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- Part of the “Patriots Way” is being properly hydrated.
- New England wide receiver Kendrick Bourne recently detailed Bill Belichick’s obsession with hydration and how it has had a major positive impact.
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Five-year NFL wide receiver Kendrick Bourne went undrafted out of Eastern Washington before landing with 49ers as a free agent.
After four years in San Francisco, the 26-year-old signed with the Patriots and says that head coach Bill Belichick changed his life.During a recent appearance on fubo Sports Network’s “Getcha Popcorn Ready with T.O. & Hatch,” Bourne detailed how his new head coach changed his career for the better.
In addition to the Xs and Os and the ability to develop talent, Bourne says that Belichick has an obsession with hydration. He wants his players to be drinking water from the moment they wake up until the moment that they go to bed and takes extreme measures to ensure that his guys are properly hydrated.
Prior to certain practices, New England conducts hydration tests. Different from a drug test, it is a pee test to simply see if the pee is clear or yellow— indicating if the player is hydrated or dehydrated.
After failing a test last season, Bourne was held out of practice.
He was not properly hydrated so he could not suit up. From that point forward, Bourne changed his entire way of life and developed a routine that improved his level of hydration.
“He taught me really how to hydrate,” Bourne said. “He sat me out of practice because I failed the hydration test. … This is what I needed, though. Because I want to buy in. I’m trying to be the best I can be. And this is how they work, so I’m like, ‘OK, I’ve got to figure this out.’ And I kind of just found a routine. I wasn’t hydrating in San Francisco at all.”
After getting on his new routine, Bourne noticed a significant change in how he was feeling right away. It allowed him to completely change his physique and work even harder.
“Over time, I just learned how to drink water in the morning, drinking it all until practice, and I just found myself getting better,” he said. “Like, now my body’s feeling better— I could make it through practice easy. I could go longer after practice, throw extra and things like that. … I put on 10 pounds of muscle.”
In Bourne’s first year with the Patriots, he had 55 catches for 800 yards and five touchdowns. With a full offseason of hydration under his belt, he will try to improve upon those numbers in 2022.
Here are Bourney’s full comments about Belichick and the importance he places on hydration:
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