MAXIMUM WATTAGE

Follow NFL All-pro JJ Watt’s path back to the top and regain your peak, no matter your starting point

NFL powerhouse JJ Watt on how pushing his body to the limit saw him through injury

Thanks to a herniated disc, the Houston Texans defensive end JJ Watt played in only three games in 2016. Then he fractured his shinbone in just the fifth week of the following season. However, after a gruelling off-season regimen, Watt, a threetime defensive player of the year, entered the next campaign in the best shape of his career.

The strategies he used to come back stronger than ever weren’t complicated. Even before Watt’s major back injury, he had long prioritised his core training, and now he emphasises it even more. His 20-minute programme changes daily but involves plenty of planks (single leg, single arm, with a 20kg plate strapped to his back and his feet elevated six inches) and the surprisingly gruelling dead bugs.

During rehab, Watt utilised a range of single-leg exercises and drills, too. “They build balanced strength and agility,” he says. He still performs plenty of lunge variations, as well as single-leg Romanian deadlifts and Bulgarian split squats. And he is smart in the way he divides his week of training. He does one heavy legs day to provide the strength and power required to make an impact in every play, and one volume leg day for the match-long endurance his muscles need.

Watt also tracked everything he ate for a year, which he credits with allowing him to tune into his body. Now, he says he doesn’t need to count calories: instead, he eats when he’s hungry and focuses only on portion sizes. He also weighs himself daily to ensure he stays on track.

Watt finds it helpful to evaluate his achievements on a day-to- day basis. Recovery is a marathon, not a sprint. Breaking his leg was devastating, he says: “I’d worked so hard to return from my back surgery the year before.” Although the physical pain was challenging, Watt found the mental aspect of rehab was even harder. “Some days, you progress rapidly; on others, you stumble and may even go backwards. But you keep trying to move forward,” he says. Now, as you can see, Watt is moving at full tilt to reclaim his place at the top of his sport. We suggest you follow his lead – or get out of his way.