Luton Town's latest signing Andros Townsend has revealed a unique new approach to maximising his fitness.
Townsend has played four times since signing for the Hatters on a free transfer in October, continuing his return to full fitness following a serious anterior cruciate ligament injury in March 2022. It was by far the longest injury in the ex-England midfielder’s career so far, laying him off for over a year.
Now, speaking on Ben Foster's Fozcast, Townsend has revealed a new approach to fitness and recovery – and a truly bizarre evening meal to boot.
“Ever since I did my injury I've been focused on finding recovery things,” he explained. “Ways to kind of get an edge on other players.
“I don't know if it's crazy to you guys but I've just tried everything… have you heard of float therapy?
“In float therapy there's tonnes of Epsom salt in a shallow pool. Loads of Epsom salt and you go in there, you float for an hour and it literally makes you feel so much better. It made my knee feel so much better. You just go and lie there and meditate for an hour and it literally cures all your problems.”
Townsend said he didn't believe in left-of-field treatments in his younger years, but has “found” new tricks to help him compete at 32. One requires a particular level of commitment.
“For dinner every night I eat chicken feet,” he said with a smile. “Steamed chicken feet. I swear to you.
“There's collagen in the chicken feet, there's the cartilage. There's basically so much goodness that now that they put into pills and put into shots. The daily pills you take at training are mainly from chicken feet and random stuff like that.
“I order massive batches. It comes frozen. I whack a load in the freezer. I steam them. I put them in a steam oven for 20 minutes and it's lovely. Honestly, it's like a chicken wing.
“Obviously you don't eat the bone but you have to eat as much of the cartilage and as close to the bone as possible. Like, the nails. I have to eat close to the nails.”
A charming description of life sustaining a top-flight football career.
In a more serious section of the podcast Townsend also opened up about his gambling addiction as a younger player. Asked what he did to replace betting, the winger described an interesting mixture of alternatives: “[I would do] anything. At the time I was learning languages. Pokémon, Pokémon Go – I was addicted to that. I learned Greek – I’m half Greek¡ so am learning Greek and really did invest my time into that.
“Pokémon Go I used to drag my missus, before I had kids, to all sorts of parks catching Pokémon. It was insane! Climbing over fences because the park was closed late at night.”
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