I met Oakland Raiders punter Chris Kluwe (formerly of the Minnesota Vikings) in Minneapolis when he was signing copies of his new book, Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies, after a talk where he primarily answered questions from audience members.

I was struck by his candor during the Q&A session and the startling honesty of his book, although it had little to do with football. “If you define yourself solely by one activity that you do at one point in your life, then you’re really missing out on a lot of what life has to offer,” he told me when I commented on his varied interests, which include sci-fi, gaming, political activism, and playing bass in the band Tripping Icarus.

Still, I took the opportunity to pick his brain about punting, sports psychology, his strength and conditioning, and anything else I could think of.

Performance Menu: What does a typical week of training look like for you?

Chris Kluwe: Essentially, during the season Mondays are after-game film study, we’ve got to work that in. Tuesdays are our day off. Wednesday is a full day of practice; lift weights and work on punting, usually for about 45 minutes to an hour. Thursday, full day of practice but I don’t punt so my legs can rest. Friday is kind of a ¾ day practice, and then I’ll punt again on Friday. Saturday is our travel day where we have meetings in the morning and get ready to travel, if it’s an away game, and if it’s a home game, we get to go home for a bit and then go to the hotel, and Sunday is game day.

So what do you do in a typical practice?

Just work on fundamentals, techniques, try and punt the ball where the coaches want me to. Really, once you get to this point you have to have practiced enough to where you are consistent 95 percent of the time. Otherwise you’re not going to keep your job. At that point it becomes all about just refining small techniques and constantly working on that consistency.

Does the team prescribe your strength and conditioning workouts for you?

Yeah, they have a weightlifting program that everyone does; punters and kickers are no different. The only thing that changes is the weight you do, since we don’t necessarily have to lift as much as the other guys because we’re doing a different kind of motion, but you still have to do all the strength and conditioning and the exercises themselves.

What exercises do you do regularly?

It really varies, but it’s essentially functional movement: squats, power cleans, hang cleans, bench press, pull-ups, pushups. It’s really just trying to isolate and work every muscle in your body so that you’re ready to perform.

What do they do for leg strength and flexibility?

With flexibility, you’re kind of on your own. We’ll do stretching; we have a stretching routine, but it’s up to you if you want to work on it to get more flexible, and if you ask the strength and conditioning coaches they’ll put together a program for you. As far as strength, it’s really just doing the motions, doing the exercises and then if you feel like you want to get more work in a certain area, you can talk to the strength and conditioning coaches and they’ll put together a program that highlights that area.

What do you do for training in the off-season?

I mainly do CrossFit for about an hour each day, run on the beach and then practice punting at the local sports complex near my house. They have a bunch of softball fields and open soccer fields, so I’ll just take some balls out and work on my technique. Really it’s just about maintaining, and being in shape so when the season rolls around, you’re ready to go.

What’s it like to not really be well-known, despite being one of the best punters and having a major role in field position? Well, I guess you’re well-known for other reasons…

Hopefully one day people will know me for punting as well, but really my goal and most punters’ goal is to go out on the field and do our jobs and hopefully nobody ever notices us because usually if someone notices you it’s because you’ve done something bad, so you’ve just got to go out and put it well and that’s what people expect.

What’s it like to be backed up in your own end zone when you need to nail a deep punt and where you can either do your job and nobody even notices or be the greatest of all time?

It’s fun, because it’s a chance to demonstrate that you belong in the NFL, that you can play at a high level, and really you just have to treat it like any other situation, there just happens to be more field in front of you than in the other spots. The key is that you have to be careful not to overkick it, because if you do that they’ll end up returning it, but you still have to get a solid hit on the ball because otherwise you’ll get a 40 foot punt and that’s not great.

Is it hard to hold for placekicking?

Chris Kluwe: No, it’s just a skill like any other that you have to develop. Playing baseball really helped with that because I learned how to catch a baseball and develop soft hands, so that was useful. But again, like any other athletic skill, the more time you devote to mastering it, the better you’re going to be at it.

You mentioned having to demonstrate that you belong. Is that a daily pressure? Is that in the back of people’s minds that they have to prove themselves or does that ever go away?

For me personally, every time I go out to punt, in a sense I’m competing with myself because there’s only 32 positions in the NFL and there’s way more people that are qualified to punt in the NFL than there are positions, so you have to go out with that mindset that I have to punt to the best of my ability or they might replace me. I think that’s one of the things that’s allowed me to play in the NFL for so long is that I do take that mindset. I don’t know if other guys have the same approach, but I would wager that most of them do, simply because it really is such a tough league to get into that you can’t take it for granted.

In one of the chapters of your book, you wrote about how pro athletes get really good at hiding the disappointment behind a loss. How do you do that? Is that like the phone’s ringing but you’re not going to answer it? How do you mentally block things out like that?

Well, it’s really tough to do, but you have to realize that that period in time is over and there’s no way that you can affect it anymore so don’t let it affect you. The game is done, it’s in place, the outcome has been determined and the only thing you can affect now is the games that are coming up. So you have to be able to just make that mental effort, that force of will to push those thoughts aside and really you have to forget about them, because if you don’t, it’s going to affect your next game and your next game and odds are you’re going to be out of the league very soon.

If you’re trying to prove yourself, can’t that also mess you up a bit mentally and hurt your performance?

That’s the fine line you have to walk. You always have to be self-motivated, and to think, “I’ve got to go out there and do my best,” but you can’t let it become a distraction or hindrance or focus on it so much that you’re scared to go out and do your best. You have to treat it like a driving motivational force instead of a fear, like, “Oh no, if I don’t do well, I’m going to get cut.”

You wrote a little bit about breathing and about how people sometimes forget to breath when they are new to the game, but obviously if you spend your whole time thinking about your breathing, you’re not going to do well either. Can you talk a little bit about how you do that?

Lots of practice. Essentially, making sure that you have the muscle memory down so that you don’t have to think about it and making sure you stay relaxed, because if you tense up, you’re going to lose strength, you’re going to lose power. You can’t be too relaxed because then obviously you’re not going to play well, but you have to be able to be in that zone where you’re confident about what you’re doing and you’re not worried about making a mistake or screwing up because you’ve practiced so much that you know you can do it. You have confidence in your abilities.

You have so many different interests and things that you’re passionate about, but you also seem like you’re entirely focused on football. How do you stay focused on football in season?

That’s just the way my mind works—when I’m doing something, whatever I’m doing I’m focused on that with 100 percent of my mind. The task in front of me is the only thing I’m thinking about. But then when I‘m away from football, not at practice, not on the game field, I focus on something else. That’s the rest of my life that I get to live. And it really is just being able to be in the moment and realizing that if you’re constantly thinking about other things rather than what’s in front of you, then you’re not going to be very good at what’s in front of you at the moment.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Flying would be fun, but everyone always picks flying and they forget to include warm clothing in that, because if you’re flying at 30,000 feet you’re probably going to freeze to death, so… although I don’t know if that’s included in the superpower…. Invisibility could be fun, but after doing the massive amounts of traveling I’ve had to do lately, I think I’m going to go with teleportation. If I could just show up in a place, that would make my life a lot easier right now.

What version?

Probably either Nightcrawler or Jumper, where you think of yourself as someplace else and you find yourself there.

For a glimpse into Chris Kluwe’s brilliant and twisted mind, check out his book, Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies: On Myths, Morons, Free Speech, Football, and Assorted Absurdities. He wrote it all himself.