At six-foot-seven and 320 pounds, two-time Olympic champion Ryan Crouser needs a lot of food to fuel his quest for gold.
The shot put star, who took home the gold medal in his event at both Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, must consume roughly 5,000 calories a day to maintain his size and strength.
A typical breakfast might consist of a five-egg omelet with cheese and a quarter pound of turkey sausage followed by two servings of oatmeal and a cup of blueberries. For his two lunches he’ll have a pound of lean ground beef or chicken and 12 ounces of rice. Dinner, meanwhile, is shared with his girlfriend.
“We’ll follow a recipe for a family of four. She has one serving and I’ll have the other three. A normal serving for most dinners is around 400 calories, so three servings gives me 1,200,” he says.
That’s all to say, Crouser is used to racking up large grocery bills at his local Sam’s Club.
“It definitely gets expensive. I’m at $200 to $250 a week for myself alone,” he says. “The way that I look at it is that it’s a pretty significant investment in my athletic performance.”
The current world record holder, who spoke to Make It while promoting his partnership with Thorne, doesn’t pinch pennies when it comes to buying the best ingredients he can. He’ll splurge on organic, grass-fed beef even if costs him “30% to 40% more” than the alternative.
“If I’m getting higher quality food in, I’m getting higher quality training out,” he says. “I can tell without a doubt that I train better and perform better. As an investment, it makes financial sense.”
As he looks to once again take home gold at Paris 2024, the self-coached Crouser sat down with CNBC Make It to discuss his approach to training for the Olympics.
The importance of setting ‘micro goals’
Matthias Hangst | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
Now 31, Crouser’s body doesn’t bounce back from the hard sessions in the weight room, training circle and track the way it did when he was in his early 20s.
“As you get older, the cards continue to stack against you,” he says. “Eventually, time is going to win.”
But Crouser has found new ways to continue to improve even if he needs to change up his plan of attack. Instead of “hitting it hard” every day, he has found ways to conserve his energy.
“Just because I can’t hit that 700-pound squat today doesn’t mean I can’t spend that energy focusing on the technical side,” he says. “It’s about getting myself in the space where I can come back tomorrow and do the work over and over again.”
Crouser threw his personal record last year, a feat his younger self would never have thought possible.
“If you had asked me at 24 or 25 if I thought I’d still be throwing PRs at 30 years old I would have said ‘No way, there’s no chance of that,'” he says.
At his age, Crouser motivates himself not by reaching for new records, but by setting smaller, attainable goals. Even if it’s just adding a few pounds to a lift, Crouser gives himself something that’s not too far out of reach.
“[I set] those little goals and see that progress day to day, week to week, instead of going ‘I want to throw a PR,'” he says. “Find those little victories when that big goal becomes more and more difficult to get. Get enough of those little wins and you’ll get to where you want to be, even if it seemed impossible when you first started out.”
How he battles burnout while chasing Olympic gold
Crouser won his first Olympic gold medal at Rio 2016.
Ryan Pierse | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
Crouser says it can be difficult to avoid burnout while maintaining a massive diet, tracking workouts, measuring progress and pushing his body day after day.
“It’s easy to burn out and feel like ‘Why am I doing this? What am I doing this for? I’m not enjoying this,'” he tells Make It.
He tries to give himself one day a week to unplug and spend time outdoors away from his training responsibilities. When that’s not enough to set his mind right, Crouser has a technique to get himself back on track.
“When I’m struggling with the mental aspect I ask myself ‘Well, what else would I be doing?'” he says. “I’d be working in an office as a financial consultant. And I’d much rather be doing this. It’s gotten me through a lot of [hard] times.”
Even when all he wants to do is stay on the couch and watch TV, Crouser tries to remind himself that if he wasn’t an athlete, that wouldn’t be an option.
“The alternative is that if I don’t go and train, I’m not gonna be sitting on the couch watching Netflix. I’m gonna be working in a cubicle,” he says. “I try to keep in perspective how lucky I am to do what I do and have a job that I love.”
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