The Real-Life Diet of Josh Hart, Who Drinks 400 to 500 Milligrams of Caffeine Before a Game

When watching New York Knicks shooting guard Josh Hart hustle for loose balls, corral crucial rebounds, and defend opposing scorers like his life depends on it, it’s easy to think, Wow, that guy plays like he’s on a caffeine high. Turns out, that’s exactly the case. Hart—who is partnered with C4 Energy, the emergent, zero-sugar energy drink—uses the canned performance fuel to get his mind and body ready for grueling battles at Madison Square Garden.

The wily veteran is now in the midst of his fourth consecutive postseason run, which has pushed his NBA odometer well beyond many of his peers. Known for his hard-nosed, never-say-die playing style, Hart has also learned how to take the bumps and bruises that come with his bold presence on the court. Before the playoffs began, the 31-year-old sat down to give a behind-the-scenes look at his pregame dietary routine (or lack thereof), call out the young players in his orbit for their less-than-stellar health habits, and share his feelings on wearable fitness devices.

GQ: When you’re this far into a season, how does the body feel? Do you wake up every day like, ‘Man, I’m beat up?’

Josh Hart: Yeah. I wake up extremely sore.

Where do you feel it the most?

For me, knees. That’s probably where I feel the most soreness.

What are you doing to counteract that?

I do a lot of weight room work. Leg press, leg extensions, stuff to really help tendon strength—patellar tendons, Achilles tendons—stuff like that.

On days where you’re not playing, are you really emphasizing staying off your feet?

Yeah. I still try to get some shots up—at least do some form and some spot shots—but nothing too rigorous, just so it allows me to relax and get off my feet.

Going back to your rookie year with the Lakers, did you come into the league thinking that you knew everything about how to take care of yourself? Or were you one of those young guys who was like, I’m going to be a sponge, tell me everything, I’m ready to overhaul my entire lifestyle?

I came in and was just kind of doing whatever. I was 22 at the time, so I was just DoorDashing, not really caring too much about the health aspect of it. But then once I got to New Orleans, I got a chef and started really diving deeper into good nutrition.

With the Lakers, were you still eating fast food?

Not really fast food, but I love Chipotle. They had Chipotle, Mendocino Farms, stuff like that. It wasn’t that unhealthy, but I definitely had my soul food cheat days, and I love Caribbean food. So, I had a good first year in those days.

You’ve played in some pretty good food cities: LA, New York, New Orleans, Portland’s got a decent food scene.

Yeah, good seafood!

You can’t really go anywhere in an NBA facility without them tracking your heart rate, your steps, and your activity level. What were your training methods like in those early days? Did they have any of that stuff?

Not really. They were kind of starting to integrate it into our everyday routine. But it’s cool to see the progression of all the metrics and the analytics from my time in the league, 2017 until now.

I used to do WHOOP and Oura and stuff like that. I kind of stopped doing it just because I wanted to go with how my body felt. There’ll be days where I’ll feel like I’ll have really good sleep, a good recovery, and I’ll look and it says I’m 33% recovered. I’m like, “Dang! I woke up feeling great!” It kind of messes with you mentally a little bit because you’re thinking you had a great night of recovery and then it’s like, “No, you didn’t.” I just try to listen to my body as much as I can 1779091080.