**JUST BEFORE THE START** of the Patriots’ 2016 championship season, I went to a field near my house to throw the football with one of my dearest friends, my body coach and the cofounder of the TB12 Method Alex Guerrero, and a former teammate. It was a brisk, late summer afternoon—perfect New England football weather. As I was running through my typical football training regimen, I knew one thing for sure: I’d never thrown the ball as well as I did that day—not when the Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2001, or in 2004, 2005, or 2014—not ever, in fact, in my life. It was one of those days. I was ‘in the zone.’ I was throwing the ball better than I ever had, and I remember being really excited about the opportunity to play and to show all the things I’d been working on in the off- season. I also remember thinking, *My ability to sustain my peak performance over the past* *ten years is almost unbelievable to me.*
But I suppose that’s what peak performance really means—continuing to get better year after year—or at least that’s what it means to me. In my belief, it would not be possible without an ongoing commitment to the very different holistic wellness and training program that Alex and I began developing over a decade ago. We call it the TB12 Method. At its core, the TB12 Method focuses on developing and maintaining something that many people have probably never heard of: muscle pliability. Over the past few years we have designed the principles of the TB12 Method—principles that have created far more sustained peak performance than anything I’ve ever read, studied, experienced, or trained against, and that have also given me the confidence and the capability to reach for higher and higher levels of achievement as each year passes. Every year we seek to improve—and I would love for you to do the same. Nearly eighteen seasons of playing professional football have shown me that sustained peak performance isn’t about luck. It’s about hard work, dedication, discipline, and the support of my great team. You can’t do it alone.
I am beyond blessed. I turned forty years old this past August, and not only do I feel as healthy as I ever have but, more to the point, I’m proud to still be playing at the highest level and standard for my game. My ability to sustain my peak performance over the last ten years came from rethinking how to train, and, specifically, *how to train with* *pliability*. I now realize that this is something that can help not only elite athletes but anyone and everyone who’s willing to commit to living a life of wellness and vitality—casual athletes, weekend warriors, yoga practitioners, marathon runners, *anyone*. In this book, I’ll be sharing the principles that have allowed me to sustain peak performance and showing you how to apply them to your own daily life. I also believe the TB12 Method can inspire a movement that radically reforms the way we train and helps us live a more natural, holistic, healthy lifestyle while lowering our risk of injury, increasing our vitality, and taking our performance to the next level.
As such, I’m writing this book in the hope that my experiences and discoveries can resonate with everyone and allow them to achieve beyond what they can even envision for themselves. As far as pliability is concerned, an ounce of prevention really *is* a pound of cure. *What is* pliability? I’ll go into it in more detail later in this book, but for now, and briefly, Alex and I define pliability training as targeted, deep-force muscle work that lengthens and softens muscles at the same time those muscles are rhythmically contracted and relaxed. This happens in sessions that take place both before and after any sport or activity—in my case, football.
Regular pliability training, coupled with the right holistic routine to maintain that pliability, conditions our brains and bodies—and therefore our muscles—to maintain this same lengthened, softened, primed state as they carry out whatever activity we’re asking them to do, from carrying a baby to lifting luggage to climbing stairs to getting out of a chair to playing pro sports. But pliability is also bigger than that. To me, and within the TB12 Method, pliability is the missing leg of the traditional strength and conditioning model of aerobic activity and lifting weights.
Of course, it goes without saying that we all need strength and conditioning—enough strength to do the job we need to do, including the acts of daily living, and enough endurance to do it over a desired time frame. But by incorporating pliability training into your workout regimen, you’ll be able to sustain your own peak performance in ways that minimize the risk of injury. If an injury happens, pliability training will put you on a faster road to recovery. We’ll discuss specific methods of practicing pliability in a later chapter.
So why this book, and why now? Well, most people don’t realize it, but the typical training and lifestyle regimens come up short. For so many athletes, it looks like this: Work out. Compete hard. Get injured. Visit the doctor. Do physical therapy. Possible surgery. Back to rehab. Compete hard again. Get injured again. Back to the doctor. More rehab. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. That’s the vicious cycle of sports training, which takes place far too often, is talked about all too little, and has been around since before I was in high school. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
We all need to become active participants in our own health. With this book, I want to establish a new model of training for sustaining peak performance and optimal living over the long term. The TB12 Method is both a regimen and a way of life that has allowed me to play football at a high level over the course of my career, and also to live a vital, energetic life off the field. Over the years, like many athletes, I’ve read a lot of books about sports, health, wellness, and longevity. Most offer conflicting information, and to my mind, a lot of them come up short. Put simply, they’re confusing—even I get confused. That’s why I want to write a new athlete’s bible for anyone committed to a lifetime of peak performance, whether you’re a professional, an amateur, or a man or a woman of any age who wants to stay healthy and vital.
My hope is that *The TB12 Method* will revolutionize the age-old sports and conditioning model that statistics tell us over and over again is incomplete. With this book, I’m on a mission to inspire coaches, parents, trainers, athletes, and anyone who wants to lead a healthier lifestyle to consider how pliability training, and a commitment to a holistic and disciplined lifestyle, will lead to a more enjoyable life that allows them to achieve any goal they set for themselves. Nothing would give me more joy than to pass on what I’ve learned during my life and career—whether it’s the importance of pliability training, the exercises you should do to reduce the chance of injury, the best ways to work out, what proper hydration means, what foods you should eat, what supplements you should take, how to recover and rest, or what kinds of brain exercises can ramp up your performance. There’s a famous quote: “Youth is wasted on the young.” It’s true, too. We grow up believing that our physical prime is in