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Victor Hedman is a big man. A two-time Stanley Cup winner for the Tampa Bay Lightning, the burly defenseman has built a Hall of Fame career using his size, power, and strategic mind. Standing somewhere around six-foot-eight while wearing skates, and weighing in it about 250 pounds, Hedman is indisputably intimidating on the ice.
But when he got his first taste of the NHL in 2009—long enough ago that his debut came against a now defunct team, the Atlanta Thrashers—other players’ blazing speed was a cause of intimidation for him. Through years of training and now, a late-career decision to ditch gluten, the 35-year-old is still playing well enough to not only be named the Lightning’s captain in 2024, but also to earn a spot on Team Sweden’s roster for the upcoming Olympics. Though nursing an elbow injury that sent him under the knife in December, he is expected to be recovered by the time he arrives in Milan. While there, expect Hedman to utilize his Normatec recovery boots, whatever saunas are available in the Olympic village, and any gym that allows him to hit his beloved leg day. Perhaps the international flight will also allow him to binge Heated Rivalry, which he says has been a point of discussion in the Lightning locker room.
Victor Hedman: First and foremost, to be in this league for this long—injuries is a big reason. I’ve been kind of fortunate, even though I had my bumps and this year has been tough for me injury-wise, but I think that’s been a big key. I think that comes down to the way you train. Obviously, eating habits have gotten better and better as I’ve learned a lot more about it. But I think training and staying in shape for 12 months of the year has helped me a lot. Obviously, a little bit of luck, some great people around me, and some good trust from the organization. There’s a lot of factors, but body-wise, I think it’s come down to the way I train and the way I treat my body.
It’s changed a lot. I think the diet came a bit later than the training stuff. But going gluten-free, and the lean meats, staying away from the fattier meats, and eating a lot of fish. There’s a lot of things that I’ve learned, and sometimes it’s hard to follow. We travel so much and you don’t really have a say in what you eat on the plane or on the road, but that has changed a lot too. I think people are more cognizant about what they put in their body. That’s changed the most.
I don't have that clear of a memory, but I think our strength coach here in Tampa has done a phenomenal job. He’s really good with, not just what we do in the gym and in the off season, but the diet as well. He’s giving us some real good ideas.
So, hockey players, we need to be really good for 50 seconds to a minute. Then you got to recover fast and do it again. Back in the day, coming from Sweden, a lot of focus was on doing exercises for way too long, so to speak. [We were] focusing more on running 3,000 meters or doing 100-meter intervals, whereas now my longest interval I run is 300 meters. It’s 50 meters with a lot of starts and stops, then you recover quick and you do it again. I would say that’s a big thing when it comes to training.
Food-wise, I mean, I probably just kept eating like I did back home. As you get older—and for me, being almost 250 pounds—you can’t put everything in your body. Even with snacks and candy and stuff like that, I’ve been a lot better, because Sweden is famous for their candy! I cut that out pretty quickly.
Oh yeah, for sure. Getting food here is so, so easy compared to back home. Where I’m from, a small town with 50,000 people, there’s no food delivery. The fast food is probably way better there than it is over here. But yeah, I’ve had my fair share of McDonald’s, Taco Bell, all that. The only one I probably haven’t tried is KFC. Chick-fil-A, they have a gluten-free bun, so that would be my cheat meal.
I did a big blood panel this summer. It goes through everything, especially food sensitivity. You go from green to yellow to red and red is super high intolerance. Wheat was the highest one. It was in the reds. That goes to show—I had a lot of inflammation in my body and that probably comes from eating the pasta, the bread, whatever it is—so I cut down on wheat totally. It feels like the inflammation in my body has gone down. I have more energy. It’s been a big difference and it’s only been…eight months? Gluten stays in your system for a very, very long time. I’m happy to see the longer effect it will have on my body and how I feel.
Yeah, more bloated. In the mornings, you’re a little sluggish, foggy, and that comes from the inflammation in your body. That’s where I’ve felt the biggest improvement. I don’t go to the bathroom as often. I don’t feel bloated. Like I said, I have more energy, especially in the morning. You can still be tired, but it’s just a different kind of tired. But [now] as soon as I get out of bed, I have that energy.
Exactly. But nowadays, if you’re craving pasta, there’s great alternative, gluten-free pastas. It’s way more rice, quinoa, because quinoa has a lot of really good proteins.
I used to be. I’m more of a wine guy anyways. So, it hasn’t been an issue.
I think there’s a few [guys] on our team that are gluten-free, including our strength coach. He’s been here for a very, very long time. Sometimes it’s hard, especially on the road when you go to a restaurant, it’s super hard to be 100% sure. When you’re at home cooking meals, it’s a lot easier, obviously. But no, no one has come up to me. They’re asking how you feel, and that’s all I tell them, how I feel and how it’s changed me. But I think if you want to go gluten free, you’ve got to be in there for the long haul. You can’t just do it for a couple weeks and then go back, because it’s not going to have an effect.
I think it was good for me to do that blood panel to kind of get it in print. Yeah, this is not good. The same goes with lactose, there’s a lot of lactose intolerance too, but that was actually real good for me. Milk and everything like that is no problem for me.
No, I haven’t tried that. I love food and I love exploring more and more. So no, no keto. But we’ll see. The day I retire, maybe I’ll try something like fasting a little bit more. I might try that this summer and see how it goes. I heard that’s real good for you and your body if you can do it for 72 hours or longer. I’ll try everything and see what happens.
