The Boston Celtics have made it all the way to the NBA Finals, and the Dallas Mavericks are the only thing standing in the way of a championship. A lot of players have stepped up for the Celtics in the postseason to get them to this point, and one of those players is Al Horford. Horford has spent 17 seasons in the NBA and he just turned 38, but he is still finding a way to succeed. He recently revealed that Tom Brady has helped him with that.
Finding success as a professional athlete can be very difficult once players hit their late 30s. That never slowed down Tom Brady, however. Brady won a super bowl during his 21st season. Al Horford wants to continue to find success, so he asked Brady for advice.
“Horford has gone to great lengths to postpone the inevitable,” An article from The Athletic said. “Long before age started to diminish him physically, Horford began working toward this type of sustained success. Even before he considered playing this many years in the NBA a realistic possibility, he paid close attention to the work habits of elite athletes. He picked the brains of NBA legends. He worked briefly with Alex Guerrero, Tom Brady’s longtime fitness and nutrition advisor and co-founder of TB12, their injury prevention company. He also sought advice from Brady himself.”
Horford has been hearing about his age for a long time because of how he thought about the future. That's just the way that Horford is.
“It’s funny because I feel like everybody has been talking about me being old since I was, like, 23 years old,” Horford said. “Because I was already thinking ahead, thinking team, thinking all these other things (about the future), and that’s just who I am.”
While working with Tom Brady's fitness and nutrition advisor, Alex Guerrero, Horford focused on injury prevention and workouts that would allow him to excel at his position.
“We talked about, what is your ultimate playing weight based off your position?” Alex Guerrero said. “At your position, what does that entail? Do you need to move? Is it more based on speed or quickness, quickness or power and strength? Once he began to define that for himself and his position, you can make a customizable program for him that’s based on what he’s looking to achieve.”
Al Horford does a lot to keep himself in good shape
Al Horford clearly takes his healthy very seriously and he wants to be able to play the game that he loves for as long as possible. He has done a lot to keep himself in good shape, and one of the things he did was hire a chef.
“She’s connected with the team, as well,” Horford said. “She’s very conscious of everything that I need to be eating, how I should eat before the game, how I should eat postgame, how I should eat the next day for recovery, and just making sure that we’re maximizing and eating as clean as we can. It’s all things that are going to help me perform better, foods are going to put me in the best position.”
Tom Brady focused on his nutrition a lot as well. In fact, Horford admitted that he was never as strict as Brady about it, but he still took it seriously.
“For me, it was, like, how can I fit that into my lifestyle?” Horford said. “How can I take some of this stuff and use it to my benefit?”
Obviously, what Al Horford has done has worked, and Tom Brady was able to help him. Now, Horford is four wins away from winning his first ever NBA championship at the age of 38.
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