Keen student Brennan is finally striking right balance
JAMIE BRENNAN’S transformation is bursting right out of his Donegal training top. Inside a year, he has gone from the wimpy kid in the ‘before’ of one of those dodgy personal equipment training adverts to the barrel-chested, muscle-ripped benefactor who emerges in the blink of a 40-second television sales pitch.
As ever, though, in real life it is never quite that easy but Brennan, the jet-heeled star of the minor team which reached the 2014 All-Ireland MFC final, was left with no other choice after literally bumping into Paddy McGrath.
‘In my first training session with the seniors in Ballyshannon, I didn’t know what to expect,’ he says.
‘I was just coming back from injury. It was a two-versus-two shooting drill and Paddy McGrath ran straight into me. I’d say my stomach nearly came out through my mouth.
‘I knew then that something had to change,’ explains the Bundoran clubman.
When McGrath and Neil McGee are your shadows in training, those in the S&C department don’t have to go into hard-sell mode to stress the importance of having the body to back-up the brilliance.
It has showed this year, too. Last season, while he featured in every Allianz League and Championship game under Rory Gallagher, he only played the full 70 minutes in one out of 12 games.
With the exception of the second round League defeat to Galway, he has started every game this season under manager Declan Bonner and seen most of them out as well.
‘I was fairly skinny,’ confessed the 22-year-old. ‘Two or three years ago, I could barely fill a t-shirt.
‘Coming through the ranks it was all about speed and there was a fear of putting on weight in case it took away from my speed. I understood after making the step-up that I could make the gains and keep the speed.
‘When you’re marking Paddy McGrath or Neil McGee in training, you have to be able to hand them off and keep the ball. They’re the wee small margins that can make a big difference,’ explains Brennan.
But it is just not the iron he is pumping that has changed his body shape, these days he watches what he eats.
The latter comes easy to him as he is studying a degree in nutrition in IT Sligo which has opened his eyes to the importance of how a body is fuelled.
It is not that he is a food nerd – he concedes that the dubious delights of avocado is still a bit of a sell – but it has allowed him to separate the good from the bad.
‘When I came in here first, my eating habits weren’t good.
‘It was a case that I was not eating enough, or having sugary cereals. I wasn’t getting the correct energy.
‘I might have had toast or something before training. You need to be loading up with carbs and I didn’t eat half enough protein. It’s really a lot of basic foods, just more of it and more regularly.
‘I’d have bigger meals maybe four or five times a day. It’s a matter of controlling that. I’m not too strict on it now, but it’s about keeping it balanced. ‘I’ll still have the biscuit with a cup of tea,’ he laughs.
If McGrath and McGee showed him the need to bulk up, at the other end of the field he has Paddy McBrearty and Michael Murphy to remind that the finer things about playing ball still apply.
‘While adjusting to the physicality is one thing, the biggest challenge I found at this level is that you just don’t have as much time.
‘A couple of years ago, I’d have had a couple of seconds to make a decision, but now it’s split-second stuff.
‘My kicking technique was poor enough when I started off. I’ve improved it a wee bit but it helps when you have the likes of Paddy and Michael kicking around you.
Indeed, he has the best of football educations from the outset.
When he started out with the Bundoran Under-12s he did not appreciate the true status in Donegal football of the man looking after his team, Brian McEniff.
‘I was only eight or nine when he called me in. I’ve been really lucky with him. Even off the field, he’s offered me work in the Great Northern Hotel.
‘It was only as I was growing up, I began to realise how big a figure he is. In the hotel, there would just be gangs around him and he’s never stuck for a word either.
‘He is a huge influence in Bundoran. Even in my first year with the club seniors, he joined in with us late in the year.
‘He’s always knocking around reserve teams still trying to improve players.
‘I don’t know how he does it.’