SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Safety Adon Shuler half-joked that he needed a map to get around Shields Hall, Notre Dame’s new football building that opened last week in concert with training camp. The sprawling structure spans a campus block, cost north of $100 million and contains an all-sport cafeteria, glitzy football locker room, full barbershop, multiple auditoriums and virtually everything a head coach could want.The soaring lobby, copious branding and underlit ceilings made for the kind of social media video that goes viral the moment it’s posted. Not to say those vibes don’t matter to the roster already on campus and the ones to follow.When Notre Dame dedicated the space last week, President Rev. Bob Dowd blessed the building with holy water while the donors who funded it watched. The space is very Notre Dame, and at the same time it’s hard to believe it’s Notre Dame.“It’s unbelievable,” said head coach Marcus Freeman. “It serves our players in a way they’ve never been served before and they deserve it. They have the best of the best. Everything.”What college rivalry should come back?Joe Rexrode, Eric Single and moreShields Hall is a show of intent. It’s a commercial for the football program. But most importantly, it should be a brick-and-mortar force multiplier for Freeman. The round-the-clock player access to recovery spaces and incline ramp at the back of the weight room matter more than all those bells and whistles, even if they’re harder to hear.Before, Notre Dame’s recovery spaces were shoehorned into the old training room, an awkward retrofit of new technology in old spaces. Now, the Irish have dedicated rooms for different modalities. Before, Notre Dame’s cold tub therapy consisted of galvanized tubs spread around its practice fields, filled with ice and covered with tents. Now, there’s a cold tub in-house, plus an infrared sauna, hyperbaric chamber, dry float, hydromassage beds and red light therapy beds.Notre Dame’s players wanted these recovery methods and had to leave campus to find them. They’re now steps from the training room.“The amount that’s been invested in that space is massive and it’s going to pay huge dividends for our players,” said head trainer Rob Hunt. “We’ve increased our hydrotherapy space probably two-fold, maybe three-fold.”Except for the hyperbaric chamber, the recovery tech in Shields Hall was designed to be self-service, meaning players returning from injury or with muscle soreness will get a prescription from Notre Dame’s performance team and can complete it on their own schedule. That team — Hunt, strength coach Loren Landow, nutritionist Alex Appelman, sport psychologist Joey Ramaeker and performance director John Wagle — has not changed. What it can accomplish should.Hunt said the tech in Shields Hall doesn’t replace the basics — nutrition, training, sleep — but it can help the football program win on the margins.“People ask, ‘What’s the percentage difference this makes?’ I don’t know,” Hunt said. “It’s probably going to help you maybe five to 10 percent in that space. But that’s a pretty large piece when it’s accessible and available and you can use it regularly.”This space may be more of a luxury during the opening week of training camp, before the full pads come on and the season’s grind actually picks up. But come November, and whatever follows into the postseason, these are the spaces that can help Notre Dame keep more of its team on the field through January.When the Irish made their run to the national championship game two years ago, they were holding on for dear life in the training room. The team should have a stronger grip next time.“That recovery room — so great, I love it,” said defensive back Christian Gray. “I stay in there almost half of the day for fall camp because I got everything I need. The whole team can basically go in there.”If Notre Dame’s recovery spaces doubled from Guglielmino Athletics Complex to Shields Hall, the weight room got a more modest upgrade. Landow estimated he added about 4,000 square feet of space. There are two basketball hoops at one end, although that wasn’t on the priority list for Landow, who helped design multiple weight rooms during his tenure with the Denver Broncos.What Landow wanted most was (artificial) grass, which gives him a chance to train players’ power and speed in rapid succession. There’s a strip of turf between the squat racks, not much different than the layout at the Gug. But at the back of the weight room, there’s a 27-yard ramp with a seven percent grade to help with acceleration training.“Picture it like a batter in the on-deck circle: They put a doughnut (weight) on the baseball bat to create the need for greater motor or muscle recruitment,” Landow said. “You take the doughnut off and now you’re flying.“I can use it purely as an overload on the ramp, or I can hit one repetition on the ramp and turn around and hit our flat turf in that weight room. So there’s a lot of that neurological gamesmanship that you get in that type of training.”Shields Hall’s benefits to Notre Dame won’t truly show themselves until the grind of the season begins. (USA Today Network via Reuters Connect)Most of the weight room isn’t much different from the former space, just upgraded versions of materials like force plates and velocity trackers. There are more kettle bells and medicine balls. There’s the newest DARI Motion system for analyzing players’ movement patterns. And it’s better positioned for the strength staff to use.But it’s not like Notre Dame suddenly has a silver bullet that will transform the roster.Hard work is hard work, no matter how nice the weight room is.“It’s a new space, new equipment, and it’s the opportunity for our guys to be able to be celebrated,” Landow said. “It’s just a state-of-the-art room.”As Shields Hall prepared to open its doors, Freeman got a text from another football coach telling him that he won’t fully grasp the impact of Notre Dame’s new facility until the season rolls on. Yes, it will help in recruiting as the newest, best, shiniest facility in the sport, but even that luster won’t last forever.In development, training and recovery, the impact of Shields Hall should endure much longer.“‘You don’t even realize how valuable that will be to the teaching and coaching,’” Freeman said he heard from his coaching colleague. “I know at some point I think it will get old, but every time I walk in there, I’m in awe. It’s unbelievable, in credit to the people that invested money and time to get our players that place they deserve.”