Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal manager credited with ending the club's 22-year wait for a Premier League title, had his entire genome sequenced through a partnership with Bupa, the global healthcare company. According to Melvin Samsom, Bupa's group chief medical officer, the kind of service Arteta used is designed to help people "understand how genetics and lifestyle may shape health."
The testing turned up two concrete findings: an increased likelihood of coeliac disease, and a level of lactose intolerance. Arteta has since adjusted his diet and sleep routines, and says his own children have started calling out his eating habits, with "Daddy! Too much cheese!" now a running line in his house. He reports feeling healthier since making the changes.
For Arteta, the testing isn't really about personal wellness in isolation, it's tied directly to how he thinks about leading a team. "The foundation is your health," he said. "I think without that, there is nothing underneath. Your energy, your well-being, your capacity to basically connect with people emotionally." It's an extension of a management idea he has leaned on since taking over the club: the aggregation of marginal gains, the theory that a collection of small, individually unremarkable improvements can compound into something much bigger over time.
That philosophy has had real results to point to. Arsenal's Premier League title under Arteta, its first in 22 years, is one he has attributed less to tactics than to values: "perseverance, to be resilient, to be composed in moments when people are doubting."
Arteta has also built a reputation for deliberately disrupting his players' routines, on the theory that unpredictability in training prepares a team for the unpredictability of actual matches. "We live in an environment that is extremely unpredictable," he said, "and actually enjoying that unpredictability, it's a joy."