The champion slept well for 1 month as he savored the big victory, the biggest he's had so far. Then, in late March, he went back to work. Training. Conditioning. Now it's early summer, a quiet Wednesday morning on a high school football field in San Diego. Six NFL quarterbacks are here to run the drills, pound the timing routes, and engage in endless, endless competition with one another.
One of these guys won the Super Bowl last year. All of them want to win it this year. That's why the offseason trainer of these men has recruited a bunch of college and high school wideouts, live targets for the quarterbacks' sweaty arms.
"The ball's gonna be there, the ball's gonna be there!" Drew Brees screams, and the ball's in some poor kid's face faster than acne, and then dropped.
A loss, which pisses Brees off.
Later, the New Orleans Saints' leader is competing against his training partners—usually other pros like Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees's former San Diego Chargers teammate LaDainian Tomlinson, now with the New York Jets—in postworkout handball games and reflex drills. For one of the drills, their trainer, Todd Durkin, tosses playing cards in the air. How many can they catch? Drew Brees grabs eight in a row. The ninth drops, and Brees's deepgrowl f-bomb drops after it, his fists balled, his body stiff.
Small victories have no shelf life. They are little waves that lap against some part of his brain for a split second and are gone. He catches 17 out of 20 playing cards and he's not happy about it, because "undefeated" is the only worthy outcome. There's no mysticism to this. Victory is not everything, nor is it the only thing. It's not slippery or elusive. Victory is ever present, in our minds day in and day out, no matter what the job at hand. We grab it, or we don't. And many of us, most of the time, simply refuse to reach for it. Brees does not understand how anyone could make that choice. Because if you want to know what victory is, taste it a bit more often, you must understand it as he understands it.
The smell of victory is not, as Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore suggested, napalm in the morning. You know what victory smells like? The rubber floor of a gym. It smells like the cover of a 16-pound med ball in dirty hands as a warm breeze blows through eucalyptus branches behind a San Diego strip mall. And victory sounds like that ball being hurled against a cinder-block wall, again, again, and again. Victory looks like fried colors on the edges of your vision on the last rep. Victory tastes like your own fillings, like acid in your saliva with a touch of underlying bile held down by sheer will.
This isn't a Nike commercial. It's real life, and Drew Brees is going to war again. For 7 years now he has worked with Durkin, who adheres to this philosophy: Physical conditioning is the foundation of any and all successes, no matter where you are or what you do. (See "Train Like a Champion," this month's workout poster.) Victories, large and small, will not come in a constant stream if your body is unprepared, because by default, the mind is useless if the body is not ready.
"Winning means having that mental edge on everybody," says Brees. "The more you push yourself physically here, here, and here"—and on this, Brees points to his heart and his gut, and then sweeps his finger over his body—"a hard mental toughness develops here." (That's your head.) "Because you have to push past your perceived limits. Push past that point you thought was as far as you could go. Once you push past that, you remake your confidence. I push past that and I know I've put myself in the best position to succeed. There is no person who will be in better shape than me, or more prepared. Physically, spiritually, psychologically—man, I'm ready."
How ready? Ready to throw it all away, to act like the best never happened. "You still have to have a chip on your shoulder," says the 6-foot quarterback who is accustomed to being underestimated. "The way people perceive me now is different from the way they did 5 years ago. Five years ago I wasn't big enough, strong enough, couldn't win the big one. Whatever. Now, coming off a Super Bowl championship, showing them I can play at a high level, I have to keep that chip on my shoulder like I still have something to prove. I have a lot to prove. I look at every day as, 'I have to be better today.' If I'm not getting better, I'm getting worse. You don't stay the same. So I improve every day, continue to make the sacrifices I've made to reach this level, and it's all about, 'How can I win another championship?'"
An hour earlier, this man was lying on an inclined sliding bench, belly down, with his head facing the floor, doing single-arm gravity presses. His excruciating rep count was not a voice, but a gut-deep moan: sehhhhhvin...aaaaaate...niiiiiiiine. On 10, he rolled off the bench, stood, and gave himself a subtle fist pump. A small victory. On to the next.
Brees's victories this year will mean more than they did last year, and just ask anyone from southern Louisiana how much those old ones meant. Remember how inspiring the championship run was to a city devastated by Katrina and the failed levees? Imagine the importance of this season now that crude oil has washed over the Gulf Coast. The champion is eager to share his victories. "We're still playing for a lot more than just football. It's not just about winning games for ourselves or for our organization. It's about winning for the city, the people, uplifting their spirits, giving them hope, especially with what's going on in the Gulf."
And now you see why he curses when he drops a playing card. Why his workout lasts nearly 3 hours and his heart rate is clocked between 160 and 190 for much of that time. The body readies the mind. So it is with champions, while many of us neglect both.
Not a quarterback? Of course you aren't. But your body sits in an office chair propping up your mind, deconditioned back muscles let your spine sag, flaccid trapezius muscles allow your shoulders to slump. Your brain tilts toward your desk, fogged, disengaged, like a melon-size hunk of snot in your skull. Useless.
Meanwhile, Brees scoops up the ends of a 2-inch-thick, 40-foot training rope, and makes like a drummer, snapping waves through the rope full tilt for 20 seconds. Without pause, he switches to slams, lifting the rope's ends above his head and whipping them down as hard as he can. Another 20 seconds. Then he switches to jumping jacks, lifting the rope's ends in his fists above his head and snapping them down. Twenty more seconds. Then he tosses the rope aside.
Another victory. What's next?
"You're always in a position where you have to eliminate distractions and negative influences in order to focus, concentrate, accomplish your goals," he says. "You just have to understand that your window of opportunity is a small one. You have to make sure you're doing everything you can within that window to accomplish what you set out to accomplish. That you've made that commitment to yourself, to the people around you. In my case, to the city, to the organization.
"There are plenty of times that you figure somebody else doesn't have the same interests you do. And they might be your friends. That's the toughest—when they're closest to you. You have to have the discipline to at times say no, so that you can do what you need to do to accomplish what you want to accomplish."
He shrugs.
"It's all about setting priorities. I took one step closer to getting the edge today."
And with that, the champion leaves the gym to go home to his wife and son. Today's victories tallied. The next fight coming.
Track calories, discover thousands of simple food swaps, build a healthier grocery list, and more—all from your iPhone!
No comments:
Post a Comment