During the offseason, when you don't have the worries and the grind of the games and the wear and tear of your body, you can really attack the training element a lot harder. More load on your body, more stress - whether that be through running or in the weight room with the lifting program that you're doing at the time.
The more minutes you play and the more grind and physical play you endure through the course of a season, you have to re-charge and get your body right for the next season. Be in that weight room and conditioning and that kind of deal.
We do a lot of lifting, and mix it up with upper body and lower body. A lot of circuit training for cardio. I hate just doing long distance running, so I do 5 or 6 different exercises for 20 to 30 seconds then move to the next one.
Training is doing your homework. It's not exciting. More often than not it's tedious. There is certainly no glory in it. But you stick with it, over time, and incrementally through no specific session, your body changes. Your mind becomes calloused to effort. You stop thinking of running as difficult or interesting or magical. It just becomes what you do. It becomes a habit.
The weight room prevents you from getting injuries, keeps your body durable and, working out even during the season, it helps a lot. It keeps your body loose, it keeps strengthening your body, especially the functional stuff.
I use a lot of balance training and functional training. Basically it's where you add an element of instability to a regular exercise. So whether it's on the physioball or the Bosu ball or just balancing on one leg, I try to incorporate an instable plane and/or movement to the exercise, so the body's doing two or more movements.
'Immortals' was very much a martial arts based training program - a lot of body weight stuff, very little in the way of actually lifting heavy weights, and a very, very low calorie diet.
People don't realize the amount of stress you put on your body both physically and mentally from just the wear and tear of a season.
I think between 2014 and 2015, I made weight five times in 11 months. During that time, I felt my body change. It was able to hold on to more weight. And anybody who makes weight knows that it gets harder and harder to make weight once you've done it that many times.
All the circuit training, it's cardio circuit training, so everything you're doing, you're still running up your heart rate. You're burning, I think, triple the amount of calories than if you were just weight lifting.
If you go on a calorie-reduced diet without increasing your level of exercise, at a certain point, your body will lose a little weight and then plateau. You need to trick your body to burn more fuel than you're ingesting so you can continue to lose weight.
Vegan bodybuilding is about fueling your body with a vast array of natural, healthy foods, combined with resistance weight training and exercise, providing your body with the appropriate tools to build your physique and achieve your fitness goals.
I see the most change in my body through exercise. They say diet determines your weight, and exercise determines your shape - I find that to be a pretty true statement. When I'm doing a lot of boxing, my hamstrings are really strong and my biceps. When I'm doing a lot of Pilates, I find that my core is really lean and my inner thighs.
Professional football's a tough game. It's a lot of contact. It's a lot of wear and tear on your body. You've got elite athletes running into each other, play after play, at high speeds. And this is something that I love and I enjoy.
If you start lifting weights, you will expect to put weight on, as muscle is heavier than fat. But you have to look more at your body shape - you will get heavier - but you might get smaller and heavier at the same time, which is fine. And it doesn't really matter what you weigh as long as you are happy with your shape and size!
There is a lot of new research about how stress hormones affect your body and how you can work on giving your body as much of the good hormones as possible, because that heals your body. I am quite a rational person - so when someone could show me that there was a rational way of seeing fear in terms of stress hormones, it was easier for me to understand. I think all autoimmune diseases are very sensitive to stress. It is typical that the flares come after a period of emotional stress. The connection is quite clear.
I find the older I get, the lower in weight I go. It's harder to recover. Living in New York City, working a job that is unpredictable and at times stressful, you're lifting way more than your max because you need to push some weight around. You put an extra plate on for the release, and then you're sore the next week. Its stress release.