NFL Training Camps: Modern hydration and nutrition

This from Liz Clarke’s Redskins training camp story that appeared last week in the Washington Post – her reporting on how 34-year old safety Ryan Clark makes it through camp:

"“Ryan Clark’s one essential is the blue cooler he brings to practice each morning and sets on the sideline, never far from view, so he can trot over at scheduled intervals, for a sip from one of four bottles inside.  He drinks Amino Matrix, rich in essential acids that boost energy and hasten recovery, through the two-hour workouts.  Another bottle contains Red 54, packed with antioxidants from beets, carrots, cabbage, blueberries, pomegranate and other superfoods. There’s potassium-rich coconut water for the halftime break and an extra bottle for any teammate who wants one.  And he drinks a protein potion afterward.”"

Amino Matrix?  Red 54?  He’s a football player for crying out loud, not an astronaut!

Ryan Clark can thank his lucky stars he’s in the NFL in 2014, not 1974.  Hard as it is to believe, there was a time when coaches thought water breaks made you soft.  And it wasn’t just the Vince Lombardi types who felt that way.  Up until the 1980’s, if water breaks were given at all during practice, they were limited.  What we’ve learned about hydration is a 180 degree shift from the old way of thinking.  Now trainers tell you to drink as often as you can.  If you feel thirsty, you’re probably already dehydrated.

The legendary Bear Bryant would have gotten a chuckle out of that notion when he famously took his first Texas A&M team to Junction, Texas, 60 years ago to toughen them up.  When Bryant took over at A&M prior to the 1954 season, he realized the team he’d inherited from Ray George was soft.  His plan was to go way out in the hill country for a training camp to weed out the quitters.  And there were plenty of those.  Two busloads of players left campus, only one returned.

The Bear took along a trainer, though he was more of a drinking buddy than anything else.  Smokey Harper was his name.  His theory was, you don’t throw cold water on a hot car engine, therefore you shouldn’t give water to a hot boy.  No water breaks whatsoever in the intense Texas heat.  It was a wonder nobody died.  Bryant learned his lesson.  That depleted and worn out Aggie team won only one game that season.

The protein potion that Ryan Clark drinks represents a shift in thinking on nutrition.  In the old days you got protein from steak or eggs, or both together.  Washing it all down with beer wasn’t a bad way to go.  Hall of Fame tackle Artie Donovan, who died last year at the ripe old age of 88, said the only vegetable that ever crossed his lips was a french fry.  In his autobiography, “FATSO. Football When Men Were Really Men”, Donovan described how he would get himself in shape for training camp with the Baltimore Colts in the 1950’s.  He gave up beer and baloney for Lent.  That did the trick.

Once training camp started, eating right went by the wayside as the players sweated through two-a-day practices. Donovan recalled a fried chicken eating contest between defensive linemen Gino Marchetti and Don Joyce. Marchetti, who would later open a chain of fast food restaurants that served fried chicken, gave up at 26 pieces. Joyce kept right on going, downing 38 pieces!  And as Donovan remembered ate all the peas and mashed potatoes on the table as well.  After all that food, he grabbed a pitcher of ice tea to wash it all down.  But just before drinking, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a small tin and dropped two pieces of artificial sweetener in the pitcher.  “I’m watching my diet,” Joyce said.

The stories get better, and maybe more exaggerated, as the years go by.  However, one thing is certain.  The NFL in 2014 is a lot more about Amino Matrix and Red 54 than beer and baloney.