The Secret to Russell Wilson’s Superhuman Healing Powers
Stem Cells, Saffron, and Baby Lemons.
Russell Wilson is one of the great healers of all time. If you didn’t know this before Pete Carroll’s week 5 post-game press conference, you did afterword.
“Russ is one of the great healers of all time,” Carroll said in his signature affable mutter. It was a moment so extremely-Pete-Carroll that even Pete looked, momentarily, like he might walk it back. Pete’s hyperbole was good for a brief chuckle and a long pause, because, you know what? He might be right.
In the third quarter of the game preceding Pete’s presser, an eventual loss, Russ hit the middle finger of his throwing hand on the swinging forearm of Aaron Donald while following through on a deep pass. It looked bad right away. Russ jogged over to the sideline jiggling his fingertip around like a cat hoping the dead bird it’s playing with will bounce to life and play back. The finger didn’t bounce to life because Russ had sustained a ruptured extensor tendon and a comminuted fracture-dislocation of the proximal interphalangeal joint. Basically the ligament that allows him to straighten his middle finger had snapped. Plus he’d dislocated and fractured some other stuff. The timeline for recovery was 8 weeks, or longer.
Wilson had surgery the next day (which included a metal pin inserted into his finger).
He was starting again for the Seahawks 37 days after that.
Considering that Wilson hadn’t missed a start, ever, before tearing his finger, his wolverine-like recovery cast Pete’s hyperbole in a more credible light. Questions begged asking, like how exactly does, Russell Wilson stay so healthy and heal so greatly? What kind of special diet is he on that the rest of the league has yet to adopt? What investments need one make to become an all-time great healer? Or can money even buy healing powers like Russ’s?
“It’s mostly belief, a mentality,” Wilson says, smiling from across a small patio table that looks over his sweeping, waterfront compound on the shore of Seattle’s Lake Washington. “The body follows the mind, and injecting the healing process with positivity allows the body to more quickly enter recovery mode. When you believe in your recovery, it’s a whole-body belief.”
The sun is out, bouncing off the wind-rippled surface of the lake and casting kaleidoscopic fractals against the tan siding of Wilson’s home. ‘Home’ being a grossly simplistic description of what functions more like some combination of health spa, physical therapy clinic, and medical research laboratory. Within the off-white walls and panoramic windows that appear no different than the many mansions of Seattle’s upper-crust neighborhoods, things are going on. Big things. Optimistic things. Giant-leap-for-man-kind sort of things.
[earlier that afternoon]
I arrive at the ‘Spa De Wilson’ to a greeting from his three Great Danes, Prince, Naomi, and Hero. They don’t bark as I walk past them up the front steps, instead sniffing suspiciously and exuding a regal obedience. “Siiiit. Good dogs.” Wilson says. He smiles and extends an extra-firm handshake my way (extensor working just fine).
We both know I’m here to interview him specifically about his abilities as a healer, and Wilson, an eager host, jumps straight into things as the the front door lets out a breathy whoosh, locking tightly behind us.
“The whole house is a hyperbaric chamber. That’s healing secret number one. Had it installed after the 2016 season when I had some high-ankle and MCL issues.”
I breathe deep, curious if ultra-oxygenated air has a unique taste. It does not.
“Also, cell phones won’t work inside. There’s a network of cell-signal-cancelling nodes mounted throughout the house, so phones basically go into airplane mode without actually having airplane mode turned on.”
The reason for this, Wilson explains, is twofold. One, it maintains the purity of the sonic frequencies inside the house’s various rooms — sound waves, undetectable to the human ear, that promote circulation, cell regeneration, and the body’s natural anti-inflammatory response. These ‘medi-frequencies’, as Wilson calls them, repeatedly, are a beta product he’s developing in tandem with Bose. The second reason for no cell signals inside, Wilson says, is simply to promote non-distraction.
I glance down at my phone. When I look back up, Wilson is pouring two small glasses of water. He hands me one.
“This, you probably wouldn’t even put in your article, it’s so basic. But we keep a chilled pitcher of lemon water in the kitchen. It’s common knowledge that lemon water helps digestion, liver function, immune function, blah, blah. The one cool thing about this water, though, is that the lemon in it is fresh squeezed from organic, two-month lemons. These are lemons that have matured exactly two months (give or take 48 hours) at time of harvest. Studies show two months is when lemon fruits have the most antioxidants and anti-inflamatories. 7% higher than three-month lemons, and 12% higher than four-month lemons, which are kind of b-grade, but we’ll get those from time to time when that’s all that’s available.”
I imagine baby lemons rolling around in diapers, then a row of gallon-sized glass jars in Wilson’s kitchen snaps me to my senses. The dozen or so jars, lined up on a granite counter behind the pitcher of baby-lemon elixir, are filled with what appears to be sand of various colors — teal, royal blue, sunset orange, deep maroon.
“Ah, you’ve spotted the spice rack.”
