The Checkup with Doctor Mike - "We're Too Soft" Says World Cup Soccer Legend Carli Lloyd

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Watch the full video interview here: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/youtube/CarliLloyf Carli Lloyd is one of, if not the greatest soccer player of all time. She's a 2 time Olympic gold medalist, 2 time FIFA World Cup Champion, and 2 time FIFA player of the year, amongst countless other accolades. Now in retirement from her professional soccer career, Carli is pivoting to new ventures in life, including her recent appearance and victory on Fox's "Special Forces: World's Toughest Test", where she outlasted other world-class athletes to complete US Special Forces military training. She came on my show to talk about her experience on Special Forces, the grueling injuries she sustained in her decades-long soccer career, and her strong opinions on the soccer world of today. Follow Carli IG: https://www.instagram.com/carlilloyd/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/CarliLloyd Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarliLloydOfficial/ Executive Producer and Host: Dr. Mike Varshavski Produced by Dan Owens and Sam Bowers Art by Caroline Weigum CONTACT: [e-mail]

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I do think that the generations nowadays are completely soft. Oh. Yeah. Why? I just think that there's this attitude of, you know, I don't want to overtrain. We got to delode. You know, I'm not a, I'm not a fan of all that. That's Carly Lloyd, one of the greatest soccer players of all time.

Here's a quick resume. She's a two-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time FIFA World Cup champion, two-time FIFA player of the year. And now, a one-time guest on the checkup with Dr. Mike. And this ain't no softball interview. I opened up with the tough questions. All right. Well, we have to settle this right at the outset.

Is it soccer or football? I think football sounds cooler. But when you say football in America, people get confused. So what is it for you? What is it in your heart? When your heart says it, what is your heart saying? Football. But I think when I go overseas, I usually use football.

Okay. But then when I'm here, you know, I got to say soccer. Carly has been playing the beautiful. game her entire life. And while she has ascended to the top of her sports several times, her journey actually started right across the river in New Jersey. I started playing at the age of five. I grew up in a very small town, Delran, New Jersey. Everybody knew everything about everybody. It was a it was a blue collar mentality. You know, people there, workers, my parents, they didn't have a lot of money. So it wasn't like, you know, they were giving me a goal in the back of my

backyard. I had a scrounge up balls that I could find. I would have one pair of cleats that I would have to kind of savor for the whole year. But I absolutely love the sport. And I think, you know, there's a kind of a constant theme with successful people, you know, first is you love it, you're passionate about it, whatever you're doing. And then the second thing is, is you just outwork everybody. You do all the things that not many people want to do, the hard things. And yeah, it's been, it's been wild. 34 years I played, the beautiful game, 17 professional years. But it was a really, really hard and difficult journey.

And I think that's what allowed me to reach the heights that I, that I reached because I kept, kept just wanting to kind of stick it to people, to prove people wrong. With so many highs in Carly's career, I wanted to know which stood out above the rest. No surprise, her first Olympics in 2008 comes to mind when she and the U.S. team defeated Brazil to take home the gold medal. An amazing moment in 2008 Olympics, having won my first Olympic gold, scored the game-winning goal in the final. And so I was kind of riding this high of like, oh, look at me, you know.

Before you know it, you're slapped down, you know, on your face. And, you know, the reality is success doesn't always last as long as you'd like it to last. So I had to do some soul searching again. I started to change my diet, started to push on. And then 2012 Olympics was another big change of a moment for me. I had been benched right before. And again, we talk about this kind of proven people wrong. I wanted to prove to my coach that she made the wrong decision.

And so I got my opportunity in the first game, 16 minutes in. One of my teammates goes down, injured, and then I went on and never left the field after that. And we won the Olympic gold for the second time there. So I think there were just, there wasn't just like one moment throughout my career. There were all these little milestones that either, you know, had me come tumbling down the mountain really fast and had to pick myself up and go back again or there was some success, which then gave me more confidence to want more. So it was, yeah, it was a crazy, crazy journey.

