By Jordan Adams
Player Engagement Intern
After an eight year NFL career suiting up for the New York Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Washington Redskins, Eddie Mason has established himself as one of the top fitness trainers in the nation. After retiring from football, Mason founded MASE Training in Sterling, Virginia where he trains some of the best high school, collegiate, and professional athletes. Since opening its doors in 2004 Eddie and his team have trained elite athletes such as five-time Pro-Bowlers Troy Vincent and Chris Samuels, London Fletcher, and MLS All-Star Jaime Moreno. MASE Training is also dedicated to educating and training the next generation of athletes through various camps and clinics within their community. We reached out to Eddie to share some advice on how to stay fit this summer and discuss tips on how he prepares a variety of different athletes to push themselves into peak physical condition.
With such a busy schedule what are some of the ways you and your staff are staying in shape this summer?
One of the things we always motivate our trainers and clients to do, especially those with busy schedules, is to maximize the time they have each day. Working a full time job, being a parent or student-athlete can take up a majority of your day. We encourage people to take part in activities they know they’ll enjoy. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, you’re not going to be consistent. Don’t make working out feel like work. Really get involved in activities that you love. That might be going for a run with your dog, playing basketball, or swimming and biking. There are so many things you can do, especially over the summer, that will help you develop consistent habits. These activities should become a part of your life. Think of getting in shape as an opportunity to improve your life. It’s all about your mindset. Don’t make getting in shape harder than it has to be. Do things that are engaging and you’ll start to get the results you’re looking for.
For those of us who are just starting to train, are there any preparation tips you can share with us?
There are a couple of things. First and foremost, you never want to go from the couch straight into intense workouts. You want to build your way up, do things in phases, and work yourself back into shape. That can be one of the hardest things for people. A lot of people have one specific end goal in mind, but that’s not going to happen overnight. There is a patience in the process. Start with interval training, I’m a big believer in that. Set some goals for the next three, six, eight weeks that will help you reach your overall end goal. These goals help people build confidence over time, even if you are only getting a chance to work out for 20 or 30 minutes. I don’t feel like there is one methodology that works, I tried different things throughout my NFL career, even things like martial arts. You want to work on your comfort level. Once you find your fitness level you’ll have a base you can use to better track your progress as you gradually get into better shape.
For beginners it’s easy - go out and get yourself a pair of five pound dumbbells and try things like shoulder presses, bicep curls, dumbbell side raises, and a set of pushups. You can do these exercises in twenty second intervals for five reps, twenty seconds working and twenty seconds recovering, and that workout in itself is a solid way to get yourself started. Definitely stretch and do some prep work to get your body prepared to work out before you do anything. Even after you’re done working out, try and incorporate some light stretching and core work into your routine. After the first two or three weeks of getting your base and making sure your form is correct, then you can worry about adding more reps and increasing the weight.
MASE Training is a place where mind, body, and spirit connect. Can you tell us a little more about how these three components can lead to a healthier lifestyle?
I personally believe that everything you do in life requires the right mindset. I have a personal motto we always say: “Get your mind right.” I haven’t seen anybody, whether they are working for IBM or playing in the NFL, have true success in anything until they wrap their heard around the commitment, the focus, and the discipline necessary to accomplish your set goals. So before I even start working with an athlete I ask them where are they mentally, because it’s going to be difficult for me as a trainer to get the most out of you until you really believe you can hit the marks you’ve already set for yourself. The reason we approach it this way is because I hear so many people talking about wanting to look a certain way. That’s not really what we preach here. People always ask how they can tell if they are getting results. My response is, are your clothes fitting better? How do you feel? People get so bogged down when they don’t see pounds coming off of the scale immediately. If you come in the first day and you can only do five crunches and two weeks later you’re doing sets of twenty, that is progress, those are results, but people don’t see it that way.
You should base your fitness progression on how you feel and if you have more energy when you wake up. That’s the kind of progress we are looking for at MASE Training. The most important muscle in your body is your heart, because your heart is the one that gets the other muscles to work. We always say start with the heart, start with the mind, and always keep the end goal in mind. We don’t want people to look at working out as something that they do, but as a part of who they are. Just like you get up and go to work, exercise should become a part of who you are, even if that means that on your lunch break you go for a thirty minute walk, that is still considered staying active. People always ask me what it takes to be healthy and the answer is simple: just keep moving and stay active.
What is some advice you’d give to a high school athlete who is training to make the jump into collegiate sports this fall?
