4 Habits Tom Brady Teaches You About Playing at the Top of Your Game at 43
There is more to his natural ability to play at this level
Tom Brady is about to play in his 10 Super Bowl at the age of 43 and he is still at the top of his game. Brady entered his 21st season this year and most quarterbacks normally don’t play that long. The average time a premier quarterback plays in the NFL is about 12 years.
Brady was not a high draft pick as many teams passed him over when he entered the NFL draft. The New England Patriots selected him in the 6th round and the 199th pick of the draft. Six quarterbacks were selected before Brady. None of the other quarterbacks are currently playing in the NFL or had a career as great as Brady.
Among quarterbacks, Brady is considered the GOAT (Greatest of all time). He led his former team, the New England Patriots to 17 division titles and 13 AFC championship games.
You are what you eat
Brady tends to eat the same food over and over again. In the summer, he wakes up at 5:30 am. His pre-workout meal does not change and is a berry and banana smoothie; avocado and eggs for breakfast; for lunch it’s a salad with nuts and fish; roasted vegetables and chicken for dinner. For snacks, Brady eats guacamole, hummus, and nuts.
In his gym and refrigerator, Brady has fruits such as apples, bananas, blueberries, and grapes. For vegetables, he likes cucumber, kale, and spinach.
Brady goes off his diet whenever he feels like it. He doesn’t believe in restricting himself.
“You should never restrict what you really want. We’re humans, here for one life.”
For cheat meals, Brady likes chocolate, specifically Unreal Candy. He believes if he goes off his meal plan, he believes in eating the best and not the worst type of food.
His favorite liquids for his body
Brady drinks 12 to 25 glasses of water a day. He trains harder than the average person so that is the reason for 25 glasses of water. Additionally, Brady drinks water infused with electrolytes.
Fitness habits lead to success in life
Tom Brady trains in the Bahamas in the summer for a beach boot camp where he trains in the off-season for four to five days a week. Over two to three hours a day, Brady strengthens his arm, pack on more muscle to sustain hits, and sharpen his footwork to avoid pass rushers.
After a few years in the NFL, Brady had to change his workout regime. He was starting to receive severe tendinitis because he lifted heavy and threw so much.
His trainer, Alex Guerrero, had Brady focus on speed, agility, and core stability. Brady’s daily sessions begin with a 4-minute deep tissue treatment of 20 muscle groups for about 20 seconds each.
On most days, Brady works on a 40-minute workout using high resistance banded movement drills with squats, push-ups, and push presses. He works on additional exercises of squats, lunges, and planking in different directions against the tension of the band.
After Brady’s workout, Guerrero gives Brady another type of massage to flush the lactic acid and to speed up Brady’s muscle recovery.
Football is not only physical, it also requires mental abilities
Brady uses TB12 BrainHQ drilling his brain speed and pattern recognition. This training along with his film study and pattern recognition, plus 20 years of experience, allows him to see the defense. Brady says there isn’t much that he does not know since he has seen the defensive patterns before by the way they are lined up.
Brady doesn’t expect you to follow everything he does. Just because Tom Brady does this or eats that, it does not mean you need to do the same.
He believes if you want to be good at sports, then you have to work hard at it. If you want to be healthy, you have to eat healthy and not have a refrigerator full of junk food.
We’ll see if Brady wins the next big prize this Sunday for the 55th Super Bowl.
References
12 things we learned from the ‘Men’s Health’ Tom Brady profile
NFL star Tom Brady’s exercise and diet routine for optimal performance
WHERE ARE THEY NOW? The 6 quarterbacks taken before Tom Brady in the 2000 NFL Draft