Through these tribulations of yours, like when you're on, the peak of winning a gold medal and you're excited and you were responsible for that win because of your goal, then the drop off, you say you pick yourself back up, you look at what you're doing wrong and you try and improve. What practically speaking are you doing in those moments? Are you looking at what your physical peak shape is? Are you looking at your relationship with your teammates? What are the things that you're changing, especially when you're performing at such a high level? I think my mindset was always, there's always more I can do. And so I'm not always looking at the things that I'm doing good at. I'm always looking at the

things that I'm not so good at and I need to improve upon. And I think most people in the world want to just be comfortable. They want to do things that make them feel good and that they're good at something. But I'm actually the opposite. I don't feel I'm good or improving or growing as a person unless I'm uncomfortable and I'm doing things that are not in my comfort zone. So, I would always kind of reflect after a major tournament or reflect after an injury or a setback or an obstacle. And I would figure out ways of how I can come back stronger. And, you know, maybe that's my character. You know, maybe I needed to be a better teammate or do things differently. Maybe my leadership qualities I could be better at. Maybe it's a technical thing on the field or

tactical aspect of the game, just always finding ways to keep improving. And I was doing that till the very end, till the last moment, I decided to hang up my boots and, you know, call it, call it a fair go and head into retirement. But it was, it's just, it's constant. And now even in this phase, life after soccer, it's the same sort of thing. You know, what can I do to keep putting myself out there, out of my comfort zone. Carly hasn't exactly struggled to find ways to push herself in retirement. She just competed in the reality competition show Special Forces on Fox, where she and other celebrities were put through drills that are performed by the United States Special Forces.

It not only put her in her darkest moment, but it also brought up traumatic memories of her near-death experience. An email came through from a casting director to my agent, and you kind of look at some of those things is it was like a there's a bit of a long email like weird like oh we're you know doing this show that's you know going to come out in the u.s and didn't give much information i'm like oh okay this looks cool so chat with my agent like you know are they going to have hair and makeup are they going to have a masseuse like do i get a plus one yeah none of that none of that mattered whatsoever so as we started to kind of get the contract together and i still was trying to kind of find

now what what exactly does this entail like i don't want to be jumping out of helicopters that was that was like my exact words and so little did you know once i signed my life away we then get a little sneak peek at the uk version of the show that was shot in jordan as well before our show and i and i watched that that clip and i was just like oh my gosh so i was actually i wasn't second guessing it but i was i was pretty nervous about the show But that's good because you said you love being uncomfortable. Yeah, I mean, I just, I think, you know, people have seen me on this show in more of a real raw, emotional state. I talk about my career.

I didn't really let anybody see the emotions, whether I was nervous or sad or frustrated. I kind of just always kept that in and only my close friends and family. family would, would see those emotions that I would share with them. So with this special forces, I held it together, but I was really, really nervous inside every single day. I mean, every day I thought I was going to die. But I was like, wait, they can't let us die. I hope not. Was that your coping mechanism? You're like, no, for TV, they won't let us die. Literally. I was like, there's no way we could die. What was the hardest challenge for you, mentally or physically? I would say probably the car submerging.

I don't know what triggered me to really panic because I was actually on the swim team at home, my swim club until I was 18. So I don't have a thing with water, but I think it triggered a moment in my life when I totaled my car. So I was driving down to the beach on the parkway, hit some black ice, did exactly what you don't want to do, you know, braked. jerked the wheel and then I veered off onto the side of the road into some tidal water and my car started to fill up and I had an exit from the roof so I guess that maybe triggered something but

that was really difficult um everything was I actually kind of liked being lit on fire that was fun it's like one of the easier to ask yeah I mean it was harder to get all that the suit and the the goop on that we had um but I would I would say the last bit the interrogation was, I went to a deep, dark place to get through that. And while heroic achievements on the pitch have fueled Carly's confidence, they haven't exactly fueled her joy. As someone who works as hard as Carly to achieve greatness, taking your foot off the gas and celebrating those wins has been quite difficult for her. I think it was really difficult to celebrate the achievements, to fully, really soak it in

because I was so afraid of soaking it in to the point where I would become complacent. And your guard would drop. And the minute you become complacent, it's a scary, scary moment. So I just, I didn't fully allow myself to, to enjoy it. I mean, maybe I look back and say, how could I have not fully enjoyed it? I don't think you can have the best of both worlds. You know, I don't believe that that balances. If you want to be at the top of the one percenters, I don't think so.