“Spice rack?”, I say skeptically, thinking to myself, “Looks more like the Hogwarts potion pantry. Or the dark-web google result for homemade bomb starter kit.”
I can tell this is stuff Wilson spends a lot of time, and money, on. Like a Star Wars buff who dedicates nights and weekends to hand-painting collectible figurines, and rarely gets the chance to show them off.
“Spice rack?”
“That’s what C and I call it anyway. I won’t go down the whole lineup. But check this one out,” he says, pointing at a jar two-thirds full of bright blue powder. “That’s Ghanaian Saffron. Pete turned me on to it, actually.” He pauses and adds, “You really should be doing your piece on him. Half the health stuff I’ve picked up is from Pete. I think he got visited by aliens or something. The stuff he knows is like, where the heck did you learn that? You know? But anyway, this is saffron. One teaspoon in the morning in your smoothie. It’s a mood enhancer. Increases optimism. Pete apparently takes two teaspoons before our ‘competition Wednesday’ practices. Three on game days.
Want to try some?”
I give a ‘why not?’ face. And russ scoops a half-dose into a glass of freshly poured lemon-veal water and hands it to me. The flavor is blander than the color. Hints of cardamom.
“Enjoy it,” Wilson says half kidding. “Stuff is three grand an ounce.”
The tour continues through lofted hallways and over exotic hardwood floors. Every few steps my attention is called to a different custom install or special material — the Nike foam padding under the carpet that minimizes joint impact; the rooms that automatically change temperature and humidity based on thermal readings of the people that enter; the Vietnamese Agarwood floors which emit subtle, calming fragrances; the dimmable, color-changing lights timed to Russell’s circadian rhythm; the recliner in the study that provides a full-body massage; the actual masseuse; the chef; the barber; the pedicurist — all four of whom are playing pool in the game room when we walk by.
“Don’t let Chris hustle you again, Mo! Don’t do it!” Wilson jabs at the foursome without breaking stride.
Wilson’s setup is enough to make you wonder whether there’s a point of diminishing returns on all this stuff. I mean, how much healing can one body handle?
But whether the returns are diminishing or not, he’s chasing them. The tubs room confirms this.
Inside a door engraved, simply, with the word Tubs, is a sprawling, terraced, stone-floored grotto. The air is filled with mist and the sound of tiny waterfalls. Spaced artfully across the terraced layout are twelve different, 7ft-diameter tubs that allow someone to experience not just a hot tub, cold plunge, or salt bath, but a soak in all manner of alchemical brews. One, Wilson tells me, contains sweat secretions from Sonoran toads which he breeds in a terrarium out back. Another is lined on all sides with amethyst crystals and contains a mixture of blended lemongrass and silk from Cambodian swallows nests — good for the appearance of the skin, and overall pliability.
“This one’s my favorite,” Russ says, pointing to a tub with a thick, steaming, mud-like substance. “It’s elk manure. Pure. The ventilation system above the tub pulls the odor out of the room so you don’t notice it unless you’re actually in the tub. But if you’re in there? Oooowee! I wear nose plugs.”
“What’s it do?” I ask.
“It’s like next-gen deer antler spray. Elk live such raw, primal lives that the chemical makeup of their manure is ridiculously nutrient-dense. It ain’t your gandpappy’s cow dung. 10 minutes soaking in that and your body’s natural recovery processes accelerate — blood coagulation, red blood cell count, testosterone levels, everything.”
“I hope you pay your pool boy well.” I said, not kidding.
We cross the marsh of steaming pools through a door leading into a small hallway with more doors, each with ergonomic handles fashioned from chakra-balancing Black Tourmaline stone. Behind one of these doors is Wilson’s healing coup de grâce: The Lab.
We step down a short flight of stairs, through a pair of airlock doors, into a hermetically sealed room, stainless steel from floor to ceiling. Various glass cases, viles, and refrigerators are visible, illuminated with cold recessed lighting. The whole lab is maybe 500 square feet. A subtle hum is audible. It smells like clorox and latex gloves.
“Welcome to The Lab.” Russ says. “When guys come to training camp in shape or with a new move, you hear ‘em say they’ve been in the lab. I really mean it.” He shoots a proud smile at me.
At the back of The Lab is a pocket door which, after Wilson allows two small lasers to scan his retinas as a credentials check, slides open automatically like a walk-in fridge on the USS Enterprise. It slides closed behind us. Inside, the small room glows orange, and the smell of decomposing potatoes hangs in the wet air. On the walls, from waist height up to the ceiling, are racks upon racks of football-sized glass cases. The cases are half full with a viscous semi-transparent solution, inside each one floats what looks like a large tadpole. One per case. Each case has four tubes exiting it and an individual orange grow-light perched over it. At the far end of the walk-in-closet-sized room is a row of glass vats, each partially filled with a pearlescent liquid. This seems to be the output of the operation.
