How Philip Rivers Stayed Competitive Into His 40s

Philip Rivers just made a stunning NFL return at the age of 44, nearly pulling off a win for the Colts. After roughly five seasons away from professional football, Rivers stepped back into an Indianapolis offense and finished 18 of 27 for 120 yards with one touchdown and one interception in an 18:16 loss to Seattle. Rivers called the experience a blast. The larger story is what athletes like Rivers, Tom Brady and LeBron James reveal about aging. LeBron James is 40 years old, and both he and Brady are known for obsessive attention to sleep recovery, diet and training. The lesson is simple. Longevity isn't luck, it's discipline. Now, what's the real message here? It's not that Philip Rivers is the next Tom Brady or the greatest player ever, but to be a grandpa, which he is at age 44, come back from retirement after not playing for five years and then actually play in an NFL game and not get killed, not have every bone broken and crunched, that is a huge, huge accomplishment. And it means more of us have to really question the aging process. Let's dig a little deeper here. I don't mean we all have to pump up with steroids. Not suggesting he uses steroids or dye our hair black or anything like that, but I do think that too many of us just say, well, I'm getting older, I'm supposed to slow down, I'm supposed to gain weight. I'm not supposed to run with my kids. I'm not supposed to play fun games anymore. Well, if you can be 44 and play professional football, then it means more humans are capable of more things. One of the things that Tom Brady, I think it put a spotlight on is how you can really keep aging at bay if you take your health seriously enough. Now, I'm not endorsing everything Tom Brady talks about with the so called, you know, soft muscle stretching and some of his potions and supplements. Some of that is nonsense. But Tom Brady play until he was almost in his mid-40s. Forget the fact that he still looks like a very young man, the fact that he was able to take that pounding and not have to retire for five years and play at a high level. And to see someone like LeBron James operating at such a high level of athleticism at the age of 40, we didn't used to see this. And geneticists will tell you and medical doctors and historians of the human body will tell you human genetics has not changed that much in the last 200,000 years. So it's not that all of a sudden someone had better parents and a better Gene pool. And so they're just going to stay younger much longer. No, what's different is habits. Now, I don't know enough about this quarterback Philip Rivers and what he did to pull off playing at age 44, but it's been well documented, although not really given that much attention, that LeBron James and Tom Brady are fanatical about healthy habits, one of them being massive, massive amounts of sleep. Tom Brady, LeBron James both give their sleep habits tremendous credit for letting their body become rejuvenated after the pounding they get playing. LeBron James is known for getting sometimes nine hours of sleep and taking naps, believe it or not, massive amount amounts of sleep. 8, 9 hours of sleep every night, plus naps. Tom Brady aims for nine hours of sleep, certainly in his playing days, nine hours of sleep nightly. And I don't mean he went to bed and watched TV from, you know, 10 to midnight and then got up at 7. Now he apparently really went to sleep. No distractions. Now, both LeBron James and Tom Brady fixated on incredibly healthy eating. Now you see all kinds of athletes endorsing Doritos and chips and Coke and beer and all that. That's not what these guys were consuming. They're eating vegetables, they're eating whole foods, they are avoiding processed sugar. So it may be that it really is possible to not necessarily live to everyone being 100, but maybe it is possible to retain the same energy and the vitality at age 35, 40, 45, 50, maybe 60 as you had at 20. If you practice good daily healthy habits, eating process unprocessed food, eating real food, truly prioritizing sleep because sleep doesn't get enough good pr. I can tell you that right now we live in a culture that's go, go, go and, you know, burn both ends of the candle and pull an all nighter and, you know, party till 3 and up at 6 to get to your Wall street job by 6, 15 in the morning. That's glamorized in our popular culture. And yet, at the very same time, nothing seemed more glamorous than the lifestyle and career of Tom Brady and LeBron James. And at least for a moment in the last weekend, this football player, Philip Rivers, who got to play an NFL game at 44, and yet not enough attention is given to their actual daily habits. Getting eight, nine hours of sleep, eating real food, exercise, massive amounts of stretching. Now, I certainly am not guaranteeing that this is going to make you a professional athlete. I do most of these things, but I'm certainly no professional athlete. But I can tell you it is possible, not necessarily to live forever. It is possible to live with more energy and to feel better about your body and to feel better about your ability to have fun and exercise and play, whether it's with your friends on the NFL playing field, or your family member or your kids or your grandkids, if you follow solid, daily, healthy habits. The most important, of course, getting a lot of sleep, eating real food, because that's what's going to make it easier to exercise, whether you're on the NFL playing field, whether you're on an NBA court or just your local pickleball court.