Long Covid-suffering Wasps legend helps England stars reach peak performance

Ever wondered where the irrepressible Henry Pollock gets his energy from?

Wasps legend Peter Scrivener is joking when he says Pollock’s success is all down to him. But his business, Biowell Health, has played its part in helping the young back-rower thrive in what has already been an action-packed career.

In the last 12 months, he’s become one of the biggest box-office names in the sport. Pollock has made his international debut for England, announcing his arrival to the Test arena by scoring twice against Wales, gone on a Lions tour, at the age of 20, and played in a Champions Cup final.

Despite making lung-bursting breaks and bouncing from one ruck to another, burnout hasn’t been an issue for the Banbury-born player, who keeps in tip-top condition thanks to a cocktail of cryotherapy, red light therapy and hyperbaric oxygen treatment, in addition to the excellent medical support he receives from his club.

Pollock, who turns 21 a week today, and his England and Saints team-mate, Tommy Freeman, were twice-weekly visitors to the impressive Battersea-based Biowell Health facility in the build-up to the Lions tour, while the treatment has also proved beneficial, in the last six months or so, to Northampton captain George Furbank in his recovery from a broken arm and concussion. Lucas Friday has also been a regular visitor, helping him recover from his ACL surgery whilst playing for England U20s. But Bowell Health is not just for elite athletes, it is for everyone, from all walks of life.

“I put Henry’s and Tommy’s whole success down to me; they are both super lads with extreme talent. Those Northampton lads are brilliant. Henry is getting some stick but I said to him the other day, don’t change, keep doing what you are doing. But I told him one thing he should stop doing – those stupid dives, because you are going to dislocate your shoulder one day, and it is pointless, just put the ball down,” said Scrivener.

Scrivener is old-school in that respect, but when it comes to medical science, he learnt the hard way that much can be gained from trying something new.

Once the highest-paid player per minute in world rugby (he received a £60,000/year salary soon after rugby turned professional, but only lasted 19 minutes of the 2003/04 season with Wasps), Scrivener was accustomed to overcoming injury setbacks in his days as a no-nonsense back-rower.

In 12 seasons as a Wasps player (1992 to 2003), Scrivener was injured for five of them, after underdoing double shoulder and knee reconstruction surgery. But nothing prepared him for Covid and the crippling effect it had on his body, which ultimately led him down the path to launching Biowell Health at Battersea Power Station with his business partner, James Stanley, last March.

The catalyst was a conversation with fellow Wasps legend, Simon Shaw, while at his lowest ebb, allowed Scrivener to finally see the light at the end of the dark tunnel of long Covid.

‘As I was fit and healthy in October 2020, I thought I would be fine and have flu like symptoms. OMG was I wrong! It took me down in the most spectacular fashion, it was literally life-changing. I lost three stone of muscle in about three-and-a-half weeks; my heart was going at 218, that was recorded by an NHS monitor . I had brain fog; a temperature of 40 degrees for 10 days; and chronic fatigue,” he recalled.

“They sent me into hospital because my breathing wasn’t right, and surprisingly I tested negative for Covid, tested negative for antibodies, but the senior consultant at Arrowe Park Hopsital on the Wirral said, ‘look mate, you’ve got Covid.’ Some people at that time had the virus but it sat in the oesophagus rather than in the nasal passages, and that must’ve been the case with me.

“Through Covid, the Wasps Legends (the charitable foundation set up by Scrivener and Paul Clements to raise money for good causes) were messaging each other every Friday night, having a few drinks , and raising loads of money. They saw how ill I was, and it was horrific. It took me three-and-a-half years to get back to some form of normality, but I am now pretty much fully recovered.

“At my lowest point I tried everything. It got to the point where I couldn’t see a way out, and I am naturally a positive person. I would walk up some stairs and would collapse. So I looked to the rugby world, and I said to Shawsy, what do you reckon, and he said, ‘mate, ‘have you tried hyperbaric oxygen?'”

“I found at soft shell chamber locally in Liverpool, where I sat in this pressurised chamber for 60 minutes, breathing 93-95% pure oxygen. I had instant relief but then I jumped on a bike and did 5k to Hoylake. My energy levels plummeted again! Back in the chamber and found relief but I was yo-yoing.

“All my bloods were normal and tradition medicine could not help. It was then a functional doctor, who actually works for the NHS, suggested that I had a mitochondria problem and sent me for a very high level and specific blood test. I had never heard of Mitochondria but they are your energy cells in your body, and if they don’t work correctly your whole body is not going to work as it should.

“My results were appalling but I felt elated as now I knew what the issue was. I had a causation! I had to reset my mitochondrial, to get back to where I was. So I started doing red light therapy (photo biomodulation), which creates new mitochondrial in your body. Combining all the therapies, Biowell Health have made the real difference to my health and my energy levels.

“I looked globally where I could get all this stuff and there wasn’t anywhere. In the States, there was a very big company called Restore Hyper Wellness. I enquired about starting a franchise in the UK but they weren’t interested, so I created a business plan to bring the best technology in the world to the U.K, to reset someone’s mitochondrial health and general cellular wellness, and that is what Biowell Health is about.”

Ten months on, they have 1800 clients on their books, with Bath players Louie Hennessey and Arthur Green and Sale’s Reuben Logan recently coming through the doors, alongside a host of celebrities outside of sport.

“Some of our sports clients comes to us to speed up wound healing, some come to optimise their performance – that extra one per cent for Henry and Tommy is a big difference. But everyone comes to us to be better, faster, fitter, stronger and healthier,” said Scrivener.

“I stumbled on a world that can help everyone, but this all came from rugby, because effectively if Simon Shaw hadn’t have said why don’t you try hyperbaric oxygen, which I’d never heard about before, none of this would have happened and, do you know what, I might not be here, because I couldn’t see a way out.”