In today's competitive world of high-goal polo, finding the secret ingredients to field a competitive—and hopefully—winning polo team is more difficult than ever. Sometimes, even with the right combination of talented players on generous strings of uber-talented polo ponies, with cooperation from Mother Nature and a favorable polo schedule with the games spread out just the right number of days apart, things do not always work out in your favor. One injury can derail the team's entire season.

Joe DiMenna did not want to leave his team's success to chance, so he took steps to ensure his players were as prepared as possible. He enlisted the help of a highly-qualified conditioning specialist and nutritionist to get his players in the best physical shape they can be.

As a former track-and-field athlete at the University of Arkansas, Jay Cardiello won the national championships, but a serious spinal injury curtailed his plans of being a top competitor. A few years and 13 surgeries later, Cardiello began working as an NFL conditioning coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That led to working as the strength and conditioning coach for baseball's Cincinnati Reds, then the arena football league's New Jersey Red Dogs. He later worked as a strength assistant for the XFL before moving on to boxing, working with heavyweight boxers such as Jameel McCline and Al Cole. He has also worked with professional basketball players Kevin Love and Tyson Chandler.

Realizing the importance of diet in any training regime, Cardiello became a certified nutritionist. One thing led to another, and he eventually began using his experience in strength and conditioning and nutrition to work with celebrities such as Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Sophia Vergara, Minka Kelly, Jennifer Lopez, Ryan Seacrest and many other Hollywood elites.

In 2011 DiMenna hired him to work with his Equuleus Polo Team. An enthusiastic Cardiello got right to work setting up training protocols for the team. Aside from his vast experience training professionals, Cardiello has been on the advisory board for various fitness magazines, so he knew the biomechanics of the body for sport from top to bottom, but he had never worked with polo athletes before. He decide to do some intense research.

I got on a horse with a mallet one afternoon and stick-and-balled for about and hour and a half. I got off the horse and from there I designed the whole program," explained Cardiello. Sitting on the horse and swinging the mallet allowed him to better understand what muscles were being utilized the most so he could fine-tune a program specifically for polo.

His time in the saddle worked his lower lumbar, inner thighs, abductor area, behind his shoulder blades, forearm and lower bicep tendon. He developed a program including flexibility and mobility protocols around the elbowshoulder complex and compound training for posterior, multi-joint exercises and functional training exercises.

Cardiello's programs require virtually no equipment, with the idea that your body is your own gym. Though polo uses different muscles then other sports, many of the training methods are the same.

The big thing you look for whenever training an athlete is how to keep the athlete healthy and on the field," explains Cardiello. "Eighty percent of all fitness, athletic and wellness goals are accomplished with diet. I am very big with [the players] with their diets.

They have an in-season diet program. It is not based on deprivation. We usually run anywhere from 50 to 60 percent carbohydrates with complex carbs that keep the body at peak conditioning so they are always in the recovery stage when they are not playing. Then we have a good amount of quality fats and protein. I also require them to hydrate their bodies with half their body weight in ounces of water per day, and I'm big on sleep. That triangle has to be set up before we implement the training protocols and the physical nature." Cardiello believes this is where other players who do not have a coach fall short. "They are training too much on the horse and not working enough on food, sleep, hydration and flexibility."

The horse factor is definitely a noticeable difference between players and other athletes. Cardiello says, "Football players have to deal with rain, snow and heat, but they can change their equipment; basketball players don't have to deal with situational things except different players; baseball has to deal with different kinds of surfaces. With a polo athlete, you are looking at a [1,000-plus] pound animal that can all of a sudden become upset and flip out. ... it can get mad, run the opposite way, break a leg, die. There are so many variables, so you have to train for the what-if factor, the ohno factor. The horse can take off and if the body isn't built symmetrically, or balanced, to handle that there could be a lot of issues.

Our training protocols are not traditional, meaning—in a sense—we are not doing bench presses and squats. If you are doing anything it is where the body is on an unstable surface. With the Equuleus program, the horse and athlete work as one, they are just an extension of each other. … You have such a small time frame to work with these gentlemen, if you implement heavy lifting, God forbid someone does damage to their muscle and can't recover in time, it is detrimental to the whole season."

