Club's iron man credits workout regimen
RANDY PHILLIPS
The Gazette
Friday, May 07, 2004
Gabriel Gervais is the butt of jokes by teammates because of the time he spends stretching before, during and after practices and games, but he said you can never do enough.
"I do like to stretch a lot. The guys give me a hard time about it. They think I do too much," the Impact defender said. "But when your body asks for you to do it, you've got to do it."
Gervais, 27, in his fifth season in the A-League and third with Montreal, is one of the iron men on the team and he attributes it to an intense stretching regimen, working muscles other players might not even know they have.
Because of it, as well as his skills as a defender, he was one of only three players on the team to log more than 2,400 minutes last year while appearing in 26 of 28 regular-season games.
In 2002, while starting all 28 games for the Impact, he missed only 37 minutes the entire season, clocking a total of 2,609 minutes, eight fewer than the league high by Robbie Aristodemo of the Toronto Lynx.
Gervais, along with defender teammates Adam Braz and Patrick Leduc, and midfielder Jason DiTullio, played every second in the Impact's three shutout road wins over Puerto Rico (2-0), Charleston (1-0) and Atlanta (2-0) to start the season.
The club will play its home opener next Sunday at Claude Robillard Stadium against the Virginia Beach Mariners.
"I don't really do a lot of things differently than most players, but I guess I do more of what you have to do," said Gervais, who was kidded by teammates after practice this week because he was smiling during his lengthy stretching session.
"With the kind of season we have in the A-League, it's important to take care of your body. You've got to listen to it and take full advantage of the recovery time between games. That's when I do most of my stretching. The other key is making sure to eat right, too, and get your rest.
"As a defender, at centre back, I don't run as much as the midfielders or forwards, so in that respect my body doesn't take the same kind of beating as those guys. But I still do what I have to do to be ready. I guess it's just having had good habits throughout my career.
"You can't go through an entire season without taking care of your body, because while it might not hurt you now, in the months of July and August, when the season really takes off, your body can really take a beating."
A Montreal native who grew up in Brossard, Gervais played three years at Syracuse University after a year at McGill in 1996, where he earned all-Canadian honours and helped the Redmen reach the national championship. At Syracuse, he was twice selected to the all-Big East Conference team.
The former league MVP and leading scorer with FC Select Rive-Sud of the Quebec Elite Soccer League, he broke into the A-League with Rochester in 2000 and spent two seasons with the Raging Rhinos before joining the Impact.
He was Montreal's defensive player of the year in 2002 and was named to the first A-League all-star team. Last season, after leading a team with the best defence in the league (21 goals against in 28 games), he was named the club's top defender for the second consecutive season, was a first-team all-star and also was named the A-League's defender of the year.
Last weekend's games against Charleston - the reigning A-League champion - and Atlanta were played 22 hours apart. It marked the first of three times this season when the Impact will play two games in a 24-hour period. Gervais said surviving such back-to-back tests is more of a mental challenge than a physical one.
"If you tell yourself you're tired and you're going to struggle, you will," he said. "But if you give your best, give 60 or 70 minutes for the team, that's what you do."
rphillips@thegazette.canwest.com
Profile of Gabriel Gervais
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