No matter what form of football you play, you know one thing for certain — it gets damn hot out there on the field, especially on the artificial stuff. If you don’t suck down the Gatorade at every opportunity, you might find yourself doubled over with leg cramps, and let me tell you, for a non-serious injury, a bad leg cramp can make even the toughest of footballers whimper like Dick Vermeil.

The fine folks at Stanford University’s biology department hate leg cramps, and after spending years researching the hibernation habits of squirrels and marmots (what?), they have developed the ultimate footballer’s body hack. It’s called RTX (for “Rapid Thermal Exchange”), or simply put, “The Glove.”

Wired.com writer Noah Schactman took The Glove for a test drive a few weeks ago:

The lab is climate-controlled to 104 degrees Fahrenheit and 66 percent humidity. Sitting inside the cramped room, even for a few minutes, is an unpleasantly moist experience. I’ve spent the last 40 minutes on a treadmill angled at a 9 percent grade. My face is chili-red, my shirt soaked with sweat. My breath is coming in short, unsatisfactory gasps. The sushi and sake I had last night are in full revolt. The tiny speakers on the shelf blasting “Living on a Prayer” are definitely not helping.

Then Dennis Grahn, a lumpy Stanford University biologist and former minor-league hockey player, walks into the room. He nods in my direction and smiles at a technician. “Looks like he’s ready,” Grahn says.

Grahn takes my hand and slips it into a clear, coffeepot-looking contraption he calls the Glove. Inside is a hemisphere of metal, cool to the touch. He tightens a seal around my wrist; a vacuum begins pulling blood to the surface of my hand, and the cold metal chills my blood before it travels through my veins back to my core. After five minutes, I feel rejuvenated. Never mind the hangover. Never mind Bon Jovi. I keep going for another half hour.

Yes, The Glove literally uses the veins in your hand to cool the blood in your body, thus preventing overheating and those dreaded leg cramps. Schactman also tested out The Glove’s heating capabilities, and he claims to have been able to sit in a tub of shaved ice for a very long time without becoming hypothermic.

And you thought those hand warmers on Brett Favre’s waist every December were just for show. Everyone who played in the Ice Bowl would like to send a box full of Gloves back in time right now.

The Glove was designed for military use, but right now, some of it’s biggest proponents are football clubs. The San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders both use The Glove, as does Manchester United. According to this article, at least one NFL player things The Glove may be a suitable replacement for something not quite as legal…

Ever seeking a competitive edge, athletes began paying regular visits to the fourth floor of Gilbert (Biological Sciences Building), causing one of the staff to remark that the hallways had gotten smaller. A former NFL player told (senior research scientist Dennis) Grahn, “This replaces the Juice,” referring to steroids. Weirdly, cooling does mimic steroids in the way it allows an athlete to recover from intense exertion quickly, allowing someone to do more work in a shorter period of time. But cooling doesn’t result in shriveled gonads or ’roid rage.

Perhaps this is part of the reason The Glove is popular with Man U. Given that club’s crazy schedule this year — they’re playing Premiership matches, FA Cup matches and Champions League matches at an alarming clip — they need their best players to recover as quickly as possible, and any device that lets them do that is practically a necessity.

The Glove may have been created for military use, but if it hasn’t become a must-have training tool for every NFL team and at least half the clubs in the Premiership by the end of the decade, it won’t be because of lack of effectiveness. We may even see teams using this on the field to help players’ legs gets uncramped a lot more quickly, which will no doubt prompt Tony Kornheiser to ask, “What’s that thing on his hand, Jaws?”