Did you pick up a favorite dish or a favorite cuisine at any point?
Man, I’d say when we went down to El Salvador. Our chef came with us, but they had the local chef making us everything. They brought out the pupusas; those were unbelievable. I don’t think anybody touched anything else that was up there that afternoon for lunch. Guys were going up and grabbing them by the handfuls. They were that good.
You’re 37 years old and still playing soccer at a high level. Do you think there’s any specific thing you’re doing in the weight room or on the training ground that’s allowed you to sustain this form?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is, your habits start young. If you think you’re going to get to 32, 33, 34 and start to try to create new habits, it’s probably already too late. This goes back to St. Louis—making sure that you’re in the gym, you’re doing the different strength programs. It evolves over the course of many, many years.
I had a back injury a few years ago. Basically from that point forward, they said I couldn’t load anything weight-wise on my back, so I’ve had to change to just using dumbbells. Then about five years ago, I started doing Pilates. I realized that doing Pilates, you’re getting the same kind of strength exercises and you can hit the same muscle groups. But a lot of times, the injuries that happen come from a weak core, or weak muscle groups. Pilates actually was strengthening me—hamstrings, quads, glutes. Whenever they were stretched to the max, but I was strengthening them while they were stretched out, I found that I got fewer small injuries. The small injuries end up adding up and causing a big injury, so Pilates has been a big one for me that I’ve added over the years.
[I’m] also maintaining the normal strength training in the gym, but supplementing that with Pilates, and maybe dialing back the actual strength in the gym. Doing one or two sets of something instead of three, and then supplementing the Pilates the day after, that’s been a game changer for me over the past four or five years. Honestly, it blows my mind. For me, it’s about better breathing and better cues on when I’m tensing up and doing something wrong. But I still can’t quite wrap my head around how hard it truly is. I can run for an hour and not be sweating this much, and you put me on the reformer and I am covered.
When the offseason hits and you have some time to let loose, do you have a favorite junk food that you always reach for?
Ooh, I’ll tell you what. I’m a sucker for good chicken wings. You couldn’t really get those in England. Those are tough to find. I know that’s not super unhealthy, but compared to everything else I eat, yeah. But in the offseason when you get older, you can’t really take too much time off. It’s a week, and then I’m back on the train, making sure that I’m coming back as close to in-shape as I possibly can.
Have you ever sought out advice from other players that played deep into their thirties?
Never. Maybe I should, but I’ve kind of figured out that my body is my body. It runs on what it runs on. Somebody else who’s 37, 38, they’re different. Their physiological build is going to be different to mine, so I may as well figure out what works for me and just run with it instead of trying to ask somebody else what works for them. It may completely throw me off.
In Real-Life Diet, athletes, celebrities, and other high performers talk about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.