Many of the exercises Cardiello does with the polo players are done on an unstable platform such as a pillow, balance disc or even in the sand to increase their proprioception, which is basically the feedback loop between the body and the brain. One such exercise has the players straddling a punching bag on a bench while they do core work and shoulder work, including flexibility, mobility and compound training. The punching bag is not fastened down and can move so they have to squeeze the bag to position themselves as they do the exercise.

I'm training the body to fire at a quicker or more rapid pace in order to make adjustments to the body's position based upon the unstable surface," says Cardiello. "When they are on a horse, they are in a very unstable position. They are turning their torsos to the right and to the left and hanging on the sides. I develop their training protocols based on that. We do a lot of unilateral training. We stand on an unbalanced surface and do compound movements or function movements on one leg, then switch over to the opposing leg. This not only strengthens the hip, creates lower lumbar strength and balances their core, but creates symmetry in their right or left leg."

Cardiello explains that because players hold their mallet in their right hand, they are predominately playing on their right side. He works to create a stronger base, just like the roots of a tree planted in the ground, so the player can better absorb the force of a bump to the body and stabilize themselves when they are tapping the ball downfield or reaching across their body for nearside shots. He also works on exercises that will give them stronger rotation in their torso and develop better follow through with their shots. If a player does fall, the stronger base, balanced core and increase mobility give them a better chance for a quicker recovery.

He also does a lot of exercises for the shoulder and hip, the only joints in the body that rotate 360 degrees, because shoulder and hip injuries are common in polo. "What happens is they go unnoticed and then all of a sudden, the player has back issues or neck issues because the body overcompensates," explains Cardiello.

The players do a lot of mobility exercises first on the floor, then laying on top of a Swiss ball with a 5- or 10-pound dumbbell in each hand. They do Y-raises, W-raises, L-raises and T-raises. Sometimes they will do them hinged forward at the hip with the knee bent. If a player is very tight, he will do the exercises against the wall without weights.

The Equuleus team has a 52-week conditioning program. When a new player joins the team, they go through a fitness evaluation to measure joint mobility, flexibility, strength and body symmetry from left to right and front to back.

Cardiello tests their body fat and body mass index, and discusses their diet and sleep habits. The evaluation can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. "I watch everything from the way they walk , how the stitching on their shirt lays (if it is turned in, they are hunching and need to work more on their posterior) to the wear patterns on their shoes," says Cardiello.

He develops a personal program for each player based upon a 52-week cycle, or a macro phase, which includes various micro cycles that change every 8 to 10 weeks. Everyone is on a personal program for the first few months of the year. The players start doing body weight exercises in January and February and implement weight training at the end of February and into March. In April they are doing more conditioning, such as boxing or sprints. "Their bodies are made for anaerobic and aerobic conditioning so we are doing bursts of speed rather than long runs," Cardiello explains.

Into May they start a deconditioning stage on their own including such exercises as light jogging, playing volleyball, running on the beach or swimming. In June, Cardiello does V02 max (maximal oxygen consumption), flexibility and strength tests. The strength test does not necessarily measure how much they can lift but how fast they go from point A to B while carrying an object.

June and July is the hardest training stage as they are getting ready for the summer high-goal season, and Cardiello follows their diet closely. By the end of July, they are in a maintenance phase and August begins a deconditioning phase, where they are just maintaining the strength they have built up. In September the players do a weigh-in and then Cardiello sends them home with a fourmonth outreach program. The program limits exercise to flexibility and yoga in October, and picks back up in November and December. The players report back again to start the cycle all over in January.

The program is great. It is a little hard at the beginning, especially the month before our polo season starts, but it lightens up when the tournament games begin to help us avoid getting injured but be as fit as we can be during the season with energy and strength," says Mariano Gonzalez. The former 8- goaler has been working with Cardiello now for over three years.

During the height of the summer season, players generally are training and conditioning several times a day and Cardiello shows them how to eat properly and sometimes even goes food shopping with them.

It is easy to follow his suggestions because he even goes with us to buy groceries at the beginning," says Gonzalez. "We know what type of food we should be eating to help our training. Dieting is always hard, but it is easier when you have someone telling you what to do. When you have to choose [the food] on your own it is easier to screw up. His suggestions make our training easier so it is smart to follow his advice. When you go off the diet you feel it in the gym!"

