The life of a professional athlete is strenuous. From long travel and tough training sessions to hard tackles – players must undergo a multitude of tasks to become the best at their craft. That makes things like proper nutrition evermore essential to the success of a soccer player amidst the trialing physical afflictions of the sport.
FC Tucson hopes to take on those trials head-on by sustaining the optimal performance of their athletes through the field of nutrition, by way of AZ Fit Kitchen. On August 27, 2020, the club announced a season-long partnership with the local Tucson meal preparation supplier, AZ Fit Kitchen, and its founder Robb Walker. Robb is looking to apply his years of nutrition experience to serve the club’s goal of fielding fit, successful players.
“When I met Jon Pearlman, Amanda Powers, and a couple of the players, I was just like, ‘Man, these guys are talking my language.’ They were interested in representing local Tucson and empowering the city by bringing a professional level team to the next level,” said Walker of the club. “There was a level of professionalism that hasn’t been here since Major League Baseball left and I see FC Tucson being able to bring that back. I’m excited to help do that.”
An athlete’s diet can have a direct impact on their performance and everyday life. Robb and AZ Fit Kitchen are eager to make that impact as positive as possible. As the Chief Nutrition Officer, he will deal with the players’ unique dietary needs while the team is at home in Tucson and on the road traveling for away matches. Providing healthy food has always been critical to AZ Fit Kitchen’s mission, and now for FC Tucson, that mission is more important than ever as they look to remain a serious contender in USL League One.
“What excites me the most is just getting to work with such a diverse group. Not just diversity of who they are as people, but also their meal preferences. There are vegans, vegetarians, and span across different ages making it a hot opportunity to work with these varying levels of athletes,” said Walker.
Walker’s experience stems beyond the field with soccer athletes and starts at the track. Before diving into the world of nutrition, he was a collegiate and professional track athlete, running alongside the likes of former 100-meter world record holder Maurice Greene. This early dedication to sport and athletics led Walker to become a licensed personal trainer to help those around him while furthering his knowledge of the fitness world.
A career in business development soon followed and Walker became the Sales Manager for the computer software company, Intuit. It was here in 2014 that he began to look back to his humble beginnings of athletics and the interests those things brought on – nutrition.
After noticing success through the small groups he started providing nutritional consultations for, his administrative nutrition career began to kick off. Walker started creating meal plans for the professional and casual consumer, from professional bodybuilders to people looking for nutritional guidance amidst their busy lifestyles.
“It all started off really, really well. By just word of mouth, in about a year period, AZ Fit Kitchen became somewhat of a thing. I started working with really restricted, hand-selected clientele in bodybuilding, but people at my day job were really paying attention to the work I was doing and before I knew it I had a small group of people that were literally in my office with blank checks. They all say to me, ‘Whatever the cost, tell us, we’re all going to write a check. We want whatever it is you’re doing,” said Walker. “That ignited something in me to keep this going.”
As a former high-level athlete, Walker is no stranger to the rigors of the grind of a professional soccer player. He also understands the wide range of dietary restrictions he may face on a daily basis, coupled with the physical needs that come with being an athlete. Now, more than ever, it is important to provide FC Tucson with a well-tailored diet during these tumultuous times brought on by COVID-19 combined with a jam-packed USL League One season. In a time where safe, socially-distanced access to high-quality meals is vital, Walker will be there as a helping hand.
“Athletes don’t fuel themselves enough intermittently. They’re not eating frequently enough and sometimes their personal life and their training schedule make it hard to eat every two hours. Whether they are hungry or not, it is important to fuel that engine that is the athlete,” said Walker. “A lot of professional athletes understand that but find it hard to execute that on their own. This partnership helps take some of the stress off of the athlete from thinking, ‘Oh, it’s time to figure out another meal.’ AZ Fit Kitchen will be there to help with that.”
Training as a professional athlete is hard and eating to maintain that professionalism can be just as hard. A proper diet can have a direct impact on the well-being of FC Tucson’s roster and partnering with AZ Fit Kitchen can increase the chances of making that impact efficacious. Robb Walker stresses consistency and looks forward to sharing his years of consistent nutrition work with FC Tucson. The club and AZ Fit Kitchen hope this success from the kitchen will lead to even more success on the field.
“For athletes, it’s very important to be consistent with nutrition because these guys put their bodies through the most extreme stress during their athletic events. If you don’t refeed your body afterward or if you’re missing meals, your body is going to let you know next Saturday when you’re going through it all again,” said Walker. “This is where it’s important for athletes, especially these FC Tucson guys. They are working hard on getting to that next level and I’m there with them.”