I’ve had the same one for probably the last five to seven years. We play at 7 o’clock at night, usually. We’ll have a morning skate at around 10:30 when we’re at home. Really, everything starts after the morning skate. I get my food to go. I come home, I eat my lunch. Then around 1, I take a nap, wake up around—or lay in bed—until 3, 3:15. Then, I always leave at 4 o’clock, three hours before the game starts.
I take the same road every single time, the same routines, the same parking spot. Then the routine starts: same warmup I’ve done forever, same routine, same handshakes, same things with some of our trainers. It’s good to have. I think it makes your mind ready for the game.
Dinner is after the game. That’s super late. It’s not really typical to eat a big meal at 10:30. But you’ll have lunch, and you have a little snack before the game.
No. I have a tough time eating steak. We have phenomenal food at the rink after the games. I would probably say my favorite is when we get coconut rice with Chilean sea bass. We get that pretty often. We’re super spoiled. We always have options. There’s a big stir-fry station where you can pick your rice, quinoa, and then you mix in everything from steak to shrimp to chicken, all the veggies, whatever sauce you want. We always have a steak option, usually with some kind of potatoes, and then a fish option.
Breakfast on game days is usually two eggs over medium. I go light in the morning and bigger lunch, smaller snack, then dinner after the game.
I’m okay. My wife is phenomenal. She’s Swedish too. I’m good on the grill. I’m okay at everything else.
Everything is a little bit shorter in terms of repetition and the distance I travel, so to speak, when I do either my power or my conditioning. Being a big guy—like I said, 6’6”, almost 250—it’s super important for me to stay quick. There’s a lot of agility, different courses where you change direction and you got to use your feet quickly. I’ve done that for the better part of the last 10, 12 years with my strength coach back home.
In the weight room, everything goes in different orders. Power is usually at the tail end of the summer right before the season starts. You do the mass kind of early on with more repetition, more sets. It all depends how deep you go in the playoffs too, how you approach the offseason. You need to rest as well, which I’ve been a lot better at as my career’s going on, take an extra week off after the season just for the body to come down and ail any kind of injuries or tightness.
It’s more focused on rehabbing and getting the body ready to go again. I think the planning of it has changed a lot. It’s not just the same throughout the whole summer, because you don’t gain anything from that. In the beginning, it’s a lot of mass and repetition and building up. Then the last five, six weeks, it’s all about the power. As I get older too, even more focus is on the power, being explosive, and keeping up with the young guys coming into the league.
Yeah, there’s one agility course that I still hate to this day. It’s usually for goalies. You’re in a deep position touching cones, over and under hurdles. It takes about 45 seconds to do. Then you take a little break and you do it again, then you take a longer break. But those ones are so hard on the limbs and on your legs. When I see that on the schedule it’s, yeah, I need to prepare mentally. My favorite workout is leg day, because your legs are everything.
We have everything at the rink. You have the Normatec boots, they’re really good for compression. A lot of red lights. They have a mat, I forget the name of the mat, but it has small little rocks and different settings. One is for recovery, one is right before you go to sleep. There’s a lot of stuff that comes out. You try to maximize your career and your things you want to do on the ice. I’m trying to learn from everything and try everything as it comes out and see what works for me. We have a big panel in the sauna. You’re sitting in the sauna and you have the red light as well. That’s when you get the best of two worlds. I feel great coming out of the sauna. As long as it’s good physically—and then mentally, if you have that feeling—I think it helps.
Yeah, it has happened. I think it’s good because for me, I was fortunate to come into a team that had a lot of veteran guys when I was 18. I saw what they did and how they treated their bodies. I think it’s really important for younger players to look to the older guys and see what they’re doing and learn from us in that department. I just feel like kids coming in these days are so, so good. If they can stay away from injuries, they’re going to be playing for a very long time.
I would probably say my first game. It was against Atlanta. Ilya Kovalchuk, I was like, boy, I’m in for one here.
My teammate, Martin St. Louis, I remember just seeing him up close in practice and in games, I was like, OK, this is what superstars look like. Paul Kariya. There was a lot, obviously, but those come to mind.
I know. I’ve been here a long time!
I would say toast skagen.
There you go. It’s a piece of bread—obviously gluten-free for me—that you put in a pan with butter to make it nice and crispy. Then there’s like a shrimp, I don’t know how to explain it, not a mayo, but kind of like a paste. It’s not a puree, I don’t think. You gotta Google it. But it has shrimp, fish roe, dill, and lemon. It’s phenomenal.
I know. When I was there, I was not gluten-free. I was there for my honeymoon for two weeks, and traveled everywhere from Tuscany to Capri. Got to see a soccer game as well, Lazio vs Napoli. That was a big highlight. Traveled through wine country, Montalcino, Chianti and all that good stuff. It was beautiful, I’m excited to go back. I went through it all, and the food was phenomenal. We’ll see how it is in the Olympic village.
We’ve talked about it. I haven’t watched it myself, but I’m hearing great reviews. Sports is about inclusion. Anything like that is good for the game to get more fans and get people to feel included. It doesn’t matter which way you are. I’m super supportive of all that. I think it’s great.
In Real-Life Diet, athletes, celebrities, and other high performers talk about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.