At the conclusion of Gervon Dexter Sr.‘s rookie season, he sat in exit meetings with Bears personnel including coach Matt Eberflus and defensive line coach Travis Smith.
The pair evaluated Dexter’s season the same way they do with each player on the roster. It was clear Dexter — who played in all 17 games in 2023 — exhibited steady improvement throughout the season. But like any rookie, there was room for even more growth ahead of Year 2.
Smith challenged Dexter to an additional offseason task: “Don’t come back the same person.”
“The day we left, coach Trav told me, ‘When you come back, I don’t want to notice you. I don’t want you to look the same, walk the same, talk the same,'” Dexter told ChicagoBears.com. “That was his thing to me. So, I made that my goal.”
With the help of veteran teammates like defensive end Montez Sweat and cornerback Jaylon Johnson, Dexter curated a specific plan to achieve that goal while back home in Orlando, Fla.
He broke his offseason into three increments. The first few weeks were dedicated to general health and wellness, which meant recovering from the longest football season he had ever played. There were a lot of massages, dry needling, physical therapy and Pilates.
After, in his words, “getting [his] body back right,” Dexter jumped into the nutrition phase of his plan. He knew that in order to return to Halas Hall a better player, he needed to fix his body composition, so he took his eating habits more seriously and began a workout regimen geared toward losing body fat.
As far as his diet, Dexter simply needed to have more balance. He figured out the correct amount of protein and carbs his body required, cut out unhealthy late night snacks and hired a personal chef to help him stay on track. Rather than removing the food he enjoyed altogether, his chef made some adjustments, such as swapping out a regular donut for a protein donut.
While Dexter admitted the changes were difficult to adapt to during the first week of his plan, by Day 10 he had formed new habits. He combined his new nutrition goals with different exercises that focused on his core balance.
Once his overall movement was corrected, interval training on the Stairmaster became Dexter’s go-to workout. He would run on the machine for one minute before taking a 30-second break and repeating that cycle 10 times. Dexter’s goal was to be in “track shape” to ensure he could “run and play a whole…
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