The first installment of Tom Brady’s Facebook documentary series ‘Tom vs. Time’ premiered on Thursday and offered fans an inside glimpse at the 40-year-old New England Patriots quarterback’s rigorous health routine as well as a healthy dose of his football clichés.
‘There’s a warrior toughness about me,’ Brady said at the top of the first episode, ‘The Physical Game.’
The documentary also features Brady’s somewhat controversial health guru and business partner on his TB12 health brand, Alex Guerrero, who was once referred to as a ‘snake oil salesman’ by Boston Magazine because of some reportedly false medical claims he made.
‘We’re so close,’ Brady said of Guerrero. ‘He’s so much more than someone who just works on me physically…There’s no way I would be here today without [him].’
Alex Guerrero (left) and Tom Brady (right) work together on the quarterback’s TB12 brand
Before Guerrero, Brady explained, trainers were simply icing his arm and telling him to sit out of practice whenever he was hurt. But after a string of injuries in 2004 and 2005, Brady started working with Guerrero, who had previously trained Patriots pass rusher Willie McGinest, and according to the future Hall of Famer, that’s when he started getting healthier.
‘I was like, what can he do that’s been different than what everyone else has done for me, which is ice your shoulder and take some rest,’ Brady said, ‘and boy did I learn a lot.’
Brady explained that Guerrero is primarily focused on pliability, which Brady sees as ‘the lengthening and softening muscles to get them back into balance.’
‘Over the years so many muscle contractions, or through all the workouts that we do, we shorten our muscles,’ Brady said, explaining that he and Guerrero work to counteract that attrition.
Tom Brady poses for a family shot with supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen (right)
Brady credits his notoriously specific diet for his success at age 40
While driving with Gisele, Brady admitted the Patriots played ‘so s*****’ in a loss to the Chiefs
Brady even bragged that while most quarterbacks his age struggle to throw as they did when they were younger, he can still ‘fire that mother*****.’
The documentary features Brady at home playing with his children, who pose with his five Super Bowl rings.
Brady also gets a bit of advice from supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen.
The two are shown driving home after an embarrassing early-season loss to Kansas City when Brady says to Bundchen that the Patriots were ‘so s*****’ on the field.
Bundchen disagreed and asked Brady to be patient with his new teammates.
‘You were not s*****,’ she said. ‘You were just not in sync yet. You don’t know each other. It’s like building a relationship. The first time you meet someone you’re not going to be their best friend.
‘It takes time to get to know people,’ she continued. ‘It’s going to be awesome. I know it. OK?’
Judging by the fact that Brady and the Patriots are back in the Super Bowl for the eighth time since 2001, it appears Bundchen was right.
Brady spends much of the episode subtly plugging his TB12 brand and offering up a variety of clichés aimed at explaining why he continues to be so successful at 40.
Brady and Bundchen’s son Benjamin Rein tries on his father’s five Super Bowl rings
Tom Brady struggles to fit all five Super Bowl rings on his hand
‘What a handsome hubby’ Bundchen said about Brady as he walked into their kitchen
‘The joys of winning are great, but I sweep them under the rug so fast,’ he said. ‘There is a brief moment of time when I enjoy the experience of winning. Then I’m thinking about the next game and I’m thinking about winning again.’
While Guerrero is featured favorably in the documentary, he was the source of some controversy this season as he was reportedly banned from the team sideline and plane by head coach Bill Belichick.
Brady and Belichick have avoided the subject publicly for the most part.
‘I don’t really agree with your question, so I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Brady angrily told a reporter who asked about Guerrero in December.
As reported by ESPN and The Boston Globe, Guerrero has treated several of Brady’s teammates, including tight end Rob Gronkowski and wide receiver Julian Edelman.
In 2015, the Globe reported that Patriots medical and training staffs had complained to Belichick about Guerrero’s role, citing concerns over alternative treatments that often conflicted with their own methods. Guerrero’s medical background was also reportedly questioned.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, Guerrero (behind Brady) falsely claimed to be a doctor and insisted his products could cure cancer and concussions
And since Guerrero was equally critical of the Patriots’ staff, young players were put in the position of working with him, and appeasing Brady, or the team’s staff, which was Belichick’s clear preference.
