https://www.si.com/nfl/2014/12/10/tom-brady-new-england-patriots-age-fitness
'If every player is competitive, and most quarterbacks are meticulous, here's what makes Brady different: that approach, where traditional Chinese philosophy and advanced sports medicine meet a quarterback willing to try anything in order to play forever. The avocado ice cream approach to football, basically.
Take that diet. It's seasonal, which means he eats certain things in the winter that are considered "hot property" foods, like red meat. In the summer, when it's time for "cold property" foods, his diet is mostly raw. He subscribes to the 80-20 theory -- but it's not 80 percent healthy food, 20 percent unhealthy. It's 80 percent alkaline, 20 percent acidic. The idea, he says, is "to maintain balance and harmony through my metabolic system." That's why teammates always see him with hummus, raw snack bars packed with nutrients and what one teammate calls "that birdseed s---." This is the same guy who once ate Christmas breakfast with the Evans family and quietly picked all the sausage out from his omelet.
Take his sleep patterns. Brady struggles to unwind after games and practices. He's still processing, thinking about what's next. So they added cognitive exercises at night to destimulate his brain, allowing him to get to sleep by 9 p.m. and wake up without an alarm.
Take his workouts. Brady does them on land, in sand, in water. He hardly ever lifts weights but works mainly with resistance bands.
Then there's the brain resiliency program. Brady underwent a battery of tests and a neuroscan a few years back, then had a program created to work out his brain the way he worked out his body. The various exercises help Brady to more quickly process information between plays, read defenses and make adjustments. They assist with his memory. They increase his peripheral vision and how far he can see downfield. "The body is a whole system," says Brady, "and that includes the brain. I'm lucky I haven't had many concussions -- maybe one I can remember. I'm training for if that happens. I'm building resiliency and staying sharp. I feel like that's really where my edge is."
"If we can keep his processing speed this high," says Guerrero, "then I don't care if he's 48."
The by-product of all this: Brady is faster and stronger than on the day he was drafted. He doesn't care if you believe that. "I am," he says. "I'm more durable, too. But given where I started, I wouldn't say that like it's some great accomplishment."...
'He still wants to play forever, but he's come to realize that what has enabled him to play at such a high level for so long is what he wants to do after football too. That's why he opened his sports rehab center just over a year ago, why he recruited so many teammates to come by. (About half of them have, which perhaps has contributed to New England's improved roster health this season.) He still remembers the doctor who told him his knee would never be the same after the ACL tear, that he wouldn't be able to run around with his kids. "Which was all bulls---," he says. "That knee feels as good as my other knee."
He won't need a résumé for his next endeavor, only his body of work and his actual body, how it has held up over time. "I used to joke with Alex," says Brady, "one day, we have to go on the road. We have to teach people. This is what people really need to know."'
http://uk.businessinsider.com/tom-brady-sleep-plan-2014-12?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=referral&r=US&IR=T
Tom Brady Does Brain Exercises So He Can Go To Sleep At 9 PM And Wake Up Without An Alarm
There's a big article on Tom Brady's dedication to diet and fitness by Greg Bishop in the new Sports Illustrated.
The main takeaway from the article: Brady plans every detail of his life so he can play football as long as possible, and he'll do anything he can to get an edge.
He diets all year round, takes scheduled naps in the offseason, never misses a workout, eats what his teammates call "birdseed," and does cognitive exercises to keep his brain sharp.
He also goes to bed extremely early. Like, 9 p.m.
From SI:
"Take his sleep patterns. Brady struggles to unwind after games and practices. He's still processing, thinking about what's next. So they added cognitive exercises at night to destimulate his brain, allowing him to get to sleep by 9 p.m. and wake up without an alarm."
Brady told Bishop about the brain exercises, "The body is a whole system and that includes the brain. I'm lucky I haven't had many concussions — maybe one I can remember. I'm training for if that happens. I'm building resiliency and staying sharp. I feel like that's really where my edge is."
All of the research suggests that sleep is incredibly important to athletes. A 2011 Stanford study found that basketball players shot 9% better from the free throw line and ran significantly faster when they got a full-night's sleep.
Brady is whatever the polar opposite of nocturnal is. In the story, ex-teammate Rodney Harrison tells an anecdote about showing up to the gym at 6 a.m. and having Brady tell him, "Good afternoon."
In an interview with WEEI last month, Brady explained why he goes to sleep so early:
I do go to bed very early because I'm up very early. I think that the decisions that I make always center around performance enhancement, if that makes sense. So whether that's what I eat or what decisions I make or whether I drink or don't drink, it's always football-centric. I want to be the best I can be every day. I want to be the best I can be every week. I want to be the best I can be for my teammates. I love the game and I want to do it for a long time. But I also know that if I want to do it for a long time, I have to do things differently than the way guys have always done it.
He's doing everything he can to prolong his career, and it's helping him thrive at an age when players typically decline.
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