PUEBLO, Colo. – It’s nearly midnight and Ryan Dirteater is leaving the arena to head back to his hotel after another night of punishing competition on the Built Ford Tough Series.
Whether it’s Oklahoma City, Sacramento, California, or Arlington, Texas, the city can change but the scene stays the same.
Dirteater is hungry, and as an elite athlete, he needs fuel to recover and get ready for another round of competition the next day. But when you’re far away from home, and your kitchen, and options are limited he will do what most anybody does when hunger strikes in the middle of the night.
“I’m the type of guy that will eat a whole large pizza during the week and have a half a gallon of ranch with it,” Dirteater said. “Then go to Buffalo Wild Wings and eat like 12 wings and a lot of sweet tea.”
The 2016 Built Ford Tough World Finals event winner has been on the BFTS since 2008 and turned in a career-defining 6-for-6 performance on his way to the World Finals event title last year.
He still has a weakness for chicken wings like most 28-year-olds, though.
The Hulbert, Oklahoma, cowboy joined 2016 Rookie of the Year Jess Lockwood, 2015 Rookie of the Year Kaique Pacheco, three-time World Champion Silvano Alves, Rubens Barbosa and Keyshawn Whitehorse this past May for a week-long training camp at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.
IMG Academy, founded in 1978, is a destination for athletes, both amateur and professional, looking to raise their game. The state-of-the-art campus is a boarding school for elite athletes in training and a training center for some of the world’s best sports stars.
2015 NFL MVP Cam Newton, tennis legend Serena Williams and three-time NBA All-Star Jimmy Butler have all trained at IMG Academy, and for the first time ever, the PBR’s best completed an elite bull riding training camp that can take the sport into the future.
Nutrition is a cornerstone of the training regimen at IMG Academy.
One of the first things the experts at the academy explained the cowboys is that what fuels their bodies is just as important as to how strong their bodies are.
Jamey Rice is a nutrition coach and sports dietician at IMG Academy and was tasked with providing the riders with an introduction to the pillars of good nutrition and how it leads to improved performance.
Rice and the IMG Academy Athletic and Personal Development Team provided lessons and advice for how the riders can go about enhancing their daily diets and routines for peak performance.
The first step of that training involved sitting down with the individual riders and learning the ins and outs of their daily lives. This was important because Rice believes that proper nutrition can vary between individual athletes.
Rice and her team went in depth to figure out what each rider’s overall goals were. Some wanted to better control their weight, others wanted more strength. Nearly all of them wanted to properly heal their injuries and help reduce the risk of futures ones.
“There’s so many different things that sports nutrition can influence,” Rice said. “It’s really good to see it taking a bigger role in a lot of sports and industries right now.”
The practice of good nutrition is relatively simple, but it has quickly evolved as elite athletes from across the sports world have realized how the right kind of food can give their bodies an edge.
It’s common practice to see sports teams and individual athletes hire nutrition consultants and personal chefs to make sure they’re eating right during the regular-season and the offseason.
Unlike a star quarterback or point guard, though, Dirteater travels across the country on his own or with a small group of fellow competitors and friends on the BFTS.
There’s no team meal or a personal chef on hand.
And sometimes, especially after a punishing night on the dirt, all you want is a pizza.
That traveling cowboy lifestyle sets riders apart from traditional athletes, and it is something Rice knew she had to take into account when making nutrition plans for the riders.
“One important thing was to look at it from a ‘What’s missing?’ standpoint,” Rice said. “We looked at what’s ideal when they want the right carbs, the right proteins, the right healthy fats and good fluids.”
“Then we looked at what’s practical.”
On many nights, there aren’t many options available for bull riders following a Built Ford Tough Series event.
By the time the event is over, it may be 11 p.m.
Therefore, how could riders make that late-night pizza just a little bit better?
Rice explained to them that a plain cheese pizza will be packed with carbs in the crust and plenty of fats from the cheese, butter and sauce.
Proteins play a huge role in recovery and repairing muscles after a workout or a hard buckoff. Hence, adding things like greens or veggies help bring in some antioxidants and overall balance to the meal.