‘Bill’s answer to everything is to lift more weights,’ Brady would tell teammates, according to ESPN.
Some around the team reportedly felt that characterization was inaccurate given Belichick’s focus on soft-tissue science and its effect on injuries as well as a proper diet.
Another issue was the claims Brady and Guerrero were making through their TB12 brand.
‘When athletes get injured, they shouldn’t blame their sport,’ Brady wrote in the TB12 Method.
According to ESPN, Guerrero’s techniques helped some players, but others felt like ‘it was a cult,’ which is why some blame Brady for the problems in New England.
‘Tom changed,’ a friend of Brady’s told ESPN. ‘That’s where a lot of these problems started.’
Boston Magazine previously referred to Guerrero as a snake oil salesman.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, Guerrero falsely claimed to be a doctor and insisted his products could cure cancer and concussions.
He even claimed to have made a nutritional supplement that cured terminally ill patients affected with cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease.
The product, called Supreme Greens, was purported to have cured all but eight of the 200 terminally ill patients that were part of the study.
‘This is just out and out quackery,’ Barrie Cassileth, who has a PhD in medical sociology and the founder of the Integrative Medicine Service at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, told Boston Magazine.
Brady once insisted that despite being fair skinned, he stopped getting sunburns once he got in the habit of hydrating himself with nearly 300 ounces of water a day
The report revealed that Supreme Greens were never actually tested and the supposed study never existed, as he later admitted.
According to Boston Magazine, Guerrero was told by the FTC to stop referring to himself as a doctor. The publication also revealed that Guerrero’s degree in Chinese medicine came from a California college that no longer exists.
Brady’s claims in his book, ‘The TB12 Method,’ are also questionable.
The Patriots franchise quarterback insisted that despite being fair skinned, he stopped getting sunburns once he got in the habit of hydrating himself with nearly 300 ounces of water a day.
‘When I was growing up, and playing outside in the sun, I got sunburned a lot,’ Brady wrote in the 300-page book. ‘I was a fair-skinned Irish boy, after all. These days, even if I get an adequate amount of sun, I won’t get a sunburn, which I credit to the amount of water I drink. I always hydrate afterward, too, to keep my skin from peeling.
‘When I once told that to my sister,’ the book continues, ‘she said, “You mean I don’t have to use all those moisturizers and facial products to keep my skin looking good? I should just drink as much water as you do? I think you should market your [stupid water drop things] as a beauty product.” I just laughed.’
Those ‘stupid water drop things’ are Brady’s ‘TB12 electrolyte drops,’ which he encourages readers to use in their water. In fact, much of Brady’s book references his own line of health products.
Tom Brady (right) celebrates the Patriots AFC Championship Game victory with receiver Danny Amendola on Sunday. The duo will face the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII
Brady holds the AFC championship trophy after the Patriots’ comeback win over Jacksonville
According to a description of the book on Amazon, Brady ‘explains how he developed his groundbreaking approach to long-term fitness, presenting a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to his personal practice. Brady offers the principles behind pliability, which is at the heart of a new paradigm shift and movement toward a more natural, healthier way of exercising, training, and living—and one that challenges some commonly held assumptions around health and wellness.’
The description continues, ‘The TB12 Method is the only book an athlete will ever need, a playbook from Brady himself that will change the game.
In a September interview with CBS, Brady confessed to some other interesting dietary quarks.
When asked about coffee, Brady said he has ‘[n]ever tried it.’
He’s tried a ‘little bit’ of salt and ‘on occasion’ has some sugar. As for dairy, Brady ‘almost never’ tries it, aside from some intermittent encounters with ice cream.
But while Brady remains concerned about dehydration and skincare, concussions are not a major concern, as he told CBS.
‘I don’t worry about them, no,’ Brady said in the interview. ‘I mean, I’m not oblivious to them. I understand the risks that come with the physical nature of our game.’
Bundchen said in a May interview that the quarterback has had unreported concussions and she worried about his long-term health. A joint NFL and players’ union investigation found there was no evidence that Brady or the team failed to follow the league’s policies or procedures on concussions.