A Day In The Life Of Some Of The Top Athletes On The Face Of The Planet: How To Train For The NFL Combine.

Ben Greenfield (0:01)

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

Michelle Riccardi (0:04)

For every athlete and every individual that comes through the doors at EXOS, everyone gets an individualized plan and an individualized nutrition prescription for their training program, their body weight, and their body composition goals.

Denis Logan (0:16)

They may be pulled from being able to participate by the NFL, not even of their own volition. They may say, hey, you know what? We found something, we don't want you to run, we don't want you to jump, we don't want you to do anything. So it really is an intense four days where the information that the NFL collects even right there and then, they'll put to use right away to determine whether a guy should participate or not.

SPEAKER_4 (0:36)

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

All the information you need in one place, right here, right now, on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Ben Greenfield (1:34)

Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield here, and if you live in America and happen to be a football fan, this week might be a pretty big week for you. If you happen to be interested in things like human performance, human nutrition, optimizing the human body, and getting the most out of the body and the brain, then this week might also be a pretty big week for you, even if you didn't know it. Because right now, some of the top athletes on the face of the planet from the National Football League are preparing at something called the NFL Combine. And in today's show, I've got two people, a sports performance dietician and a performance specialist who are there at the NFL Combine and who work with the athletes who are there. So we're gonna get to dig into the full nitty gritty, a day in the life of what it looks like to actually wake up, train, do PT, do recovery, all the personalized and individualized nutrition programs, how these athletes sleep, everything they do to ensure that they perform at their very best at a combine. And I'm guessing you're gonna get some pretty good advice for yourself, even if you're not a professional athlete. So my guests today are first of all, Michelle Riccardi. She's a registered dietician and a sports performance dietician. She's got over 18 years of experience working with professional and elite athletes, NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, PGA, NCAA, international athletes, Olympic athletes, tactical athletes, even firefighters.

She also serves on the mentorship education team for a company called Exos.

And Exos is a sports nutrition and a sports training company that works with some of the top athletes on the face of the planet, both online, as well as via a bunch of facilities that they have spread across the globe. My other guest is Dennis Logan, and Dennis is a performance specialist. He also works with the Exos Athletes Performance Team.

And he serves as a performance specialist in terms of assisting athletes with more of the training side of things. Prior to working with Exos, he was a strength coach at Aviator Sports Performance in New York. He has an MS in fitness and health management from the US Sports Academy. So he's kind of the training side of things. And Michelle is kind of the nutrition side of things. And I'm guessing that I probably don't need to work too much on our guest having to tell your guys' voices apart, which I sometimes run into.

So Michelle, say hello.

Michelle Riccardi (4:10)

Hi, hello.

Ben Greenfield (4:11)

Dennis, welcome to the call, man.

Denis Logan (4:14)

Thank you. It's good to be here.

Ben Greenfield (4:15)

All right, so for people who perhaps are not football fans, shame on them, can you explain what goes on at the NFL Combine? What's this thing all about?

Denis Logan (4:27)

So the NFL Combine essentially is a week-long event that's set up for all of the NFL teams to get an opportunity to interact with 330 football college players that have specifically been invited to go there. And essentially what it does is it gives them an opportunity to interview the kids, do a medical background check on the kids, and then also the kids. And I'm using kids. I've been there, young man.

Ben Greenfield (4:56)

Yeah, I was going to say, these guys don't look like kids.

Denis Logan (4:58)

Yeah, yeah, they're definitely not kids. But they also then participate in a number of different events that are selected or have been selected to get an idea of what their athletic ability is and to see what kind of strength qualities they possess that should transfer over to football. So it's a week-long event where the players are essentially broken up into groups depending upon position.