Rabat – Real Madrid players turned heads this week when they appeared in training wearing heavy-looking masks, drawing comparisons to the Batman villain Bane.
The unusual sight is part of a fitness program led by Antonio Pintus, the club’s veteran physical trainer, and involves high-tech K5 masks.
The K5 masks, made by Italian company Cosmed, are designed to measure a player’s aerobic power during intense exercise. They fit tightly to the face, are secured with straps, and connect to a small backpack that transmits real-time data to the coaching staff.
Each kit costs around $30,000, and Real Madrid owns several, borrowing extras when testing the entire squad.
These masks are common in sports like swimming, cycling, and athletics, but rare in football. A few clubs, such as Bayern Munich, Sao Paulo, and Tigres in Mexico, have used them.
Why is the squad using them?
The masks allow Pintus and his team to track maximum aerobic capacity during demanding drills. Players run back and forth across the pitch in a test similar to the “beep test,” with the pace increasing until exhaustion.
While most clubs conduct such tests in labs or on treadmills, Pintus prefers doing them on the grass to replicate match conditions.
He has used this method since the 1990s, including during his time at Monaco. At Madrid, under coaches like Zidane and Ancelotti, the squad has typically gone through these sessions twice a season, once in pre-season and again mid-campaign. The results help tailor training programs to individual needs.
Not everyone is convinced. Some coaches, including Xabi Alonso’s staff during his brief spell in charge, felt the masks had limited value for a team playing twice a week.
The coach preferred ball-based drills that mimic match movements such as acceleration and changes of direction. Other experts also argue that there is little scientific evidence that masks provide a clear advantage.
Still, Pintus believes in them, and his influence at Madrid remains strong.
Club president Florentino Perez is a staunch supporter of Pintus. When Alonso brought in his own fitness coach last year, Pintus was kept on in a symbolic role. But after a string of injuries early this season, Perez pushed for him to take charge again.
Alonso was dismissed in January, and in the first session under new coach Alvaro Arbeloa, Pintus returned as head of physical preparation.
Perez sees Pintus as a key figure in Madrid’s success, even calling him “the secret to winning the Champions League.” Real Madrid TV now often refers to the team as “Arbeloa and Pintus’ Madrid.”
How the players react
The sessions are notoriously tough. Jude Bellingham once joked that Pintus was “a devil” because of how demanding the drills are. Goalkeepers are spared the mask tests, working separately with their coach. Outfield players, however, endure the full program.
Trent Alexander-Arnold, recovering from injury, posted laughing and lung emojis after one of the sessions, showing the mix of humor and exhaustion players feel.
Pintus, now 63, grew up near Turin and built a career in fitness coaching from a young age.
He worked with Juventus in the 1990s, then followed stars like Vialli, Deschamps, and Zidane to clubs across Europe. He first joined Madrid in 2016 under Zidane, left briefly for Inter, and returned in 2021 at Perez’s request.
Beyond football, Pintus holds multiple sport science degrees and has even collaborated with NASA, sharing his methods with researchers working on the Artemis program to return humans to the moon.