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Slimmer Hartman is ready for season with Wizards
By BOB LUDERThe Kansas City Star
The Wizards’ starting goalkeeper showed up for the first day of preseason training last week not looking like himself.
Sure, Kevin Hartman still had the short, spiky, bleach-blond hair that’s been his trademark through 11 Major League Soccer seasons. But the man was a fraction of his former self.
An offseason program of good diet and lengthy cardio and weight workouts brought Hartman to camp 15 to 20 pounds lighter than a year ago, when at 6 feet 1 and 196 pounds, he started and played every minute of all 30 games in goal and went 11-12-7 with a 1.50 goals-against average.
Yes, this is a slimmer, trimmer, more aerodynamic Hartman. And if you think all the offseason work was a product of some self-revelation/mid-life crisis, think again. The handwriting was put on the wall for him, so to speak.
“It was recommended to me,” Hartman said matter-of-factly. “And when things are recommended around here, you take them seriously.
“I wanted to get my body fat down and to make health decisions that will affect me and benefit me long-term.”
Wizards goalkeepers and fitness coach Dave Tenney concurred.
“We had a really good conversation toward the end of (last) season about how we wanted to prepare for this season,” Tenney said. “I think, as a staff, we regard our offseason program as very important.
“The season is such a grind, and recovery is such a big part of the process that, except in the offseason, you really don’t have a chance to concentrate on conditioning.
“One of our issues was, we wanted (Hartman) to be a lighter, more agile goalkeeper.”
Tenney said step one in Hartman’s process was altering his diet. No more cookies, ice cream or pizza … or, at least not as much. Instead, Hartman, who is the oldest player on the Wizards’ roster at 33 (about 1 1/2 months older than Kerry Zavagnin), focused on eating the so-called “super foods,” like turkey, berries, walnuts, dark chocolate, even a little red wine — foods low in calories, high in antioxidants and protein.
“It takes a lot of planning ahead of time,” Hartman said of putting his meals together. “It took a little getting used to. But the fitter you are, you can train at high levels more of the time.”
Hartman also took his training to the streets, and gym, this winter. He said another factor in his motivation were the recent deaths of two men he knew well — former Los Angeles Galaxy general manager Doug Hamilton and former MLS and U.S. coach Glenn “Mooch” Myernick, both of whom died within the last two years of heart attacks at relatively young ages.
Hartman said he spent at least one hour each day doing aerobic exercise, whether it was running or on an elliptical machine. He also worked a lot with weights, honing his strength and agility.
“I had a lot of respect for (Hamilton and Myernick),” Hartman said. “I admired them. In a way, I wanted to do this to honor them.
“But for me, it’s about playing better soccer and giving this team more chances to be successful.”
Hartman said he felt fine in goal last season, good enough not to miss a single second of any game.
The work he’s done this offseason should make him even better, Tenney believes.
“His mobility should be improved, along with his agility,” Tenney said. “It should make him a more powerful athlete … to get to balls maybe he couldn’t get to last year.”
The goal also is to keep Hartman feeling strong and spry at an age and point in a career when performance often falls on the downside of the bell curve.
“At the end of the day, it’s going to put him in position to extend his career, which is most important,” Tenney said. “In this league, if you can keep your reaction times, you can be a goalkeeper at 40.
“We gave him the guidance, but he made the ultimate decisions on his own.”
Hartman believes fully that those decisions will pay off big time — this season and in seasons to come.
“Whatever I can do to make me feel more confident out there in goal is a good thing,” he said. “This is a group very committed to (conditioning). I want to be a part of that.
“Hopefully, I can put myself in position to be done (playing) when I’m ready to be done, not when somebody tells me I am.”