Hold on a second. Carly, are you saying you have to be sad to be the best? Have to be sad? Yeah, because that's what you're saying. You're like you can't be happy. I think it's a lonely, I think it's a lonely, it's a lonely situation to be in. Look at Tiger Woods, for example. I don't think he could have had, you know, a balance per se or times where he just sat

back and enjoyed his, you know, however X amount of master wins that he had. No, he was just, he was hungrier for more and more and more and more. And so I don't think it was until the end of my career where I started to really kind of take things in more, enjoy the moment more. Because when you're in it, those wheels are just turning. They're turning and burning. And it just makes it, I guess it's part of the sacrifice. Everybody sacrifices something to be at the top. Yeah. That's very true and I don't think sacrifice needs to be sort of not thought of but to some degree thinking from a psychological standpoint there's got to be benefit to leaving that space of constant self-improvement and self-criticism and going into the at least for a few days or some time period of I'm going

to fully celebrate this moment and be in the present and not stop the improvement the next day I'll be thinking about improvement but really having that period to reflect upon your success because the reason I ask you this is as a doctor, even in the field that we practice it, we're constantly thinking about the next test when we're training or when we're with a patient we're thinking about the next patient. Is there something that we can learn from you of how can we exist in the present, celebrate those wins, and then continue to improve and be very critical of ourselves and be that demanding sports champion? Is there a world where both can coexist? And you say no, it seems.

I think for a very, very short moment. I don't think that, you know, for me to, you know, completely shut off for two weeks and I'm going to go tour around with this trophy that I just won. And I just, I was always looking at it. Oh, I know no one else is doing it. So I'm going to do it. And I'm going to train more and clock in more hours because I know that no one else is doing it. So that was that competitive edge and that.

confidence that I had knowing that I was doing more than everybody else. But as I do look back, I do wish that I took maybe a bit more time to let some things soak in. And I think that I did for some of the big moments. I think when you win big moments and you're kind of the star in that moment, you get pulled in a lot of different directions. You've got media. You've, you know, you've got all these different things. And then what comes of it afterwards, it's really, really hard because you're in that turning and burning. Not only have, do you have to start training and doing all that to start the next cycle back up again, but you have all these other obligations. So after the 2015 World Cup, when I scored a hat trick, my whole life just

changed completely. Carly isn't exaggerating. Her life did change. In the 2015 World Cup Final against Japan, Carly scored not one, not two, but three goals. Or a hat trick. In the first 16 minutes of play. To date, it's the first and only hat trick ever scored by a woman in a World Cup final. This turned her into a household name and a hero to millions. You might think after such a feat, she'd want to enjoy a vacation, but taking a vacation as a competitor isn't always easy. Something in psychology that we always talk about is the fear of taking a vacation. So often people say, I'll be less productive, I will lose that week that I could be using to get ahead. But when we actually look at the data and we see how productive you can become from taking time off that there's

actually a huge benefit to leaving that space where your mind clears out, you become more focused, you re-energize in ways that we can't even fully understand and fathom. So I think it would have been cool to see that happen in your world and just seeing how, like if we could run a simulation, how that would impact everything. Yeah, no, I 100% agree with that. And I think the older that I got, I've realized that my breaks, look, the soccer season is long. We still. We still. usually start up the end after the new year and go all the way until middle of of November so you really have six weeks off and it's not really off because usually take two weeks off and then you've got a gear back up again so as I got older I did really take those

breaks completely shut down let my mind my body rest okay and I also was in you know, throughout my career, nothing too serious, but I broke a lot of bones. And so that sidelined me and gave me kind of the rest and the rejuvenation. But I 100% agree. And I think now the balance that I have in life of kind of being more in the present moment, I definitely have a way better grasp on that. Sure. Mental struggles are serious and deserve a lot of respect. But being a professional athlete, I knew Carly must have had some physical struggles as well. You talked about having multiple broken bones, physical injuries. What was the most painful one that you sustained?

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I broke my collarbone, my shoulder, my ankle, my wrist. Oh, okay. I had my one and only surgery, which was a scope in 2020, which, again, I think all kind of played a role of, this whole journey leading to where it led, you know, with my family and all that. And yeah, that's about it. I would say, I sprained my MCL too as well. I would have to probably say the ankle was tough.