“This is our HPSCEF, Humane Pangolin Stem Cell Extraction Facility,” explains Russ. “It’s an intricate process that we’ve worked with biomedical experts from the University of Washington to pioneer, but the short version is this: We run a free-range pangolin sanctuary out of the Congo. Any time a pangolin becomes 4 weeks pregnant we pull her from the wilderness habitat briefly to perform a minimally invasive caesarean section, removing the embryo. By immediately transferring the embryo into a synthetic womb—that’s what these glass bowls are—we allow it to continue developing uninterrupted.” Perhaps catching a look of mild horror in my eyes, Russ pauses.
“The moms, the babies, they all do just fine. We have a statistically insignificant rate of death among the pangolins.
And here’s the coolest part. After 4 weeks in the synthetic womb, and providing over 4oz of pure stem cell biome, we take the embryo and perform a reverse Caesarean section with the same exact mother who let us borrow her child initially. Rewiring the umbilical system was the hardest part to figure out, but the docs pulled it off. So each baby returns to the womb, where it fully develops for the next month or so before being birthed naturally on the sanctuary.
Meanwhile, back here, we dilute the pure stem cell biome into an injectable solution. Undiluted, the biome is too intense for the most human nervous systems to handle (Russ pauses, shooting another proud smile across the orange space-fridge). It can trigger all sorts of inflammatory responses. But diluted it’s received incredibly well by the human body, aiding in everything from muscle, ligament, and bone recovery, to new neuron development in the brain. I took a shot before a family trip to Italy this past summer and came home conversationally fluent in Italian. Basically, you’re looking at the cutting edge of human performance and recovery research right here.”
“What’s the potato smell from?” I ask, trying to act normal.
“That’s the composting potatoes,” replies Russ, tapping a perforated, foot-height drawer with his foot. “We found that a little bit of off-gassing from decomposing potatoes shifts the air composition, allowing the pangolins to produce 10%-12% more stem cells. Good old fashioned Russets.”
Our tour ends in the HPSCEF, mercifully. My shirt is soaking through with potato fumes and sweat.
We make our way outside to sip baby lemon water and geek out on the whole setup. It’s here, on the sunny porch, with normal earth-grade air wafting up our nostrils where Russ explains the phantom thread that ties all the tech, the research, and the free-range pangolin sanctuaries together.
“It’s mostly belief, a mentality.”
To Wilson, the gizmos and biomedical research are merely support system for the true tool, the mind, which is Wilson’s biggest ongoing project.
“Shifting to neutral. Shifting to neutral,” Russ repeats “ That’s the key to sustained high performance across different scenarios. It’s the mental training that underpins everything we do at my performance company Limitless Minds. By staying neutral amidst chaos — calm, focused, not too high, not too low, not frazzled. This is the key. And physical health is at the root of that, but it’s the cart, not the horse. Or maybe it’s the horse shoes. Or no, maybe it’s the hay they feed the horse. But regardless, the horse is the mind. And a balanced, focused mind — a neutral mind — is how we excel.”
“Is it hard to shift to neutral? What’s the process look like to do it?”
“Not once you’re practiced at it. You find yourself doing it throughout the day. That is, if you’re not already in a constant state of neutrality. But this is hard to achieve. I’ve shifted to neutral maybe a dozen times since we’ve been hanging out.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Absolut– oop. Just did it again. Did you notice it that time? Sometimes you can see it in subtle facial cues.”
Russell whistles. “Prince! Naomi! Hero! Come here. I’ve actually taught the dogs to do it. Watch. ‘Blue Eighty — Blue Eighty, Set!’” Instantly the two dogs sit down, noses slightly lifted, eyes fixed on Russ. Their focus is palpable.
“Wow,” I mutter. “I think I see it. Yeah.”
“Yeah, we’re actually developing a dog training academy here locally with the concept of mental neutrality at its core. We’re hoping to have multiple graduates bring home awards from the Westminster show next year.”
There are some interviews where you have to coax energy out of your subject. This isn’t one of them. Russ and I go on, back and forth for three hours at the patio table, our gregariousness perhaps fueled by baby-lemon elixir, saffron, and elevated blood oxygen levels. We chat until the fractal reflections of sunlight off the water disappear and the pine trees throw long shadows across the manicured lawn. Eventually, despite my journalistic instincts to keep Russ talking, I feel I’ve truly had enough. Plus I’m starving. I angle for a clean exit.
“Well, I need to go get some grub. How about you? I know you’re careful about what you put in your body. What’s for dinner?”
“I’ll need to check with the chef, but I’m pretty sure it’s sou-vide sea cucumber and elk back strap. Both wild-harvested this morning and flown in.” he says, unflinching.
“Oh, nice,” I reply, having become numb to such impossible statements.
On my way out the door, Russ thanks me graciously, and as I drive my car around the horseshoe driveway, past the front door, he smiles at me with a wide, instructive gaze, miming the hand motion of shifting gears in a car, and silently mouths, “Shift to neutral! Shift to neutral!”
I wave and return my gaze to the road, visions of pangolin embryos drifting through my mind.
