletics departments must balance staying current with proven approaches and avoiding every new trend. Red-light therapy is currently “the hot item,” according to Cato, while pulse electromagnetic fields are “definitely going to start to wiggle their way in.”

However, specific technologies may matter less than the underlying philosophy. “Most importantly, it’s just giving yourself the permission to really just let go and sit still,” Cato says.

The shift toward treating the whole athlete represents more than just a trend in facility design. It reflects a fundamental evolution in how athletics departments understand human performance and their responsibility to the young people in their care. As NIL deals and future revenue sharing make athletes’ bodies increasingly valuable commodities, the facilities that help protect and optimize those bodies will become ever more critical to attracting and retaining top talent.

The days of recruiting with slides and lazy rivers aren’t entirely over, but they’re being supplemented, and in some cases replaced, by facilities that recognize rest and recovery as essential components of peak performance. In this new paradigm, the nap pod may be just as important as the weight room.

Photo courtesy of Moody Nolan

Recovery facilities extend campus life

Modern athletics facilities are deliberately blurring the lines between training time and personal time, creating spaces where athletes want to spend their entire day — not just the hours they’re required to be there.

“They’re removing the boundaries between what you’re doing when you’re not specifically training,” explains Moody Nolan architect Kris Cochran. “Athletes are more invested in their recovery, so they’re willing to spend more time there.”

Rather than designing spaces solely for mandatory activities, architects are creating environments that serve athletes’ broader lifestyle needs. “These teams have dining rooms and kitchens with personal chefs, so they’ve got a way to keep you on campus longer and just help make healthier decisions throughout the day,” notes Cassandra Bukowski, also an architect with Moody Nolan. “We’re also thinking a lot about warm finishes that make the space feel welcoming and relaxing, even down to lighting that can change colors depending on what the mood is. Is it pregame? Is it postgame?”

Says Cochran, “You’re seeing sleep pods and float tanks and hydrotherapy pools, even prayer spaces. So it’s really all about getting the whole athlete — their mind and their body — ready for the next training session, practice or game.”

When facilities successfully integrate lifestyle amenities with recovery and training spaces, athletes respond by extending their stays voluntarily. “Part of that is giving them the amenities that they need to be able to not just be there to train and recover, but also to just relax and hang out and build team camaraderie off the field, as well,” Bukowski says.

For athletics departments, this represents a new retention strategy in an era of transfer portals and NIL deals. By creating spaces that feel like home, schools are building emotional connections that go beyond traditional team loyalty.