You're just immobile. So like inverted ankle injury? Yeah, I think I fractured the tib fib down by the ankle bone. And, yeah, it was. Non-weight bearing for a period of time. Were you on a little scooter? You know what? I did not get the.

scooter. You didn't get this? That's the most fun part. I'm like, was the scooter not around in 2010 when I broke my ankle? I was on crutches. You must have been just so strong that they were like, just give crutches. I know. Disappointed. But you know what's tough with crutches. I see a lot of people make this mistake is they put it fully into their armpits. And then they actually develop a nerve injury in their arms for misusing the crutches. Because you're supposed to have a space there. You're not actually supposed to put your whole body way on the crutches. You're supposed to use your arms. Did you ever, ever have used your arms. Did you ever have. You're supposed to have a space there. You're not actually supposed to put your whole body weight on the crutches. Did you're supposed to use your arms. Did you ever. Did you ever. Did you ever. any complications with that? I didn't. No. So you crushed the crutches. Yes, I did. Okay. I almost, I think, yeah, I almost tried to get up the stairs at one point with, without crutches hobbling. That was probably not a good situation. That's dangerous. How would you say your health is in general? Do you feel like you have a good relationship with like a primary care doctor? Well, you know, one of the benefits of playing on the national team or like playing with any sports team is you kind of have everyone at the tip of your finger. Sure.

You need a doctor? Yep, we've got a doctor. You need a massage therapist. We got that. We've got trainers. We got this. So I don't necessarily have a primary care doctor. I need to kind of need to hunt one down.

Yeah, that's important. But yeah, I mean, I think overall I'm healthy. I am very in tune with my body. I treated my body as if it was a temple when I was playing and took care. Well, to some degree, you're also jumping on stairs with a broken ankle. Yeah, I was risking some things, but I just wanted to get up there quicker. When I have a boxing match on the horizon, I know how hard I'm working out to get ready. Carly has her exercise motor running non-stop since she was a kid.

Now that she's retired, I wanted to know if she's still maintaining her incredible level of exercise. It's different. Yeah, right? I didn't think it would be different because I've had, you know, some of my former teammates towards the tail end of my career. They know how psychotic I was with training. They're like, you're going to just be. you're going to be like still doing the same training like i don't know about the same training um but i thought i was telling them you know yeah i'm going to be running i'm going to be doing

some things it's actually kind of it's a little difficult getting yourself up in the morning if it's freezing cold outside normally it's like i got to just do it now i'm kind of like uh it's a little cold i put it off then i'm doing something else during the day and then i don't get to it and then it is what it is. So it definitely has a different feel to it. But I always feel after I finish it so much better. And it's almost like my therapy where I can just kind of tune out the world, 30, 40 minutes, just go for a jog, collect my thoughts and do that.

But, yeah, it's... What strategy do you use for that self-talk that you described? Maybe we can learn something from a world champion? Self-talk. I would say, you know, now that I'm kind of in this normal world like everybody else, not training, not training for anything per se, I think that it's hard. I mean, it's hard to get motivated to do certain things. I get it. And, you know, I think when you kind of just have little goals set, I think, you know, for example, let's say someone wants to lose 20 pounds.

I think what people forget is that it's a journey. You're not going to work out. for a week and lose 20 pounds. I mean, maybe if you starved yourself, you could potentially. Yeah. But not a valuable thing to have happened. Not healthy. Yeah. But I think it's just about those small incremental steps every day.

So if you wake up and you do 15 minutes of some sort of active, whether it's a walk, whether it's a bike, run, just knowing that if you do those little things day by day, eventually you'll get somewhere. And I think you just have to be consistent with the process. There's too many people that are just inconsistent with the process, but then always want the result. Like it doesn't work like that. Well, that's why like I take issue.

And when I say take issue, I say that very lightly. The big sporting companies, like Nike is a prime example of this. They'll have the shirts that say, run until you can. Give it. You're all like until you're on the ground or whatever, like these inspo sayings. When in reality, it's what you're saying. It's the consistency that matters. It's about the lifestyle change that you're trying to do, that two steps forward with one step back is just as good as taking one step forward.

