How Milk Helps Tennessee Titan Amani Hooker Up His Game
Recently, Tennessee Titans safety and Fuel Up to Play 60 ambassador Amani Hooker sat down with sports dietitian Marie Spano to talk about how milk can up your game.
How Milk Helps Athletes
Milk is an excellent source of fuel for athletes. Amani, have you always been a milk fan? What was your favorite flavor growing up?
My favorite flavor growing up was chocolate milk. It’s always been something that I drink before and after games.
I love chocolate milk as well. I had it every day for lunch growing up at school, and the great thing about milk is that it’s full of immune-boosting nutrients. It’s got vitamins A and D, zinc, selenium, and high-quality protein. It’s a great all-around drink for athletes.
I guess you learn something every day! I didn’t know that.
You recently got to visit a dairy farm. Tell me about that experience.
It was a great experience. We were able to go to a local Tennessee dairy farm and see how they create all this milk and how well they take care of all the cows and how much work goes into it. It’s more than I ever thought. I’m very interested in dairy farming ever since I visited.
What is your biggest takeaway from this season so far?
I think my nutrition and being able to take care of my body. As the season gets going, my body is going to get more beaten up. Nutrients and all the great things that are in chocolate milk—in dairy products—have helped me out a lot.
Tell me more about your nutrition regimen.
You know, for me I like to keep it simple but also be precise with it. I always have a dairy product, whether it’s breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Cheese is one of my favorites. Mac and cheese is my favorite. Whenever I can get involved or some kind of dairy involved, I think it helps my performance as well as being a healthy person.
How do you incorporate chocolate milk into your training regimen? Into your game-day regimen?
I have it all around, I have it in my locker room, I have it on the plane after games, and even coming off the practice field. You can grab a chocolate milk coming right off the field.
You’ve been a football player for a while now. What’s your biggest takeaway as a Tennessee Titan?
Being able to compartmentalize and understand when my focus has to be, where it has to be, whether it’s on the field or in the meeting rooms, being able to put things into categories and make things easier for me to help the team win.
Fuel Up to Play 60 means a lot to you, you even put them on your cleats. Tell us more about your cause.
I think it’s very important to fuel your body and to go outside and exercise for 60 minutes. For me growing up, Fuel Up to Play 60 was something that we had in our school. Being able to be one of the ambassadors for that and to able to have this [logo] on my shoe when I’m playing is very significant.
Keep an eye out as we share more about how milk helps athletes like Amani.