As the Impact’s plane touched down in Guatemala City on Monday evening, one of its many travel-related challenges had been met… on the plane.
“When you’re in cabin for five hours, the legs swell up and you’ll see players suffering from travel fatigue,” said Impact fitness coach Paolo Pacione. “What we had to do was getting up a few times over the flight and do some isometric exercises and get the blood flowing.”
About two hours into the journey, Pacione was going around collecting players to exercise in the aisle of the plane. Davy Arnaud and Andrew Wenger could be seen lying on the floor stretching, while Evan Bush had his legs extended on the headrests of the seats working on hamstrings. Almost all players wore thermal leggings or socks to keep the muscles warm.
And all players addressed the issue of hydration, another key for players dealing with long flights.
“For every hour in flight, you want to drink 250-300 millilitres of fluids," explained Pacione. Bottles of water were being passed around quite often on the plane.”
Time shift
After arriving at the hotel, all 18 of the travelling Impact players were given a quick reminder during the team dinner as to their responsibilities in response to the time difference.
“Since the time is two hours earlier in Guatemala, the players had to stay up a little later,” Pacione said. “We asked them to stay awake until 11pm Guatemala time, which will help them adjust faster.”
As a matter of fact, the Impact fitness coach had all players change their body clocks even before they packed their bags, asking them to stay up a little later following Saturday’s game against D.C. United.
Eating well and at the right time
In extension of this process, the players were ate lunch at 3pm on the plane in order to help adjust their bodies’ clock, as meal times assist in regulating the body’s biorhythm.
As meals are of the utmost importance, the Impact solved one of its major concerns by flying in their own chef.
“We wanted to maintain some level of normalcy for the body, so we brought our own chef to Guatemala in order to prepare meals that the player’s bodies are used to. With the number of changes the body is already facing on this trip, and the concerns about food poisoning, it was important that we fuelled in a way we are accustomed to.”