But they'll never put that on a t-shirt. No, no. And, yeah, I mean, I would kill myself. You know, I would do things in my workout during my career where my legs were wobbly. And, you know, if you do that just with the average person, they're not going to want to come back the next day. Well, because you were doing it also with the thought in mind that this was a limited time that you're doing. Yes. And I was training for a World Cup or an Olympics

and knowing that that's the goal in mind. There's an end stop. Versus when you're making a lifestyle change, this is for your entirety of your life. I'm sure if someone told you, the way you're training right now is the way you're going to be training when you're 70. You'd probably like, oh, man, that's going to be tough.

Yeah. So I would say two words that stick out to me. And I feel like I'm somewhat doing this now is, and I have balance. Balance for me is huge. I think everybody needs that balance in life with, you know, your kids, your spouse, your work, your activities, all that. And then just consistency. With life after soccer being wide open for Carly, I asked her what she considers an ideal balance on her life these days. If it were up to me,

I would try to do everything that comes my way. You know, hey, come do this media event or this appearance or this interview, whereas now I've really just trying to be selective. If it's something that I really want to do, I'll do it. If it's not, then I'll just pass on it. And so I think having that balance of that work life balance has been really beneficial for me and healthier too, because I also want to enjoy life. Like I said, throughout my career, it was tunnel vision. It was hardcore motivation. And now I actually feel like I'm able to live life and do different things, go golfing, take some trips, do some appearances, spend time with family, friends, all that.

So I just feel good about the balance that I have in life, which I think is. is hard for some people. For sure, especially when you're in that moment with the blinders on. So now let's do a fun scenario. I'm a 13-year-old aspiring soccer phenom. Do you give the balance speech or do you give the blinders speech to me?

I think at that age, it's still somewhat about having fun. I don't think that the blinders would be good. I think the balance would be good. I think you, like, I don't really feel robbed of my childhood because I still feel like I got to do things. But I think when the pressure is on a child to, you know, run around after school, go here for this training, go here for this sport, and you're, you know, it's exhausting to go to school, number one. and then tacking on all these other activities where there's no balance

is going to completely burn them out. Okay. So, yeah. So 13-year-old balance, at what age do you turn on the blinders, if any? I mean, I feel like the blinders are, I mean, I think it depends who you are. I mean, if it's a 13-year-old phenom

that's about to go overseas and play, that's a different story. than someone that maybe would play in college or if it's a 13 year old who's gonna be the next star golfer, that's different, you know. But I think that it's gotta be the passion and the will inside the child first and foremost, because I didn't care about missing things

with my friends when I was younger. So someone may say, wow, like all she did was soccer when she was younger, yeah, it was. I did soccer and I played other sports, but I loved it. Yeah, you got what you wanted. So it was, it was not blinders and it was not pressure from my parents or anybody else. It was purely because I loved doing it. So I think that, I think that it's just everybody's path is different and there's no set path of where anyone is going to end up.

So I think if you love it, then just do it as much as you want. Sure. Carly doesn't just have a nose for the ball, but also an eye for business. And one of her biggest targets is the business side of the youth soccer world today. It's become very selfish. It's not about the kids. It's more about these leagues making as much money as they can. And these coaches, you know, patting themselves on the back, acting like they've just reinvented

the wheel on how to play soccer. So that's, we need to be focusing on what's the best avenue to develop these kids and keep them engaged and keep them excited to play and get them better. And so it's, it's the opposite. And so we see a lot of participation for girls and boys and soccer. And then as they get older, it kind of, it fizzles out and it dies down. And then, you know, once you get to the top, you know, it's about being able to produce players and all of that. But I just, I think the focus is just, the focus at a young age shouldn't really, really be about winning, you know, at 6, 7, 8, I can't tell you how many games I want at that age

because it doesn't matter. It just matters to go out there, to run around, to play, enjoy it, get better. And then as they get older, yes, then winning becomes a point. But I don't think we're preparing these kids to be the best human beings possible. We're just, we're preparing kids to be burnt out and, you know, parents to get disappointed because they're not the next best thing. Their kid's not the next best thing. So I just, I don't know if the model will ever fix or who knows. I agree. For 99% of kids, youth sports, whether it be soccer or Little League or anything else, should just be about fun and providing children the opportunity to socialize and explore new activities. But that doesn't mean sports should just be cake and

rainbows. Or at least Carly doesn't think so. I do think that the generations nowadays are completely soft. Oh. Yeah. Why? I just think that there's this attitude of, you know, I don't want to over-train. We got to delode, you know, load management. I'm not a, I'm not a fan of all that. Okay. Do you feel like it makes them worse players long-term? I just think that in order to be great at something, you have to clock in hours and train. You saw Michael Jordan take hundreds of thousands of shots. You saw Kobe Bryant wake up at 5 a.m.

