Nutrition Edge

Growing up on the south side of Chicago, Jesse Beckom dreamed of becoming a professional football star. He wasn’t offered a scholarship at Iowa State University, but he battled his way onto the football team as a walk-on and then went on to be a defensive standout and co-captain of the team. So how did he end up as part of the world-champion USA bobsledding team? Read on to find out more about Jesse’s inspiring story.

Snapshot

• Age: 32
• Home base: Lake Placid, New York, by way of Chicago, Illinois
• Occupation: Team USA bobsled push athlete/brakeman and Olympic hopeful
• Height: 6'0"
• Weight: 220 lbs
• Bench press: over 450 lbs
• Squat: A small country!

Notable Accomplishments

• Walking on to the Iowa State University football team, earning a full scholarship, starting, and becoming the Big 12 Defensive Newcomer of the Year
• Graduating with a B.S. and M.S. in community and regional planning
• Earning a spot on the World Cup USA bobsledding team in his first year of racing
• Racing as Team USA 1 during the first half of 2006–2007 bobsled season and helping Team USA 1 become the overall World Cup champion that year
• Getting the opportunity to motivate and inspire elementary and high school kids through talking about bobsledding, work ethic, health, and a positive lifestyle

Q: How did you go from Division 1 football player at Iowa State University to bobsled push athlete?
Jesse: In the summer of 2002, while pursuing a master’s degree at Iowa State University, I received a phone call from one of my football coaches — Charlie Partridge, or “Coach P” — asking what I thought about the sport of bobsledding. Of course, growing up in Chicago, I didn’t know a thing about the sport. It turns out that Coach P had just met Travis Bell, a Team USA bobsled driver. Travis was in town meeting with a sponsor and was also looking for athletes who might be interested in bobsledding. Coach told him about my stats. Travis thought I might be a good fit for the sport. Considering that this was an opportunity to compete in races around the world, and possibly represent the United States in the Olympics, I readily accepted Coach P’s offer to give Travis my phone number. Later that day I received a call from Travis inviting me to a tryout camp in Lake Placid, New York. That was how my bobsledding career got started.

Q: How do collegiate football and World Cup bobsledding compare?
Jesse: They’re very different! Besides the fact that I run on ice instead of grass, the sport of bobsledding is very unique and very different from football. With football I needed upper and lower body strength. It was all about physical contact and being able to bring down an opposing team’s running back or tight end. For the bobsled, the training is much more focused on strength and speed in the lower body. Also, in bobsledding there is no playbook or play scheming each week in preparation for the opposing team. Instead, you have different tracks that you prepare for. For the bobsled driver, it’s a lot more involved because each track has different kinds of curves, and different pressures in the curves that can pull the sled up or down. For a brakeman/push athlete like me, the point where we load into the sled changes with every track according to the steepness and length of each start. Another big difference is the scale of the competition. When I compete as a USA bobsledder, I’m representing my country against teams from other countries around the world. It’s not my school against a rival school. So at the World Cup level, it’s a bigger stage.

Q: Describe the bobsled events?
Jesse: In the 2-man event, you have one driver and one brakeman/push athlete; in the 4-man, you have one driver and three brakemen/push athletes. I prefer 4-man because it’s the original bobsled event and it really demands a team effort and coordination between all the athletes involved. If one person makes a mistake while loading into the sled, we all suffer for it, either in the start time or the initial velocity time.

Q: You walk off the football field and onto a bobsled track with zero experience — how did you work your way up the rankings as a push athlete on Team USA?
Jesse: I’ve been in the sport for about eight years now, and I basically worked my way up the ranks through extensive training during the off-season with my strength and speed coaches — Jason Hartman, Jon Carlock, and Mario Kelso. They’ve helped me to improve every year. I think God has given me the ability to be successful, but I also have to train harder and harder every year because there is always someone better out there. I will be calling upon all that training this year as I battle back from an abductor injury and climb back up the ranks to where I belong.

Q: Describe the training you do as a bobsled push athlete.
Jesse: I train six days a week when we aren’t competing. I have weight training for two hours at a time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I have two-hour sprint/push training sessions on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. My weight training has a heavy emphasis on the lower body, so lots of squats, cleans, snatch, single leg squats, and also plyometrics including hurdle hops, box jumps, and standing long jump. The sprint work includes anything from 100-meter sprints to 20-meter starts, and sled pulls. In the off-season we also do push training on our summer push tracks, where we have bobsleds fitted with wheels that roll along 100 meters of railroad lines. The push training allows us to work on our timing at the start and loading into the sled. With the addition of daily sliding — which is actual bobsledding — and races on the weekends, training easily exceeds eight hours per day.

Q: What do you do nutritionally and in terms of hydration to support all that training?
Jesse: To make sure that I stay hydrated, I try to drink at least one glass of water with every meal and I consume a sports drink during and after training. In terms of eating, I focus on carbs and protein. At the Olympic Training Center I eat plenty of pasta, fruits, vegetables, chicken breast, tuna, yogurt, and my fair share of steak.

Q: How do you approach nutrition and hydration on competition days?
Jesse: During a competition we have two runs per race with about an hour between runs. Because we’re in the middle of a competition, there’s no time to eat a meal. Instead, some athletes will snack on fruit or nuts. I do best with a PowerBar®Performance Energy bar or the PowerBar® Gel Blasts™ energy chews with water or PowerBar® Endurance sports drink between competitions. This gives me the energy I need without making me feel heavy.

Q: Do you have a favorite PowerBar® product?
Jesse: My favorite is the Cookies & Cream-flavor PowerBar Performance Energy bar. I enjoy it because it quickly replenishes me after a workout. I really like the taste, and I prefer it over candy bars.

Q: What’s most difficult about the sport for you, and what do you like the best about it?
Jesse: I’d say the most difficult part about my sport is warming up in temperatures that usually range from 20° F to -50° F. The way we deal with that is by wearing four or more layers under our GORE-TEX®-lined snow pants, and skull cap, gloves, and shoes. Wearing all those layers makes it a bit hard to move initially. But as you move, the materials loosen up just as I do. What I like best about the sport of bobsledding is the relationships that I’ve developed with my teammates. It’s a great feeling being able to confidently take on teams from countries all over the world with your teammates, knowing that we’ve all trained as hard as possible for this one moment in time!

Q: What’s your next goal?
Jesse: Making the 2010 Olympic bobsledding team and bringing home a medal!

Q: Having achieved success in two sports, what do you think has made you so successful?
Jesse: First, my parents, Jesse and Addie Beckom, and my sisters, Denise, Tina, Ulanka, and Venus, always supported me when I played football and still show me unwavering support as I compete in bobsledding. My faith in God has helped to keep me grounded in reality and thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given. And lessons in toughness and resilience I learned from my Iowa State football coaches — Coach P, Matthew McGettigan, and Paul Rhodes. I think all of these factors, coupled with my own desire to be the best and to never stop trying no matter what the situation, have led to my success in football and bobsledding.

Q: And finally, what advice can you offer up-and-coming athletes who will read this?
Jesse: The best advice I can offer younger athletes is that no matter how tough the situation, or how slim a chance you have to make it, always believe in yourself and your abilities. If you do that, no one can stop you!

You can find out more about Jesse at www.jessebeckom3.com. Also, if you’re interested in knowing about other PowerBar® Team Elite™ athletes or how you can join the ranks, click on the Team Elite link at PowerBar.com.