Mary Fowler's fitness routine goes way beyond Matildas training

Mary Fowler has a busy and varied training schedule as a professional footballer for Australia's national team, the Commbank Matildas, and her club team Manchester City.

But her fitness routine goes beyond hours spent in the gym lifting weights, running drills with her teammates on the pitch, and finding ways to gently move her body throughout the week (think: yoga, jogging, walking and swimming). 

The professional athlete has had to cultivate a dichotomy of disciplines in order to rise to the top of her sport.

From setting small mental challenges to strengthen her willpower, to championing flexibility in the game, and tuning into her intuition and body — Mary Fowler doesn't leave any aspect of her game to chance — maximising every opportunity and challenge that comes her way. 

Want to know how to train like an athlete? Study each of Mary Fowler's carefully considered moves and you might just learn something. 

She sets herself mental challenges to improve her game

"It’s just little challenges throughout the day that make you feel like you’re achieving something, and that kind of gets you in that mindset of winning. You just feel like you are prepared, and you’ve done the work," Fowler told The Sydney Morning Herald, referencing the two weeks of cold showers she endured in the lead up to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. "That’s kind of what I do."

"I know that there are certain things that I need to do to be prepared, and if I haven’t done them, then I’m going to regret it, and I’m going to be like, 'I could have been so much more prepared’'. So if that is going to mean three, four weeks without a phone in order to be more prepared for a tournament that’s once in a lifetime, I can do that. I don’t want any regrets," she told the newspaper. "You use your phone every day for everything. I can understand how it can be hard, but I know how powerful the mind is."

No two days of training look the same

Her commitment to being flexible with her routine and her versatile position on the pitch as a striker, forward and midfielder, means that no two days of training for the footballer look the same, but it pays off when she has the opportunity to play.

"Mary is an unbelievable player," Matildas teammate Hayley Raso, told The Sydney Morning Herald. "The way she manoeuvres her body and keeps the ball at her feet is incredible. It’s crazy, because I just feel like she’s one of us older ones - but she’s still so young. To see that she’s already that good, I’m really excited. She’ll definitely be the future of this team."

"Right now, I’m just very chill about everything," Fowler told the publication. "And I hope I stay chill about everything. I think being able to just keep a cool head right now and just get shit done, basically - there’s still a lot of work to do and a lot of preparation to do, so I’m just keeping a clear head on that, and at the same time, being able to feel that excitement for what’s coming ahead - but also not stopping the work."

She's had to learn to listen to her body and slow down sometimes

Although the Matildas player is known for her awe-inspiring athleticism and speed on the pitch, that doesn't exempt her from dealing with her with period on game days. 

Fowler shared in a Rebel Sport produced documentary about the athlete that she experiences very painful period cramps, back pain and headaches on the first few days of her period. Sometimes the pain is so bad that it causes her to vomit. 

But like many female athletes, the football star has had to become comfortable accepting and sharing her discomfort with her teammates and coaches, overcoming the fear that it might affect her professional reputation. 

"There are definitely environments where it's like you don't want to tell anybody about your period, because you're going to lose your spot or you're going to be thought about differently if you don't train because of your period," she shared in the documentary.

"I have had games or I've been really really fatigued and I've been starting and then it's kind of like 'well, why isn't she sprinting faster? Why is she not working hard?," Fowler explained. "It's so hard to concentrate and my body is so tired."

Her appreciation for her body has changed as she's gotten older

Main image credit: @maryfowlerrr

Given the Matildas' strict schedule it should come as no surprise that they don't waste time on lengthy beauty routines. Case in point? This is the time-saving beauty product Mackenzie Arnold uses everyday before training.