While his teammates on the Olympic team were rolling into the hotel after being out all night. And once they saw him getting up at 5 a.m., am in the gym, then they started to do it. And soon then the whole team started to do it and then they won a gold medal. So there's just a mentality now that is fragile, that's soft. I think that sports science has developed and has kind of done a little disservice to sports, in my opinion. I think that research is good. I think, you know, cases are good that you can look at.

But at the end of the day, you know, the way that I trained and the way that I approached my training, it didn't come from a book. I just went out there and I ran. And I woke up each morning. I didn't have an app that told me and I looked at my watch that told me, oh, you're tired today. You don't need to train. No. I got out of bed. I walked around and I felt my body and I said, you know what?

Okay, that's a soreness that I can get through another workout today or that's a, that's an achiness where I think I need to just back off a little bit. So we've completely taken the intuitiveness of one's self-feeling with their own body and made them reliant on these sports scientists, these, you know, these medical people, the apps, the watches, the, the, the. everything so no one is no one has any critical thinking to say oh yeah i need i need to like if i were in a i was in a major you know major tournaments world cup i would do extra running there because i could tell the way that i was going through training or games and i would say i got to do an extra sprint workout today and it wasn't anything crazy it was just something to trigger my body to to be ready to go again in that next game or whatnot. Because you knew yourself.

Yeah, and no one, I don't think that there's many people that know their body because they're so reliant on someone else to tell them. So I'll, from a medical standpoint, I'll agree with you to a degree because I think the pendulum is now, like it does with a lot of social, cultural issues, has swung too far probably the other way, whereas before it was that mentality of let's weed everybody out and then it was like disruptive and abusive even at times. and now it swung to the other way of like a comfort scenario and over reliance on lab values trackers because you and I sort of share in the same mindset I don't think there's a lot of value

in forget professional athletes even like regular people wearing a lot of these fitness trackers the idea of 10,000 steps a day is not mandatory by any means in order to have a healthy lifestyle the fact that people wear these rings that tell them how well they slept as opposed to just asking themselves, how do I feel today? Or, oh, you slept five hours? I know you're going to feel shitty. Like there's a lot of intuitiveness that is gone from the generations because they're relying on those technologies. And because of that, you lose, A, the idea of knowing the differences between the type of pain, which is so important for a professional athlete. Like, when are you sore versus this being a real injury? And then being able to work through pain, because pain has this

kind of vicious cycle into it where you feel pain, then you expect the pain, and then the pain comes because you've turned up the volume on your pain sensation. The actual anatomical injury didn't get worse, but you expecting the pain, like if I stand up guarding my low back, expecting there to be an ache, there's going to be an ache. Yeah. Because you're tuning up your volume. It's like you listening very intently. You're going to hear a little bit better than if you're just listening passively. So I agree that that's absolutely happening. I think there's probably a middle ground somewhere where we can use tech to help guide us

to see when we need to change intensity on given days and see how our bodies respond. But in reality, I think it needs to be so individualized that we're still in the process of gathering data, but making decisions off of poor data or not enough data. Yes. It should be a measure. It should be another tool, like an ice bath is a tool. You know, getting a massage is another tool. Yeah.

Like, I didn't spend my time throughout my career trying a thousand different things for recovery. Okay, what are the couple that are going to make me feel the best? And that was massages and that was ice baths. And I did them both religiously. And, you know, aside from eating well and hydrating and all that other stuff. Of course. But I consistently did those. And so I think now you've got, you know, all these modalities and all these different things that are coming out.

I just, I don't think, I don't think athletes are as consistent with doing what they need to do. Those couple things that they need to focus on and do to make them feel great.