CULTURE

Bella Hadid Shares a Rather Intense Recovery Routine

Bella Hadid in London.
Photo by Neil Mockford/GC Images

Was one of Bella Hadid’s New Year’s resolutions to use TikTok more? Because over the past few weeks, the supermodel has been updating near daily peeks into her life on her previously only-occasionally used account, @BabyBella777. While she occasionally takes part in sharing a meme here and there, she’s been mostly using her account this month to, essentially, lifecast: cooking in the kitchen, 15-second clips of her walking late at night, little bits of girls’ nights out. But one recent example caught our eyes: a seemingly light fitness routine but a pretty extreme—and fascinating—recovery routine.

In between having some fun and shooting something with Michael Kors in Miami and then jetting off to London for another job, Hadid used a day off to get in self-care time with some state-of-the-art recovering techniques.

The journey begins simply enough: the model did a light elliptical machine workout. In fact, she’s wearing track pants she’d show up wearing the next day when she arrived in London (though styled differently).

Afterwards, it was time for a sip of green tea, and a sit in the sauna. Which, sure! I have a Crunch membership. I’ve done that too. (Please note: Hadid seems to be wearing bluetooth airbuds in the sauna, which makes us wonder if the wired headphone resurgence trend is already over or was really ever a trend to begin with. But let’s return to our main interest, here: health).

via @BabyBella777

Then it was time for an IV infusion, which, for close Bella-watchers isn’t a particularly new development. Hadid has been sharing updates on her regular use of infusion on Instagram for a while. When a commenter pointed out that such treatments aren’t necessarily affordable, Hadid jumped into the comments to give us insight into what’s actually in the IV bag.

“I can make a video with vitamins&IVS that are affordable&easy!!” she wrote. “[E]verything in this IV bag you can get from CVS and take orally!”

Okay, noted. Of course, we should also add that you should check in with your healthcare provider before starting an extensive new vitamin regime. In any event, we’ll skip the photo of the actual injection in respect for the needle-adverse.

It was what happened next that really caught our eyes. Suddenly our fashion queen was hooked up to enough apparatuses and masks to make her look like Darth Vader immediately after his duel with Obi-Wan.

via BabyBella_777

What, exactly, is going on here?

Well, her legs are strapped into a pair of NormaTec recovery boots. While they look like something Balenciaga’s Demna might cook up in his atelier, they’re actually meant to massage your legs and promote recovery through the use of dynamic air compression. The medical literature on their effectiveness is mixed, but plenty of high-performance athletes (and Lady Gaga) swear by them. While personal pairs can be a bit pricey (they start just shy of $1000), they are available to use at many gyms these days.

As for the breathing mask, we can’t be 100 percent sure. Although oxygen therapy is also used by many athletes for recovery.

After her more mechanical therapies, Hadid then indulges in some green juice, a detox shot, a bit of hummus, and a wrap filled with dark leafy greens.

It doesn’t appear that this is Hadid’s everyday routine, and she was likely just indulging in some extra recovery during her time off—which means you shouldn’t feel the need to incorporate all of this into your own routine to be supermodel fit. In fact, the two components that are undoubtedly the healthiest are also the least eye-catching: doing some regular cardio and eating dark leafy greens.