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Some of the best sleep Zay Flowers ever got was in a corner of the Ravens’ massive training room. There, tucked away next to a massage table, is a wellness device that looks like a modern art installation and costs as much as an Escalade.

The Ravens’ Ammortal Chamber, billed as “a next-generation bio-optimization and recovery experience,” arrived in Owings Mills early this fall. As Flowers reclined for the first time on the thunderbolt-shaped platform, the curved lid of the device hovering a few feet overhead, the wide receiver didn’t know what to expect.

Relaxation? Sure, maybe. But a Zen-like sleep experience? In just 25 minutes? “It takes you to a place of meditation where, honestly, my first time doing it, I couldn’t even control how deep of a meditation I got in,” said Flowers, his eyes wide, as if recalling some otherworldly trip. “It got so deep where it felt like you’re awake doing it. It’s crazy.”

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This has been a long, hard season for the Ravens (7-7). Once a Super Bowl favorite, they will enter Sunday night’s game against the New England Patriots with only about 31% odds of making the playoffs, according to The New York Times’ postseason simulator. Every game has been a battle, every week of practice a grind. Time off is precious; the Ravens’ bye week came in mid-October.

With only three games remaining in the regular season, every advantage must be seized — in strategy, in personnel, in recovery. Around the Ravens’ locker room, the Ammortal Chamber reflects owner Steve Bisciotti’s commitment to upgrading the team’s player treatment. Over the past two years, the Ravens’ training room received a C-plus and B-minus on their NFL Players Association report cards, ranked in the bottom half of the league by players.

The team overhauled its training facilities last offseason with a multimillion-dollar renovation, adding an underwater treadmill, plunge pools and infrared saunas, among other features. But when right tackle Roger Rosengarten met with Bisciotti in the preseason, he remembered Bisciotti talking excitedly about a new technology yet to arrive: the Ammortal Chamber.

Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford helped popularize the chamber this summer, skipping practices to use one set up in a mobile trailer at the Rams’ training camp as he recovered from an aggravated disk in his back. But the chamber is not believed to be a staple at team facilities across the NFL.

Ravens officials said during a tour of the team’s renovated facility this summer that they were one of the league’s only franchises to own one. (A spokesperson for Ammortal, which has touted a partnership with the Denver Broncos, declined to say how many NFL clients it has.)

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Sticker shock could be one factor. The listed price for an Ammortal Chamber, which retails commercially, is $159,500. (Financing options, according to the company, are available.)

“I think it’s a credit to Bisciotti and everyone here getting that here,” fullback Patrick Ricard said. “I mean, they’ve done the whole training room over, all of our tubs and all of that stuff — and on top of that, this very expensive piece of equipment. I’m just grateful for it, so I want to make sure that it’s being used, because they spent a lot of money on it, and I wish I could have it in my house.”

Ravens fullback Patrick Ricard said the Ammortal Chamber helped him accelerate his recovery from a calf injury. (Ulysses Muñoz/The Banner)

Ricard is among the team’s biggest evangelists for the chamber. He hurt his calf late in training camp, then aggravated the injury a few weeks later, sidelining him for the Ravens’ first six games. Ricard credited the chamber with accelerating his recovery.

“I think the biggest thing is, it relaxes your body,” he said. “It puts your body in a state where, ‘OK, now it’s time to recover.’ It’s almost like putting that switch on.”

The experience can be transporting. At Apparati, a wellness studio in Tysons, Virginia, I headed to a private room, stripped down to a pair of shorts so as to expose more skin to the chamber’s red-light therapy, slipped on protective goggles and a nasal cannula that would deliver molecular hydrogen, and chose the “Recover” modality. Other “journey” options included “Relax,” “Release” and “Expand.”

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The upper and lower panels glowed red — imagine Kramer’s Kenny Rogers Roasters-tinted apartment in “Seinfeld” — and the lid slowly lowered into place. An ambient soundscape played as a woman’s soothing voice guided me through the 15-minute session. (Longer sessions can last 25 or 50 minutes.)

“Release any tension in your face, your neck, your chest and the rest of your body, letting your arms and legs settle comfortably into place,” the voice said. “You will now set an intention for the outcome of today’s session. This intention will guide how your body and mind interact with this experience. So set an intention that matters and embrace it as truth.”

The chamber uses red-light therapy to stimulate cellular function and help increase energy and circulation, accelerating athletic recovery.
The chamber uses red-light therapy to stimulate cellular function and help increase energy and circulation, accelerating athletic recovery. (Ammortal)

The pod combines five integrated inputs with clinically proven physiological benefits. Pulsed magnetic fields in the chamber help restore cells and enhance the body’s ability to repair itself. Low-frequency vibrations promote relaxation and well-being. Red-light therapy stimulates cellular function and helps increase energy and circulation, accelerating athletic recovery. Molecular hydrogen has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory qualities. And the guided breath work and meditation calm the central nervous system.

Players said half-hour sessions can feel as restorative as a restful nap. Several can’t help but fall asleep on the chaise lounge-shaped platform.

“Kind of a quick, little reset for your body,” wide receiver Tylan Wallace said. “After I get done, I wake up, I just feel better mentally, physically — just everything.”

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“It’s a nice way to just relax,” added rookie inside linebacker Teddye Buchanan, a power user who gets about four sessions a week. “Yeah, it helps you physically, but also mentally. You can get to lay there for 25 minutes, get off your phone for a second and just kind of decompress. And I think that also helps along with the physical side of it.”

Rosengarten compared the experience to a yoga session. Flowers said he’d never entered a Zen-like state until his first session in the chamber. Ricard said his legs, normally restless, are rendered tranquil under the heat of the red lights and the pulsing electromagnetic fields.

“It puts you in a trance, almost, with the vibrations and the music and the chimes and different sounds — waves, almost,” he said.

The chamber is not for everyone, nor is it a substitute for other rehab. Defensive lineman John Jenkins said he relies largely on contrast baths, massage therapy and acupuncture to reduce pain and improve joint mobility during the season. A recent first-time session in the chamber, he said, was “cool,” but he called the benefits inconclusive.

I was left wanting, too. As a stress test, I’d jogged about 5 miles the night before, almost double my usual workout. My hamstrings and calves were sore. I expected immediate relief inside the chamber, the tenderness dissolving like morning dew. Instead, it lingered for a few days. So did my usual worries and stressors; there was no moment of Zen in my allotted 15 minutes.

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“I think it’s one of those machines that you’ve got to be consistently doing it, every week, to understand the benefits,” Jenkins said. “It’s no different than, like, utilizing a hyperbaric chamber or getting a weekly massage.”

The Ammortal Chamber’s popularity in Owings Mills is growing, but mainly around the locker room. Coach John Harbaugh, who works out regularly at the facility, was unaware of its existence until a reporter asked him after practice Wednesday.

“What is it?” Harbaugh asked. He looked at a nearby team official, who offered a brief explanation. Harbaugh chuckled in surprise.

“I need to find that,” he said. Then he asked where it was.