World-record-holding American shot-putter Ryan Crouser prepared for the Olympics by eating 5,000 calories and training 8 hours a day

Shot put is "much more intensive than people realize," Ryan Crouser told Business Insider.

• Ryan Crouser is about to compete for his third consecutive Olympic gold medal in shot put.
• Crouser shared his eight-hour daily training regimen and 5,000-calorie diet plan with BI.
• This story is part of "Road to Paris," a series chronicling athletes' and spectators' experiences at the Olympic Games.

The American athlete Ryan Crouser hopes to become the first man to win three consecutive gold medals in shot put at the Olympics.

Crouser told Business Insider that the fact that it's never been done before is a testament to how physically demanding and challenging the sport is.

In the lead-up to the Summer Olympics, the 31-year-old three-time world champion, who holds the world records for both indoor and outdoor shot put, said he felt quietly confident and "happy with the direction that things are headed in."

Crouser shared his eight-hour daily training regimen and 5,000-calorie daily diet — which includes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, milk, and a lot of lean protein — with BI.

Training focuses on power and strength

Shot-put training is "a full-body endeavor" and "much more intensive than people realize," Crouser said.

Because of the sport's physical demands, Crouser focuses on preventing injury, increasingly so: "As I've gotten older, training is around prehab, rehab, and staying healthy," he said.

For the first hour of a heavy-training day, Crouser focuses on stretching and getting his body moving. He then does a throw-specific warm-up for 45 to 60 minutes, focusing on rotational movements and exercises that engage the glutes, obliques, and hands and open up the hip flexors.

"The hand takes an absolute beating," Crouser said. "Throwing the shot put, the force required to make a 16-pound ball fly 75 feet, is something that human hands naturally would never encounter, and so there's both the strengthening side and warming-up side of getting the hand, elbow, and shoulder all prepped to take those forces."

After warming up, Crouser practices throwing for 90 minutes to two hours, mostly using his dominant right hand but sometimes his left to engage his brain, he said.

In the second half of the day, Crouser does a "sprint plyometric workout," including sprints of up to 40 meters, to work on acceleration, he said. He also does 60 to 90 minutes of plyometric exercises, such as box jumps.

He finishes the day with two hours of weight training, with exercises such as bench presses, squats, and Olympic lifts including clean and jerks.

All in all, a full day is roughly eight hours of work.

Eating enough to stay energized is a feat

All that training requires a lot of eating — 5,000 to 6,000 calories a day — but it's not as fun as it might sound.

"It's not enjoyable at all," Crouser said. "It feels like the most frustrating part of my training is the regimented diet and eating and nutrition, something that I have to physically or mentally focus on. And it's, to me, the least enjoyable part of training."

To avoid feeling too sluggish to train, he eats five 1,000-calorie meals a day.

On an average day, Crouser might eat:

• Five eggs, a quarter-pound turkey sausage, cheese, one cup of oats with flaxseeds, and one cup of berries.
• One pound of lean ground beef and 12 ounces of rice.
• One pound of chicken and 12 ounces of rice.
• A dinner of lean protein, whole grains, and vegetables.
• Snacks such as protein shakes, peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, and milk (which is an easy way to drink calories).

For dinner, Crouser and his girlfriend generally cook recipes meant to serve four, but he eats three portions.

Crouser said he would prefer a more varied diet, but he sticks to meals that work with his training. He could easily hit his calorie target with energy-dense meals like pizza and burgers. But with age, he's found his performance suffers and it takes longer to recover when he deviates from his meal plan.

"Looking at my training numbers a day or two following a big fast-food meal, the numbers are down so significantly that it's pretty evident to me that I can't really go for the fast food anymore," he said.

Crouser supplements his diet with multivitamins from Thorne, for which he's a brand ambassador, he added.

Recovery is a priority

Recovery is as important as training and nutrition, he said, and sleep is the No. 1 part of that.

To get the best-quality sleep, Crouser minimizes blue-light exposure in the evenings, including by avoiding his phone an hour before bed, and sleeps at a set time with blackout curtains. He also takes Thorne's RecoveryPro supplement, a blend of whey protein, tryptophan, magnesium bisglycinate, and GABA.

Crouser takes one rest day a week and a full weekend off every four weeks. "I think that 48 hours of uninterrupted recovery is key for long-term longevity and health," he said.

Mindset training is Crouser's key to success

Crouser puts in countless hours of training but will have only six throws at the Olympics.

To make the most of those chances, Crouser trains his mindset, he said.

"Mental approach is another thing that I make a conscious effort in actually training, doing a lot of mental imagery as well as meditation," Crouser said.

While training, he aims to get out of his head by visualizing himself making an Olympic-winning throw. When Crouser does this exercise, it helps his body enter a flow state so it does what he's prepared it to do, he said.

"I can say for certain that both times I've won the Olympics," he said, "I've had that throw in my head 10,000 times."