Team USA's Routines the Night Before the Olympics and Paralympics

[gentle music]

I will do some stretching.

Maybe I'll take a hot bath if necessary.

I'll use the jet boots.

I'll use the theragun for a little bit.

But the number one thing for me

is making sure that I get sleep.

I can do all this recovery stuff,

but if I don't get 10 to 12 hours of sleep,

then I'm not optimizing my recovery completely.

And so I make sure that 48 hours before I compete,

I get 12 hours of sleep.

But I'm making sure that I am optimizing sleep 110%.

My day before game routine is a little complicated.

Obviously I eat dinner, then I'll do my theraboots

for like an hour.

I'll drink a cherry juice.

I'll drink like an extra glass of water,

sometimes have like a yoga

or like 4, 4, 4 breathing meditation thing.

I take my time.

I set out my uniform, I get my hydration,

my pre foods that I'm gonna be eating

and the mixes that I'm gonna be eating

for my warmup and pre-warm up.

I get my makeup that I know I'm gonna be wearing

that next morning

because that's a huge part of my process

to get ready the morning of the race.

So I'll just get preparing

so that way I can just go to sleep, that's ready,

and focus on the visualization of that perfect race course

and me executing it.

Any of my teammates will tell me, like,

I'm one of the guys that is very loose.

I don't overly think about the game.

I don't overly think about like strategy or something.

At this point we've put the work in,

we've done what we needed to do

to put ourselves in a position to be successful.

So the night before the game, to be honest,

like me and my teammates just like to chill.

Just like to not think about the competition.

Either we're playing some video games

or we're playing cards or whatever we're doing.

That's just our time to be together.

We know that life is gonna be very highly pressured

in the next couple of hours.

But the time before the game is just about us being together

and us enjoying the time that we have together.

So the night before is pretty chill.

The nerves might be kicking, might not, depends on the meet.

But dinner, a little bit of Netflix and chill,

and, you know, get ready for the next morning.

When I feel the nerves,

I will probably be running around

and talking everyone's head off

because that's the only way to calm down my nerves.

It's weird 'cause I'm not really ritualistic.

I just go with what I'm feeling like.

Sometimes I can binge

and watch like eight episodes of The Office.

Sometimes I will play the Sims because I love the Sims.

[giggling]

Or sometimes I will just like talk to my niece

for a really long time.

Sometimes I talk to my mom.

It literally just depends on, like, my mood.

If I'm feeling like I wanna talk to somebody,

then I'll like reach out

and talk to like people that are close to me.

If not, I'm probably binge watching something,

or watching a series, or playing the Sims,

or Roblox with my niece.

Hey, I'm not great at sleeping at competitions.

I get really stressed out.

So, I try to have like a nighttime routine of tea,

of talking with my best friend who's usually my roommate.

Just a good wind down reading before bed.

So I have a specific roommate that I'm always with.

I do like an hour stretching routine thing

where first it's like you just stretch

and then I like roll out on a lacrosse ball, the whole body,

and then I lay on like this back machine kind of thing,

and then like massage gun my legs.

But then after all of that,

my teammate and I, we like to like face each other

and langel the routine.

Langel is like doing it with your hands

and we play the music

and sometimes we'll be able to look at each other

and sometimes we'll just like turn off the lights and do it

'cause we'll like start laughing so hard.

The biggest thing is getting a steak.

The nights before, being a swimmer,

we got this crazy thing we do, we shave our whole body.

It's less about the hair, more about the dead skin,

more about the increased proprioception of the water.

And then sleep; sleep is super important.

So ideally, you know, getting eight hours of sleep.

Watching some anime, if I have time,

after that is stretch a little bit, ice with my injury,

and probably that's it.

I like to do an everything shower,

get a clean shave so my legs feel nice and smooth

in my sheets and in the pool the next day.

I also like to have some good snacks.

I'll have a little chocolate before bed,

never giving up chocolate.

Getting all my stuff ready the night before;

my competition equipment, clothing.

Most things were already at the competition venue

before the first day,

but I just get all my clothes ready to go in my backpack,

my prosthetics ready,

and then I just go to sleep, have a good night's sleep,

and get up in the morning.

