by Tom Brady
To sum up, we need to give our brains the same focus and attention we give to our bodies. The first part of the TB12 train-your-brain program begins when we reeducate our brains during pliability sessions to make connections between our minds and our muscles. Part two involves developing and maintaining the right mind-set and attitude on and off the field. Part three consists of daily brain exercises. As I said earlier, the TB12 Method is a holistic and integrative regimen—by which I mean that no real healing takes place in our bodies unless we focus on our brains, too.
TB12 ACTION STEPS
• Mental toughness is a learned behavior. Focus on learning from experiences that don’t work out. Often they become positive events.
• Choose to remain positive. It’s within your control.
• Take time to recenter yourself every day, whether it’s through meditation or just by doing something you love—mindless or mindful restorative rest.
• Practice brain exercises to maintain brain fitness.
• Get the appropriate cognitive rest by sticking to a regular bedtime and getting at least eight hours of sleep every night. To ensure your body is working for you day and night, use TB12 functional apparel and sleepwear, with the latter increasing your body’s oxygenation while you’re sleeping. In my opinion, again, a no-brainer.
As we reeducate our brains during pliability to create a mind–body connection, we also need to develop and maintain the right mind-set and attitude on and off the field, and to practice the right daily brain exercises. Proper sleep, along with functional apparel and sleepwear, also reduces the amount of time it takes your body to recover. Bottom line: no real healing takes place in the body unless we also focus on the brain.
Thinking about all the years I’ve been privileged to play—and how happy I am to be able to share the TB12 Method with you.
CHAPTER 10
CONCLUSION
EVERY YEAR PEOPLE LIKE TO remind me that another twelve months have gone by, and that Father Time is undefeated. That saying has been around for a long time. It’s probably true—and realizing that has made me continually rethink my approach to my career and my holistic, integrative training regimen. In many ways, my routine is better than it has ever been, and I feel better than I did when I was in my twenties. Of course, as I’ve said, I’m not naïve. We all naturally age. But here’s the question: what does it mean to naturally age? There are so many things people do to accelerate their own aging process that we’ve created assumptions around what we expect our bodies to look like year after year. When a person says to me, “I’m not twenty-two anymore” or “I can’t recover the way I used to,” it’s hard for me to accept. To my mind, people in their thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond can feel as vital as they did in their twenties, with the same potential for peak performance and optimal health.
To me, getting older has been a positive experience athletically. It means I have another year of experience and pliability at my disposal. I discovered pliability at age twenty-seven, but I wish I could have started it even earlier. When I was in my teens, I distinctly remember having growing pains. My knees would always hurt. My elbow and shoulder were always in pain. My nutrition choices were terrible—and I was poorly hydrated. Looking back, my solution would have been the lengthening and softening of my muscles through pliability treatments to keep the tension off my growing bones and body, as well as better hydration and nutrition. As I said in the introduction, if I’d begun what we now call the TB12 Method when I started strengthening at sixteen years old, I know I could have avoided many years of unnecessary pain, as many athletes suffer.
To me, the TB12 Method is more than a new way to think about peak performance. My perspective may be that of a pro quarterback, but Alex and I have worked hard over the years to ensure that the TB12 principles are applicable to anyone who is committed to a healthy, holistic lifestyle. (At the conclusion of this book you can read some testimonials from people whose lives have been changed by coming to the TB12 Sports Therapy Center.) I’m proud of playing football and of our team, and I’m also excited to educate people and inspire a movement that can change the lives of people from many walks and stages of life. I believe we can and should rethink not just the way we train but the way we live. As I said earlier, it’s a natural human bias to focus on instant gratification. Amateur and professional athletes face pressure to get back out on the field. Younger players may put off the right nutritional regimen today, believing they’ll start eating better next week, next month, or next year. When I was a younger athlete, I didn’t know any better myself. But a core part of the TB12 Method is developing the mind-set and discipline of thinking long-term. Put simply, your health and lifestyle choices will eventually catch up with you in ways either negative or positive. The habits and behaviors you adopt right now will determine whether you’ll face a headwind or a tailwind in the years and decades to come.
Ask yourself: What does sustained peak performance mean to me? Every person who comes into the TB12 Sports Therapy Center gets asked this same question. It’s not surprising that most of the answers have to do with sports. A sixteen-year-old high school baseball player wants to play his best during the upcoming season. A twenty-year-old cross-country runner wants to make the college team. A thirty-year-old pro athlete wants to play for the next three years without injury. A forty-five-year-old working mother wants to feel as great during her morning run as she did when she was in her twenties, and still be able to play competitive tennis on the weekends with her high-school-aged son and daughter. A sixty-year-old businessman wants to continue playing pickup basketball every Sunday and be back behind his desk on Monday morning, pain-free and full of energy. A sixty-five-year-old physician wants to be able to ski with her grandchildren without worrying that her knees might hurt.