What I always tell kids is not to rely on their God given abilities alone. God gives us the talent, he gives us the gifts, but it’s our job to be good stewards over those gifts and talents. That means you have to take your gifts and sharpen them every day. You have to be willing to go out and do the things that other people are not willing to do. If there is one thing that will separate kids at the collegiate level, or if they are lucky the professional level, it’s your conditioning and your ability to run. As a freshman or rookie, if you cannot run and run well for long distances with explosiveness it’s going to be a very tough adjustment. When you go from being the big man on campus to having to earn every second on the court or field it’s a big mental adjustment, you have to be ready to rise to the challenge.
What I try to do for our athletes from day one is try and get them in the best physical condition I can. I push them not to the breaking point or anything, but I know what the next level requires. Because of my background I know what coaches are going to expect of their players at the next level. That part will never change, whether it’s 1990 or 2015, the standard is not going to be lowered. Athletes will sometimes fool themselves into thinking they can get by with their ability alone and don’t work on their weaknesses. Most guys don’t focus on their core strength or their conditioning. As a coach, former professional athlete, and a life coach for the NFL, I will tell any high school athlete any day, do not allow your conditioning be an excuse for not maximizing the success that you deserve, because that is the one thing you can control. You can’t control how tall you are going to be, how fast you are able to run, or how high you can jump, but you can control your conditioning. When everyone starts breaking down at the end of games, you’ll be the one playing because you can physically rise above your competition.
Can you share with us any nutritional advice on how to help your body prepare for a workout or recover after a tough day?
We keep it very simple for most of our guys here. Number one you need to eat whole foods. I don’t think you need to rely on supplements. Supplements were created to give you an extra boost in some of the areas you may not be fulfilling in your usual diet. Whole foods can generally give you the nutrients you’ll need to feed your body correctly. The second thing is eat breakfast. It is the most important meal - it’s not a joke - it’s what gets the body going in the morning. First thing in the morning drink a room temperature glass of water and then prepare a solid breakfast. Don’t forget to include fruits such as blueberries, strawberries, and even pineapples. I don’t like to eat prior to working out, but I may have a smoothie before I start my workout that I’ll finish throughout my training session.
It’s also important to have something to eat 30 to 40 minutes after you have finished training. If your schedule permits try and get a workout in early in the morning. It will help boost your metabolism and help your body burn fat throughout the day. When you don’t eat breakfast you’re putting your body in a low metabolic pattern which leads to packing on weight that you are trying to lose. You should also be sure to eat sensible snacks especially later on in the afternoon. Your body is working throughout the entire day so the food you put in shouldn’t bog you down. I know time becomes an issue sometimes when trying to eat healthy. My advice to anyone whose schedules are hectic is to try and set some time aside on Sundays to prepare your meals for the week. It’s about moderation and it’s about balance. It doesn’t mean you can’t have certain things, but you have to be aware of your portions and the kinds of foods you are putting into your body.
How did you and your staff develop specific workout plans for athletes focusing on different sports?
Well first of all, we control the workouts through scheduling. We’ll schedule athletes with similar movement capabilities to come in and work out together. We’ll have our lacrosse players and soccer players in the same workout sessions since they are both high endurance sports. Lots of conditioning, lots of running and up-tempo movements. We keep our basketball guys together and our football players together. I do not train my basketball players the same way I train my football players since they are working different muscle fibers. You have to train the body differently for different sports but we will coordinate our exercises to keep athletes focused on the workouts that will help them compete at the highest levels.
We always do some sort of functional base movement as our prep work before we really start progressing into more physically demanding workouts. Our prep work consists of things like straight lunges, spider lunges, foam roller work, and ball rolls on their feet. Once we’ve completed prep work we start with some simple squats and base pushups, core work is always important so base or elbow bridges are essential as well. You have to get the mind going, the nervous system and the muscles firing before we get into the actual base workout. By making sure to prepare correctly it reduces the chances of physical injury because their body is already ready to move on to base core movements such as benching, rows, and weighted squats.
What we don’t want to do is over load or over train our athletes. If you ever ask a good strength coach they will always tell you it’s quality over quantity. We try to work on powerful, efficient movements and once you master them then we can start to raise the difficulty. I didn’t learn these things over night. All of this took time. I wanted to be a master strength coach and I knew I couldn’t rely solely on my football IQ so I went out and prepared myself to train people properly. I don’t think you can ever know enough as a coach, not only from a physical standpoint but also mentally. What we really try to do is maximize our athletes’ God given ability.
For more information on the work Eddie and his team check out their website: http://www.masetraining.com/