Junior Paulo likens his body to a vehicle on the football field.
“The contact, the G-forces in the collisions, we are pretty much having mini-car crashes as we throw our bodies into the line,” Paulo said.
Indeed, some of the collisions in Sunday’s grand final will result in G-forces in excess of 10, which is the equivalent of 10 times the force of gravity. To put that into perspective, NASA pilots pass out if they are exposed to G-Forces of nine or 10 for more than a few seconds.
Paulo, when taking a hit-up for Parramatta against Penrith, will be involved in dozens of them.
There’s the initial pain and then the aches that linger in the days after the game, long after the adrenaline has left Paulo’s 123kg, 188cm frame.
Which is why the Eels co-captain puts so much emphasis on recovery. To that end, the 28-year-old makes multiple weekly visits from his home in the western suburbs to Body WRL, a wellness studio in Rosebery.
Parramatta co-captain Junior Paulo gets ready for the grand final with a cryotherapy session.Credit:Rhett Wyman
Some of the services he avails himself of include compression therapy, infra-red saunas and cryotherapy, the latter requiring Paulo to spend three minutes in a whole-body chamber where the temperature plummets to minus 140 degrees Celsius.
“This year has been the most important for recovery over my career,” Paulo said. “The older you get, the more you realise how important recovery is in such a tough sport you’re in.
“They say we play the toughest game in the world and I agree. The position I play, there’s no thought of preservation for your own good.
”The day after the game isn’t necessarily the worst, it’s the second day when all of the adrenaline has left the body. That’s when I try to get into Body WRL because that’s the worst I feel throughout the week.
Junior Paulo knows the importance of recovery in a brutal body contact sport.Credit:Getty
“It’s a long process to get yourself back up during the week to be fresh and then do it all over again.
“Every bit of recovery I can get, which has been keeping me on the field every week this year, has got me feeling as well as ever in the back end of a season.
“I wish I had found this a lot earlier in my career. It will help me in the long run to prolong my career.”
Paulo has played 26 NRL games, plus three State of Origin matches, already this season. There won’t be a break after the grand final; the former Raiders prop will then represent Samoa in the World Cup in England.
Despite the huge workload, Paulo plays more minutes than most other props in the game. He believes one of the major reasons is the time he spends looking after his body, whether it be through good nutrition or recovery.
“It goes hand in hand in investing into your body as your body is a vehicle on the field,” he said.
“The cryo chamber is … definitely pretty cold. It’s to try to reduce all the swelling in the body. Every time I walk out of there, that’s one of the best nights of sleep I get all week.”
Asked what goes through his mind as he takes a hit-up, knowing that multiple defenders are charging in to inflict as much pain as possible, Paulo said: “The position we play, you can’t think too much – you don’t think at all.
“It’s a game of trying to get over the top of the opposition, trying to lay a platform for your team. When you look at today’s game, with the speed, impact and the collisions we have and how repetitive it is, you do whatever you can to lay the platform for your team.”
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