I’m already pretty deep into my offseason training, and I’m really getting after it. I have a new trainer, because my old trainer has moved on to a dream job of his, so he helped me find a replacement. His name is Ro Sharma, and he has been great. Ro and I have hit the ground running, and the training has been intense.

My goal is to be a ball of muscle and my training this offseason has helped.

For me personally, I want to be a ball of muscle. I want to be very lean, and I think it well help with some of these soft tissue injuries that I’ve had, and overall, as I age in the game of football. My recovery won’t be as long. I won’t have to deal with inflammation as long. During the long battle of the season, if I program my body to work at a high caliber, it will be able to recover in a timely matter and perform at a high level.

My training so far has been all about stability and overall strength in the body.  Going into the summer months, we’ll work on explosion, but right now, it’s a core thing. We’re working on the wheel base, making sure everything is level, everything is right, so that when we start piling on and getting into the design, and the way things are looking and working, we have a strong foundation.

In the gym, the muscle memory is really incredible, and the guys that have trained me understand that my body adapts really fast, so it’s really challenging to manipulate things and get the body to react in a certain way without cheating yourself. So to have a new trainer who doesn’t really know me and I don’t yet know the intricacies of his methods of training, it’s been very challenging. I think that’s why I feel so good about these last six weeks.

GOING GLUTEN FREE

I’m naturally a bread eater. I love bread and that is kind of hard to deal with as well as the pastas. It makes it really hard. Even though you needs carbs, there are certain carbs that I probably eat more than I should and we always tend to use the excuse for carbs, giving you energy, but to be as lean and ripped as I plan on being, I have to let those certain things go and find my carbs in a natural, clean way.

I’ve taken on a gluten free diet. Gluten is found in things such as wheat, barley and rye.

Cooked a healthy Mother's Day meal for my mom.

The hardest part about it is I’ve been finding that even things I usually have that are healthy, I can’t have. So I have to continue to educate myself on it. I’m constantly Google-ing things, constantly searching things out to see what I can and can’t have. This diet contains more vegetables, one of the goals is to have more colors on your plate and I’m really seeing that now more than ever.

But I think people get tricked by thinking that if they don’t eat big portions or a lot of portions, they’ll lose weight, but that goes back to food sensitivities and what your body reacts to and tends to hold on to. So the more frequent meals you have, the more leaner meats and proteins and fruits and vegetables you have, the easier your body as a machine burns those things off to help you get to your desired health and where you want to go.

I’m making myself feel better overall now, and hopefully, that translates to me having a longer, healthier life as well.