It’s far from perfect, but Rice maintains that practical steps can be taken to be more mindful of their bodies.
“If pizza is the only thing that is available, what can we do to make that pizza slightly better?” Rice explained. “We talked about ordering thin crust and adding things like chicken and ham to give you a little more protein. Throwing some veggies on there just to add some bulk to it. Just trying to make things a little bit more practical.”
Keeping things practical and adjusting to a lifestyle is important to Rice, who has seen the sports nutrition field evolve into something that doesn’t end when the players leave the field.
Physical fitness, and the balanced diets that play into it, is maximized when it becomes a normal facet of an individual’s everyday life.
Lockwood is one of the lightest riders on tour at 130 pounds. He was also a wrestler since for as long as he could remember, making a name for himself on the Montana high school circuit before transitioning to bull riding full-time.
Therefore, he is no stranger to managing his weight and overall diet, but even he came away with useful knowledge.
“I really eat healthy already but some of things she told us was darn sure helpful,” Lockwood said. “Things like making sure you’re hydrated throughout the day and just putting meals together differently and breaking things into little meals instead of three big meals.”
An elite athlete has an important stake in maintaining their health, and a high level of performance as well. In fact, making that dedication to nutrition an everyday part of a person’s life is probably the biggest challenge.
“That was one thing that we did spend quite a bit of time on because they are so busy and it’s not something where they are going to be cooking at home a lot,” Rice said. “Also, most of them are young single guys, so they don’t want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.”
Practical is easier.
“My eating habits and my nutrition can be a whole lot better,” Dirteater said. “I’m going to change that up. Being an athlete, I feel like I’ve got a few more years left, so I have got to keep myself at 100 percent.”
The 155-pound bull rider is hardly out of shape compared to the average person. But the average person is not riding bulls with thousands of dollars on the line every week.
Dirteater considers himself as an elite athlete, but he had not realized he could give himself a competitive advantage by just thinking about what he eats.
“There are certain foods you eat, especially on gameday, that can slow you down” Dirteater said. “You don’t want a lot of carbohydrates on gameday because that will slow you down. (Rice) explained that carbs are more of a long-term energy and you want something fast. You also want a lot of meats, but it depends on what kind of meats you’re eating.”
According to Rice, athletes should always look to maximize the amount of nutrients they can get from a meal. Things like Omega 3s from salmon, and lean proteins like chicken are almost always good bets, as well as vegetables loaded with antioxidants.
Parsing through every detail of a meal can get daunting, so Rice set out to present the riders with some overall nutritional themes to always keep in mind.
“We really hit home a couple of those key components with the fats, the antioxidants and then making sure that they’re getting in a good low-fat protein source,” Rice said.
Rice quickly learned, though, that bull riders don’t necessarily have to fuel themselves for a long night in the arena. Unlike basketball, where a player needs the endurance and fuel to run up and down the court, bull riders like Dirteater just need to get through 8 seconds.
Those 8 seconds can end early, though, and result in several injuries. The riders pointed out to Rice that recovery is something that is critical for them. Whether it’s a bruise or a broken bone, Rice explained how proper nutrition can help them heal over the course of a punishing BFTS schedule.
“There’s always going to be a lot of factors at play, and it really depends on the type of injury as well, but, in general, we talked about protein intake. Protein after a typical workout is going to repair that microscopic muscle damage.
“If we look at muscle damage and bone damage from more serious injuries, they’re in a more catabolic state. We have to break that catabolic state and give them protein to start rebuilding that muscle tissue, and rebuild some of those supporting joints.”
It was an illuminating experience for Dirteater, who had never realized just how much more he could do to elevate his game.
Following his week at IMG Academy, Dirteater has checked in with Rice and took steps to implement the lessons he learned.
Dirteater struggled during the first half of the season and entered the summer break 20th in the world standings.
He believes his week at IMG Academy can help him regain his 2016 World Finals, while also elevating his career to the next level.
“It wasn’t a vacation,” Dirteater said. “But I had fun and learned more. That’s what we were here to do. Get educated. We didn’t come here to play, we came here for business.”
