Martin St. Louis turned 38 today.
To celebrate, he’s going to work out.
Though to be accurate, working out has been a daily occurrence for the Lightning winger as he admitted to the Tampa Bay Times he started his offseason training program in mid-May.
Yeah, mid-May. Like a full month ago.
“I took two weeks off, and I got right back into it in mid May,” St. Louis said. “I was able to train for 2½ weeks before I met my trainer, so my first stage is already done. “
Given St. Louis is the reigning NHL scoring champ and has played in 779 of Tampa Bay’s last 786 games, you’d probably give him a pass if he wanted to, you know, take at least a month’s vacation.
But here he is, at age 38, cranking out one of those intense workout regimens often favored by younger players, like his Tampa Bay teammate, Steven Stamkos.
(Stamkos, 23, is a disciple of the Gary Roberts program, where young players spend the summer eating mung beans and dead-lifting tractors. Or something like that.)
It’s understandable why St. Louis wants to get going right away. The Lightning have missed the playoffs two years in a row and, given he’s closing in on 40, St. Louis knows he won’t have many more chances at a Cup run.
“I’ve been pushing my workouts along to try to get as many as I can,” he explained. “I’m ahead of the game in terms of where I usually am at this time of year.
“We didn’t make the playoffs, but it kept me motivated. It gave me the drive that I needed.”