Real Madrid seeks the solution to its plague of injuries in Gipuzkoa with nutritionist Itziar González de Arriba

Real Madrid signs in Gipuzkoa, but this time it is not a footballer but someone with whom they hope to stop the plague of injuries they suffer this season. This is the nutritionist and physiotherapist from Irunda, Itziar González de Arriba, who has worked successfully in recent years with a multitude of athletes whom she has helped to have faster recoveries after injuries or to avoid relapses.

The most famous case, the one that helped him rise to fame in the world of sports, was that of Sergio Canales. When the Cantabrian was still a Real Sociedad player, he turned to González de Arriba, who also has studies in biochemistry, osteopathy or nutrigenomics, to try to get out of the chain of injuries he suffered, after his third cruciate ligament tear. That would be the last major injury for the footballer who would reach a level during his stay at Betis that led him to be called up by the Spanish team.

From that moment on, word spread among footballers who have turned to this irundarra desperate to improve their performance mainly thanks to the study, and change, of their eating habits. Despite keeping his practice open in Irun, his services have been in demand in recent years by a multitude of athletes, from handball players to pelota players like Joseba Ezkurdia, who has also talked about the benefits of changing his nutrition.

Footballers such as Jon Guridi or Robert Navarro have passed through his consultation, among others close to him as Real Sociedad players, but his work with Dani Carvajal has had more significance, who managed since then (until this season) to leave behind a streak of ailments that It hampered his performance and he ended last season being one of the best players in the world and third in the 2024 Ballon d’Or ranking.

González de Arriba’s work as a disseminator has not ceased in these years, in which she has multiplied in conferences and courses throughout Spain and launching books about her knowledge. His goal with his patients is always “to reach a more molecular, more visceral and more biochemical diagnosis, using diet to prevent and treat musculoskeletal injuries, it is about using nutrigenomics for physiotherapy, when joining them together, Physiogenomics emerges,” he explained in 2019 in an interview with El Diario Vasco, on whose website he has occasionally collaborated.

Feeding tips

Now the Real Madrid players will benefit from the knowledge of this Guipuzcoan, whose diet will undoubtedly change. It will be up to you to meet the challenge. This is how he remembered the first days with Sergio Canales: “he is a very obedient patient, and creative because both he and his wife have been able to eat a very tasty diet with ingredients that at first don’t seem that way to us.”

Itziar González de Arriba explained the relationship between food and muscles in this way: «it is the tool that I use to treat aspects at a molecular-biochemical level, for example, if an athlete has inflammation in the knee and everything he eats is inflammatory, it will take much longer. or he will not be able to recover well. His guidelines are always personalized, but he makes some common recommendations: “eat vegetables twice a day and animal protein a maximum of twice a day (without abusing meat and including eggs and fish); White meat is best only about three times a week and red meat is best removed, as well as avoiding anything processed, refined, fried, sweets, sausages, pastries, alcohol, coffee and milk. As she herself summarizes: “it’s about avoiding foods that are often the ones we like the most.”