Throughout 2012 Russell Athletic Atlanta Falcons Training Camp, left tackle Will Svitek will document his journey and give fans a look at the inner workings of camp from his perspective. From what it's like to be immersed in football 24 hours a day to the lighter side of camp behind the scenes, you'll get to hear about all the things that go on at training camp that fans don't get access to. Today, Svitek updates his first few days of training camp and goes over some of the highlights, like the comfortable, new black leather chairs that could cause some napping in the meeting rooms.
We're a few days into practice and it feels good to get into the flow after that first practice. The first days always feel like a week because of meetings, but once you get into that groove and routine, things get a lots better.
And things are definitely better in meetings these days. During camp, you always look for the little things — the highlights of the day. One of the highlights of camp so far is that we got these new big, black leather chairs in the meeting rooms. That's a big plus, especially for us big guys.
 |
The lumbar support is a lot better now for these older linemen. We had these old chairs last year and 300 pounds every single day took a toll on those things, so it's nice to be in the new chairs.
I feel like halfway through training camp, though, I'll be throwing a lot of water bottles at my napping teammates because those chairs are pretty comfy.
We're all bums in camp. You're at the facility in Flowery Branch 24/7. Since you're always in football attire, you pretty much don't change your clothes going from the apartments to the locker room. Unless you're Tony Gonzalez, you're wearing the same thing every single day.
It's actually a treat when you get to change your outfit at the end of the week. It's like a monumental experience. No one shaves for a while, no one changes outfits — it's kind of embarrassing, but luckily I'm around football guys so I'm not trying to impress anybody and get any dates during this time. It works out. Once I go back out in public after camp, then I'll clean myself up a little bit.
At our apartments on site in Flowery Branch, there's four rooms, a common room and two bathrooms in each apartment. I'm rooming with Garrett Reynolds and Justin Blalock (despite him being a University of Texas guy, he's the smartest guy on the team).
O-linemen stick together, but you're really never in the room. We finish meetings at 10 at night and you rush to team snack, which is not really a snack for me.
We'll get more on food in later posts, but team snack is always an important part of the day. When you're 300 pounds, you struggle to keep that weight on during training camp, so snack is more like a meal.
I try to consume about 1,000 calories before bedtime. Most people are probably grossed out by that, but I have to stuff my face, even late at night, to keep my weight going. This Georgia heat will shed the pounds quickly if you don't replace what you lose.
At night, I'll eat a full meal, hang out with my teammates a bit and then it's bed. That's my "Will time."
I'll call my family and check in with them or read a book. I'll check the e-mail or check my personal Facebook page and live vicariously through all your high school buddies who are doing fun things.
It's my alone time, so it's nice. Those few moments right before I go to sleep feel so good, and then it's right back to it the next day.
