Tom Brady has a new book on the market. It has come on the market after he spent a dozen years as a winning quarterback in the NFL. The personal benefits of his holistic lifestyle are obvious in his looks and performance at an age when most football players are retired. Brady’s new book, The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance, is dedicated to informing his fans and readers about the benefits of effective habits to keep him in the game.
The TB12 Method wants you to learn more about muscle pliability, strength training, and nutrition. It is for beginners and advanced fitness trainers. The concept is to give Tom Brady fans a map to maximize their potential and reach new heights of success. Along with workouts and recipes, it features first-person advice and anecdotes from Brady. It was the Patriot, Willie McGinest, who recommended that Tom Brady should meet the body coach, Alex Guerrero. It was at that meeting that the TB12 Method was born.
“Playing football for a living was like getting into a car crash every Sunday—a scheduled car crash—and I began developing a whole new understanding of what I was putting my body through every week and the amounts of trauma my body was experiencing.” (p. 19)
“Pliability is the name Alex, and I give to the training regiment he and I do daily. Using his hands and elbows, Alex performs targeted, deep-force muscle work to lengthen and soften every muscle of my body as I rhythmically contract and relax that muscle. We almost always focus on our entire body unless one area takes up more time.” (p. 55)
“Alex always says, ‘For long-term peak performance, you can’t train slow and move fast.’ Over a short window of time, it may be possible, but lifting heavy weights and moving fast at the same time is not very sustainable. And it’s certainly not sustainable if you want to maintain optimal pliability. Maybe younger athletes with natural pliability can—but they’ll be sacrificing durability and longevity. Lifting heavy and moving fast is counterintuitive and counterproductive.” (p. 122)
“Avoid drinking too much water during a meal, as it can interfere with digestion. Wait an hour or so after eating before you drink water since water washes away the body’s natural enzymes, which break down your food. Rule of thumb: Drink more water before and after meals than during meals.” (p. 212)
“The regimen I follow is a mix of Eastern and Western philosophies. Some of these principles have been around for thousands of years. My nutritional regimen may seem restrictive to some people, but to me, it feels unnatural to eat any other way. Many people have conditioned their bodies to a nutritional regiment made up of lots of white or pale-looking foods—french fries, potato chips, white bread, chicken nuggets—that don’t exist in nature.” (p. 217)
Every morning, Tom Brady talks about making a smoothie. The smoothie contains blueberries, bananas, seeds, and nuts. It’s nutrient-dense, high in fat, high in protein, and high in calories. Take a deeper look at adding fats to your smoothie and the benefits here.
“When I was a kid, the dairy industry rolled out many campaigns urging people to drink lots of milk. Remember milk mustaches? I did that campaign back in 2002! But research today is pretty clear that we should consume dairy in more limited amounts. Our belief at TB12 Method is that dairy products are high in calories and lower in nutritional value than other foods.” (p. 223)
“Things happen sometimes that I don’t welcome or want, but I remain positive. That is something within my control. I don’t like to focus on the negatives or make excuses. Also, I am never a victim. I gain nothing if I get angry or frustrated. You can make life a lot harder for yourself by focusing on negative things in your path or making excuses for why things didn’t go your way.” (p. 271)
“Create a good pre-sleep routine to relax. Train your body to get into a rhythm by going to bed regularly, and turn off all your electronic devices a half hour before you go to sleep. If there’s a TV in your bedroom, consider putting it somewhere else. It’s a bedroom, not a tech cave. My wife doesn’t even allow cell phones near the bed when we sleep.”
The book is valuable both for fans of Tom Brady and for diet enthusiasts looking to keep on the front line of trends. The TB12 Method is certainly trendy. It is a reference for not only nutrition but also exercise. Most importantly, the book provides useful photographic and textual instructions for dozens of body-weight resistance training exercises, many done with resistance bands. (The TB12 Method branded set is available for $160 at the company’s website).