Typically players come in to train in the morning, then go home for lunch and rest before returning at around 2:30 for heat, maybe a light mobility work on a stability ball and stretching. They practice around 4 o'clock and are back in the training room afterward doing ice and static stretching.

Stretching and keeping loose while we are training and playing helps," says Gonzalez. "Being fit and eating healthy will always be a plus for your performance, and I feel stronger during the season."

Twice a day, when they are doing their morning session and when they are on a horse in the afternoon, they drink shakes. "Your anabolic window is the opportune time for the body to ingest a 2-1 carbohydrate-to-protein ratio in a liquid form. You replenish glycogen to help the body recover," explains Cardiello. "They are not only on a food-based program but a nutritional-based program with dietary supplements, protein shakes, post workout shakes, multi vitamins and Omega 3s. I invented the program where it is thoughtless and seamless for the players."

Cardiello wants the players to have 6 to 8 hours of sleep. If a player has trouble sleeping, he recommends tart cherry juice, a natural melatonin, and wearing socks to bed to keep a consistent temperature of their extremities.

The players are instructed to drink 16 to 20 ounces of ice water when they wake up in the morning, which has shown to raise the metabolism by up to 24 percent in the first 90 minutes. They have a carb dense breakfast to sustain energy and a complex carb shake after they work out.

He sometimes recommends the players wake up in the middle of the night to drink a protein shake. "The body is in a catabolic state while you sleep, and goes into a starving state," Cardiello explains. "If you have constant food being placed in the body, it is always in a recovery state while you are sleeping. Night time is when muscles grow and get replenished. If you go to bed, wake up and avoid food, your body is going to be in a catabolic state and the body is going to feed on all the muscle you worked on."

Before playing, players warm-up differently, depending on their personal preference. Cardiello says it is completely a mental thing. "Some players simply like to talk, some like to do dynamic workouts including moving stretches and a few short quick sprints; some guys like to warm up alone, while others like to warm up together," says Cardiello.

After games, players get on a massage table for up to a 15-minute static stretch cool down and sometimes do foam rolls. When the players get home they take a cold water or ice bath for 10 to 15 minutes to expedite the recovery process. "After working out, people think they are all pumped up. No, they are actually destroying muscle fibers and their body is in an inflamed state. Cold baths help expedite recoverly," says Cardiello.

When the players are in Argentina, Cardiello keeps in touch with them on a regular basis by telephone, Skype or email. He also sends them videos via a private YouTube account. The players know they can reach out to him with any questions and it helps to keep them motivated. He reminds them how lucky they are to have the opportunity to train with someone, and by not training, following protocols and nutritional programs, they are setting themselves up for possibly not competing at a high level, watching their handicap fall and limiting their playing opportunities.

"Even though we keep in touch, it is harder to follow the program when the trainer is away," say Gonzalez. "The hardest part is to keep training as often and as intense as when we have Jay every morning, right there. When you start the pre-season workout, we are not as fit as we should be, so starting is always harder." If the players want to eat red meat, they are reminded that serving sizes are based on their hand. Cardiello tells them, "If you are going to have a steak, make sure it is no thicker and no bigger than the size of your hand. If you have whole wheat pasta, it should be no bigger than your fist." When eating, his motto is, "Give your food the hand."

Gonzalez says he definitely feels healthier working with Cardiello. "Having a trainer waiting for you and telling you what to eat, how much to sleep, how much water to drink and when to drink it is a big plus. The healthier you are, the less injuries you might have and that will extend your career as much as possible. The older you get, the fitter you have to be."

While Cardiello's training program is more complete, Gonzalez says it is not harder than other training programs he has done in the past, just more intense in the pre-season.

Over the past three years, Cardiello has worked with others players including Adam Snow, Martin Pepa, Hugo Tagliaferro and Magoo Laprida. Cardiello's program might just be working. The team has had minimal injuries and this summer, Equuleus won the Monty Waterbury Cup over the favored White Birch team in Bridgehampton, New York.

Gonzalez says, "We are always motivated because we play year-round. We are looking forward to another tournament and that is a big motivation in itself. Having a guide, suggestions and a program helps us get ready for the next challenge."

–– By Gwen Rizzo