First off, in rugby,

we have thing called the Jersey ceremony

where we come together.

A lot of times our family's invited

and we get our jersey and that's a big moment for us

because we like to say we're passing through our jersey.

So every time it's special

to be able to wear that USA jersey.

And then a lot of times if my family's there,

I'd love to go out to dinner with them

and just enjoy them 'cause they're there to watch me.

And if not, I hang with my team.

Or I'll sometimes go out to dinner on my own.

But I don't have any strict schedule, I guess

24 hours before I compete

is really just trying to almost meditate myself a little bit

in a way to calm anxiety, calm nerves,

just make sure my body

and my mind are all kind of in the same place

and ready to compete.

Sort of taking time alone, honestly,

that's what I've always done.

I don't wanna talk to you,

I don't wanna talk to anyone before my races,

whether that's the night before or day of.

I do have like a unintentional self-care routine

where I'm just like pretty chill the night before.

I try to get all the field hockey outta the way

as much as possible the day before.

I think we're starting to get better

at doing that as a team.

And then once we finish our last meeting,

it's just kind of downtime

so that I don't get too stressed and I can sleep well.

I do try to do a little bit of mindfulness.

It's not always the night before,

sometimes it's before the game,

but if I'm feeling especially stressed,

I find it like a good way to just like settle down

and be calm.

I'll pack my bag and get everything ready for the morning

because I'm not a morning person

and I forget things very easily.

So I'll go through my checklist,

make sure I have all my competition gear ready.

I'll just like throw on a movie, like a comfort movie,

like Finding Nemo, a Disney movie,

something like that, you know?

Just try to take my mind off of competition, you know,

so that I can relax, hang out with my friends,

talk to my mom.

I will usually have dinner.

That usually means I just made weights.

I'm going to go hydrate as much as possible.

I will try to get to bed around like nine or 10:00 PM

because I need to get my rest in before I go fight.

To eat around 7:30, take a shower, you know,

get into the bedtime clothes, make some sleepy tea,

and, you know, kind of just sit on the couch, watch some TV,

Netflix, and then my compression boots, that's a big one,

just for regen and to get ready for the game the next day.

Laying out my robe, my suit,

my towel, my caps, my sandals.

Prioritizing getting a good night of sleep.

Whatever that means, like winding down,

doing something fun for me,

and then getting in bed,

reading a good book and going to sleep.

It's similar, just trying to relax

because there's a lot of adrenaline, a lot of thoughts.

So getting those outta the way in a sense,

having our team meeting, visualizing for the game,

and then taking a moment, lighting a candle,

which we bring on our trips.

And I'm actually pretty inconsistent

with my skincare at home,

but when I'm on the road, I'm really on it.

I think it just having that routine

and, you know, being able to relax and put on my little mask

and go through that helps me have a better night's sleep,

and get into my book

and kind of enjoy that little down moment

before the big day.

I make sure to have all of my gear in one place,

have it all packed up,

try to wind down by dimming the lights

or putting them in more of a yellow warm lighting

so that it's not so harsh on my eyes

so that I can feel a little bit more tired.

I typically have some sort of tea or hot water,

and to have some sort of nighttime routine

to let my body know it's time to settle down

and go to bed.

Put on nice pajamas,

make sure the room temperature is good to go,

and then crawl into bed.

Doing some like light stretching.

Sometimes I like to get a workout in,

especially if the game is in the morning.

Usually I like to work out the same day of the game,

but usually morning, if the game's late in the evening,

I like to make sure everything is set out,

my bags are packed, my uniform is laid out.

I have everything that I need.

That way I can actually sleep

without thinking of my packing list.

And then it's important that I try to read

or just kind of calm my mind before going to bed.

The night before is always pretty mellow.

I mean, it's always, I try to get to bed pretty early.

I'm not a very good sleeper,

so try to get to in bed by like 8:30, 9,

which is very early,

but give myself some time to fall asleep.

And, yeah, just try to battle that anticipation.

[gentle music]