Sustained peak performance brings up a second question: What does it mean to be the best at what you do? Being the best at anything requires discipline, focus, and hard work. Whether you’re a high school, college, or pro athlete, a coach, a farmer, an executive, a teacher, a doctor, a student, a parent, a graphic designer, or anything else, sustained peak performance asks you to commit to being the best you can be every day of your life. Your life doesn’t end when you leave practice or drive home at night or shut off your laptop—so why should your commitment to peak performance? We all want, or should want, to play and live to our fullest potential.
As for me, I envision every high school, college, and professional team creating pliability programs in the same way they’ve made a commitment to strength and conditioning. I envision parents doing pliability on their kids, coaches doing pliability on their players, and athletes around the world doing self-pliability before and after workouts. I envision TB12 Sports Therapy Centers all around the world, where everyone who’s invested in their own peak performance and optimal health can come—and I also envision health insurance companies stepping forward to realize that pliability is key to preventing injuries before they happen. More to the point, coaches, trainers, and parents need to get started on incorporating these methods to the best of their abilities.
It’s worth saying again: Pliability isn’t only for elite athletes. It’s for anyone who wants to live a vital life as long as possible. It doesn’t just benefit our bodies, either. Life can be hard, and challenges come up out of nowhere. What would it mean to meet those challenges in a pliable way—without tension or rigidity but with readiness, openness, and receptivity? On and off the field, pliability is a metaphor for the way I try to live my life.
In many ways, I feel it’s my responsibility—and even my calling—to bring attention to what I’ve learned for the purpose of helping others. I’m aware some people may respond cynically or skeptically. But to anyone who says, “Why should I do what he says?” my response is: Please don’t take my word for it. Try it. See for yourself. Experience the difference the TB12 Method will make in the quality of your life. Even if you start with only a thirty-day commitment, you’ll be
gin to feel the difference. From there, try sixty days. Then 120 days. Before you know it, the TB12 Method will become second nature.
We all have choices, and our lives are what we make of them. I believe we need to be proactive participants in our own health and well-being. We have to take responsibility for them. We are not victims. Hold yourself—not your doctor or your coach—accountable. Good health and a good life don’t just happen. When you incorporate pliability into your strength and conditioning regimen, along with hydration, nutrition, supplementation, rest, and recovery, I promise you’ll be on your way to living the best, healthiest, most productive, most durable life possible. I do not believe we are entirely victims of fate or destiny in our approach to peak performance. We have a choice in how our lives play out.
1. Incorporate pliability as the missing leg of your strength and conditioning regimen. Balance your inner environment to absorb and disperse the forces in your life.
2. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Drink at least one-half of your body weight in ounces of water with electrolytes every day, and more if you can. Optimal pliability cannot be achieved without proper hydration.
3. Reduce or eliminate your intake of caffeine, soda, and alcohol. All three can be dehydrating. If you drink coffee, soda, or alcohol, rebalance your hydration by drinking two glasses of water with electrolytes for every one of these beverages you consume.
4. Focus on eating real food, preferably organic and mostly plant based.
5. Eat some daily percentage of your vegetables raw—that is, uncooked.
6. Shop and eat locally as much as possible. Most supermarket foods have traveled long distances and been frozen and thawed before reaching the shelves.
7. Try to limit and possibly eliminate foods that cause chronic inflammation, including fast foods, processed foods, and the five W’s: white bread, white pasta, white potatoes, white milk, and excess white salt.
8. Supplement your dietary regimen by taking at minimum a multivitamin and a B complex.
9. Supplement with protein powder or a protein bar to help your body rebuild and rejuvenate, especially after workouts—and snack when hungry throughout the day.
10. Take time to recenter yourself every day, whether it’s through meditation or just by doing something you love. This is an important part of rebalancing your inner environment.
11. Our brains are our control centers. Never lose track of the importance of brain fitness. Practice plasticity-based brain exercises to keep your brain in optimal condition.
12. Get the appropriate cognitive rest by sticking to a regular bedtime and getting at least eight hours of sleep every night. To ensure your body is working for you day and night, use TB12 functional apparel and sleepwear, with the latter increasing your body’s oxygenation while you sleep.
I practice and live the TB12 Method in my job and in my life, and I want you to experience the same results I have in your job and your life. What if a month from today you felt better doing everything you love to do? And even better six months after that? What would it feel like to only get better with time, to feel better than everyone else you know, and to sustain your own peak performance for longer than you ever believed possible?
The answer is in your hands. Our goal isn’t just better training, it’s better living. Let’s change ourselves—and the world—for the better. I wish you the best of luck on your journey as you become the very best version of yourself.
TESTIMONIALS
I STARTED TRAINING AT TB12 ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO, DOING one to two sessions per week. I have torn both ACLs (only one of which I chose to surgically repair), and I was limited in doing the activities I enjoyed the most—skiing and playing basketball. When I met with Alex and told him I thought I would never be back on the slopes again, he simply laughed. Alex assured me that I would be skiing all winter long if I followed the training regimen. The rest is history. I have been skiing almost every weekend for two years now, and I play basketball regularly.
[ALEX] IS QUITE AMAZING. I DID THREE DAYS OF INTENSE therapy with him for my neck and hand pain. I’m really happy and relieved to say that after ten years of increasing pain, and a surgery that didn’t do anything . . . I feel like I have a new life without pain. All I can say is, Alex is amazing and brilliant at finding these solutions, and has made a huge difference to me.
