Ray Lewis touts Juvent micro-impact platform for athletic recovery

Though Ray Lewis has retired from the NFL, he has continued to keep his body in great shape.

Known for taking up cycling during his last years with the Ravens, Lewis has continued doing so during his post-NFL life. He still trains like he's an active football player, thus putting his body through the rigors of a daily grind.

A product that Lewis has come to credit with helping stay in shape is the Juvent micro-impact system. Upon stepping on the device, no bigger than a standard scale, a Low Magnitude Mechanical Stimulation is sent through the feet and into the body. The purpose is to improve musculoskeletal health and blood flow.

Lewis spent the first half of a 10-minute phone interview with Baltimore Beatdown discussing the product he hopes his NFL peers will begin using.

Baltimore Beatdown: When did you first start using the Juvent and how has it benefited you with your workouts warm-up and recovery wise?

Ray Lewis: It's been almost around eight or nine months now. Probably a little bit more that I've been dealing with Juvent. I was introduced to Juvent through a friend, who stretches me a lot. She said, 'I know you're not going to stop working out so I have something that I think will really interest you in your recovery or any ailing injuries.' The first time I tried Juvent, I got on it, and I'm on this machine and I'm just sitting there and I'm vibrating, vibrating, vibrating. I'm like, wow, OK. This is a little bit different than I'm used to. Everything else is, you know, your static stretching, dynamic stretching, yoga, possibly jumping jacks, whatever -- which was my routine for years. But that only wakes you up to a certain point. So I started getting on it day in, day out. Night and day. Then I started cycling very heavily so I actually started getting on it before my bike rides.

What I started to realize very, very quickly is my recovery and my fatigue factor. Already mentally, you can kind of beat fatigue, but what Juvent did, when it started waking my body up from the scientific side -- because that's what I started doing, I started wanting to see what the scientific side was actually doing. It actually wakes the body up from the feet all the way up. Going all the way back, ways to heal the body is through the feet, and different things like that. That's what Juvent has really done for me. My recovery, my fatigue -- I almost have to force myself to go to sleep unless I use my Juvent. When I use my Juvent it kind of calms me, it puts me in that place and I can lay down. When I get up in the morning, before I get on my bike and before I stretch, and even before I get in my hot tub, I go to my Juvent and get on there for about 20 (minutes). Boom. I know for a fact that I'm woke up and did what I'm supposed to do to get everything firing. Fatigue and recovery, right now, it's huge. I actually think recovery is more important than anything else.

BB: What would it have been like if you had this available to you during your playing days?

RL: Yeah, it would have probably been illegal. (laughter). It actually helps take the guessing out of it. I use it before I cycle. But I can only imagine having this in the locker room before starting my pre-game routine. Getting on this, 20 minutes, totally meditating the mind, waking totally up, and then saying, OK, now I've fired everything and now I'm ready. Now I can stretch properly. Even in my rides, it's how it wakes you up and what it does to your psyche. And physically, it takes away things you used to deal with that you just don't deal with as frequently.

BB: You've mentioned you wanted to get this into all of the NFL locker rooms. Why is that important to you for all the guys to have access to the Juvent?

RL: I'm a forefather, I came before a lot of these guys played the game. Everything that I learned, a lot of what I learned, came from guys that were older than me. It's the brotherhood of this business. This business is if there's something that works for you, don't be selfish. Pass it down and tell me what that is. When you see all these injuries guys are going through right now -- these leg injuries, Achilles popping, ACLs, PCLs. If you think about what gives, the outside never really tears. It's always something from the inside that tears something up, that makes you rip this, that makes you get away from that.

That's why, definitely nowadays, I challenge these guys to learn more about their body. Learn more aout how to take care of their body. Just don't be a talented athlete. Be someone who learns the education of your body yourself. Talk to doctors about what does this mean, why am I taking this, why this? Juvent can take a lot of that guessing away. It will make you start to say, 'Wow, I can feel like this every single day? I can recover like this better?' And the body really starts to heal itself, not just for athletics and in locker rooms, but it's important for anyone dealing with any type of ailment -- lower body, lower back pain, all of that. There's a great relief once you start using the product.

For Part 2 of the interview, CLICK HERE.