Former professional soccer player Carli Lloyd isn’t allowing retirement to slow her down—instead, she has pivoted into different fun exercises. Lloyd, 41, shared pictures of herself playing golf at the Annexus Pro-Am, wearing black pants and a red shirt on the green while dealing with dramatic weather. “Shot at Glory on 16th ✅ Hail ✅ Downpour ✅ Lightening ✅. Second one in the books! Only able to get in 6 holes due to the weather but still had a great time,” she captioned the Instagram post. Here’s what Lloyd’s health and fitness regimen looks like.
Lloyd enjoys a high-protein diet with plenty of steak, salmon, egg whites, yogurt, vegetables, fruit, and green salads. “Focusing on a clean diet has completely changed my outlook on my overall health and well-being,” she told PEOPLE. “I know that when I eat better, I feel better. You don’t put regular gas into a Ferrari!”
Lloyd genuinely loves running for cardio and the mental health benefits. “Any type of exercise such as running, training or doing body weight exercises makes me feel better,” she told Baylor College of Medicine. “Running makes me happy and feels great! If I am traveling I scope out my surroundings. Sometimes I run up the hotel stairwells or find a patch of grass nearby and get a workout in. I tailor my workouts to the amount of time I usually have and go off of that.”
Lloyd’s soccer training was understandably intense. “We’ll do ball stuff. I’ll spend time doing upper-body strength, body-weight exercises,” she told The Cut. “I do push-ups and sit-ups, and I’ll do the TRX. I’ll do [battle] ropes, resistance bands, boxing. Anything that’s not weights. James likes to say there are no dumbbells or barbells on the soccer field, so everything we do is soccer-specific. You need to be lean and agile, and the body-weight stuff works for me.”
Lloyd makes sure to allow herself proper recovery, which means making healthy choices. “I think recovery is around the clock,” she told The Cut. “Are you sleeping enough? Are you hydrating enough? Are you stretching? Are you eating well? Pretty much everything that I do is a reflection of how I’m going to feel on the field. I take great pride in getting in an ice bath after training and just taking care of myself.”
Lloyd has her own method of dealing with stress and being mentally prepared. “Mental preparation comes from my on-the-field training and off-the-field training,” she told Baylor College of Medicine. “What I have realized is that if the mind is strong the body will follow. I prepare days ahead of time to make sure I am blocking out all outside distractions and zoning into what I need to do in the game… I often times find myself taking on a lot. I like to keep busy and get a lot accomplished but I also realize that I need to do a better job of managing how much I push myself. I get routine massages and I make lists of what I need to do.”