I ENJOYED THE EXPERIENCE [AT TB12] IMMENSELY. THE treatments and short workouts were focused and professional. A week was the perfect amount of time—and now the rest is up to me until the next visit. I had minimal but hopeful expectations, and [TB12] didn’t let me down—in fact, you far exceeded my goals. I now have the confidence to get back in the gym and manage my workouts without worrying about injury.
I WANT TO THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART FOR YOUR expert, kind, encouraging attention toward my son, who suffered an ACL injury and had to miss his [college] lacrosse finals. As we walked to the car, he kept saying, “Mom, that was amazing! He knew exactly how I move and how I did it.” He added, “That was life-changing.” Tearing and repairing an ACL a second time was a bullet he dodged. We are so blessed to be where we are, as my son moves through his final summer at home and toward his goals. He is extremely grateful for you and for all he has. Thank you for being a powerful part of my son’s life at a seminal time.
FROM MY INITIAL PHONE CALL TO THE LAST TIME I WALKED OUT the door, [TB12] was an absolutely positive experience. I had heard firsthand about great results for athletes under twenty-five—which is what I am not. After a thorough intake, [the TB12 body coach] worked on my shoulder, determining the damage. He was able to pinpoint what he could rectify with deep manipulation and pressure. He was patient and optimistic about where I could be when he was done. Within an hour and a half, he had my bum shoulder returned to a normal range of motion, without pain. Seriously, I have been pain-free since he worked on it. I left with instructions and demonstrations for upkeep exercises, foods that would help me (it is TB12, after all), and an understanding of why hydration is important. Highly recommended.
SIX MONTHS AGO, I WAS IN A TAXICAB ACCIDENT WHILE ON business in Phoenix. The two-car collision left my dominant arm broken in three places, and I suffered vertebral misalignment, dislocation of the jaw, and a severe concussion. However, despite my obvious facial abrasions, the ER doctors did not give me a CAT scan, and a traumatic brain injury went undiagnosed for some time. In fact, to compound the injury, the ER doctor suggested I fly back home to Boston to see an arm surgeon immediately—less than twenty-four hours after the accident. Needless to say, I was compliant. Whether it was shock, the unrelenting arm and neck pain, or my willingness to believe that the physician knew best, I don’t know.
Landing in Boston, I was in agony. I envisioned putting my head in a vise and tightening it until my head exploded to relieve the intense pressure and pain. I saw various physicians and specialists, but no one seemed to hear me. My TBI wasn’t diagnosed until ten days after my accident, at which point I was ordered to be on “pure rest” for two weeks at minimum. No work, email, text, TV, exercise. Just sit in a dark room and meditate. This extended to four weeks, and then six weeks. No narcotic or analgesic alleviated my head pain. I was unable to think clearly, read, work, or walk down a flight of stairs without holding on for dear life. Under medical “house arrest,” feeling helpless and hopeless, I began to deteriorate emotionally and physically. More important, my cognition was not improving, and my pain would not relent.
Two friends suggested I see Alex Guerrero at TB12. I’m in no way a professional athlete, and thus was unsure whether he would take me as a patient. But after a twenty-minute conversation, I was set up for an evaluation at TB12 the very next morning. I don’t remember much about my first visit due to the concussion haze I was in—only that my life as I knew it had changed for the better. Not only was I relieved of the intense pressure and excruciating pain but also, for the first time in two months, I had hope. Alex understood what I was experiencing even when my brain was unable to ar
ticulate the words to describe my ailments. He calmed my fears and gave me a plan (and homework) and the motivation to succeed. Not only have Alex’s recommended nutrition plan and body and “brain training” exercises helped my recovery without conventional pharmaceuticals but his proactive treatments have also improved residual issues from my TBI: balance, memory, gait, depth perception, and strength building. Alex lifted the “fog” that has surrounded me ever since the accident.
After nearly eighteen weeks working with TB12, I have almost fully recovered from my injuries. I still struggle with some cognitive issues, but I am in better overall health than I have ever been in my life. Alex’s unwavering support (at all hours), concern, and insight have helped me get through a very rocky period.
ON JUNE 28, 2015, I FELL OFF A LADDER TRYING TO REFILL MY BIRD feeders. The ground was wet, and the foot of the ladder sank into the ground. I started to fall, so I tried to break the fall by turning toward my left side. Unfortunately, my foot got stuck under the handle of the ladder, and my leg twisted—and I heard a loud pop from my right knee as I fell.
My husband took me to the emergency room, and the doctor I saw put me in an immovable brace. The MRI results showed that I had a severed ACL and Grade 3 MCL and Grade 1 PCL tears, along with a small Baker’s cyst. After eight months of physical therapy, I still did not have the quality of life I wanted. I had difficulty squatting, I had difficulty getting my knee to bend, and I was walking with a limp. Then a good friend referred me to TB12. My body coach’s knowledge and expertise gave me back my quality of life. Within a very short time, I was walking down the stairs without difficulty.