How Joe Burrow Packed on 10 Pounds of New Muscle

This story is phase of Men’s Health‘s Pick up NFL Gain kit, a series of tales that stumble on the many kinds of physical and psychological fitness it requires to attain the toughest sport on earth. Be taught your entire tales right here.

THIS TIME, THE call became once numerous. On the finish of each of Joe Burrow’s first four years with the Bengals, he’d buzz his longtime coach, Dak Notestine, C.S.C.S., to devise his low season exercises. However after Cincy became once locked out of the playoffs final three hundred and sixty five days for the first time since 2020, Burrow asked Notestine for one thing more. The QB desired to totally rebuild how he regarded as strength, fitness, and sturdiness.

The 2023 season had started with Burrow combating by a strained merely calf he’d suffered in practicing camp. And it had ended with a torn ligament in his merely wrist in week 11 against the Ravens (who went on to usaa. the Bengals as AFC North champs). For the second time in his legit profession, Burrow accomplished the three hundred and sixty five days on injured reserve. He couldn’t let it happen once more. “The superb recount for me this three hundred and sixty five days is merely being available with the guys,” Burrow says, “and be on hand.”

To that finish, the 27-three hundred and sixty five days-worn draw out on a renewed quest for strength, attempting to search out extra pounds of muscle and extra layers of protection wherever he could perhaps perhaps. He hired a nutritionist and a chef, rebuilt his hydration routine round Bodyarmor drinks, revamped his exercises, and refocused his thoughts. So while Burrow’s constantly been Joe Cool (and his Eminem-bleached July hairdo is proof), he rolled into practicing camp this three hundred and sixty five days with one thing bigger than self belief: a smartly-rounded methodology to his health. And he’s added a solid ten pounds (as a lot as 217), thanks to these fitness and nutrition tweaks.

Burrow Acknowledged Workout Weaknesses

Burrow fell in love with strength practicing a decade ago, when he packed on 30 pounds between his freshman and sophomore years of high college. “Those two years had been the superb adjustments in my physique in my existence,” he says, “the first time that I realized myself getting bigger and stronger.”

However this low season wasn’t merely about size. Notestine says Burrow didn’t notify love a bodybuilder or a powerlifter. As an different, he concentrated on exercises that tested his surgically repaired merely wrist: endure crawls and farmer’s walks holding forty five-pound plates. (Strive them, whenever you dare.) To better offer protection to his decrease physique against harm, Burrow challenged himself with single-leg skater squats, constructing up until he could perhaps perhaps live them with 100 pounds. Insulating your physique against harm isn’t about raw muscle, as Burrow reveals. It’s about muscle in the merely areas.

Burrow Dialed In His Weight reduction program

Omit merely eating “dapper.” Burrow focused his low season on making particular his energy got right here from “quality” sources (contemplate lean rooster), says Notestine, and making particular he ate frequently ample to present his physique fixed energy. Having a chef for the first time in his profession became once key. “He makes a fire rooster sandwich that’s awesome,” says Burrow.

He additionally adjusted his hydration patterns. No, he says, he’s never had concerns guzzling water daily. However he realized that hydration formula bigger than that. “That is the first three hundred and sixty five days that I’m more alive to about drinking electrolytes and making particular that my physique absorbs these vitamins, as against merely drinking water,” he says. “So we use these Bodyarmor Flash I.V.s.” He says the outcomes have been “unbelievable.”

Burrow Expert His Brain

The magic of his practicing routine, says Burrow, is that it constructed psychological muscle, too. Take, to illustrate, the isometric Bulgarian spoil up squat, a brutal switch nonetheless a fave of his. The order initiatives him with balancing on one leg, his other foot on a bench in the help of him, a bar mounted to a rack (so it will’t be pushed upward) pinned to his help. From there, he holds for five seconds, constantly using upward with each muscle in his physique.

“I contemplate phase of [building mental strength] is merely doing in actuality laborious, in actuality laborious shit—that it is main to search out that build to your thoughts that that it is possible you’ll perhaps perhaps also gallop and fight by it,” Burrow says. “Must you’re doing in actuality laborious stuff that you simply’re no longer particular that it is possible you’ll perhaps perhaps also push by, whenever you happen to push by it, then whenever you’re in that build once more, you know your thoughts is going to be a lot stronger in that draw.”

That mix of strength constructing has Burrow ready for 2024. “I in actuality have a terribly superb feeling about this three hundred and sixty five days,” he says. “My physique’s in a terribly superb build, better than in years past.” However the “take a look at,” Burrow says, stands out as the next 5 months of the three hundred and sixty five days, the coronary heart of the NFL fashioned season. “Upcoming is the examination,” he provides, “so I’m enraged to take it.”

TRAINING TIP

Joe Knows Squat

Be taught Burrow’s skater squat to produce single-leg strength. Commence standing. Take your left leg, knee curved so that your left shin faces the flooring. Bend on the merely knee and hip, slowly reducing until your left knee touches the flooring. Using only your merely leg, stand help up. That’s 1 earn; live 3 sets of 4 or 5 per facet.

This story appears in the September-October 2024 draw of Men’s Health.

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