There were times in the past when Ben Roethlisberger would walk off the practice with enough ice on his body to get a good head start on building his own igloo.
Playing more than a decade in the NFL will have that effect on a person's body.
But as the Steelers close in on Roethlisberger's 15th season in the league, the star quarterback says his body feels better than ever — thanks to an offseason training regimen and a diet in which he cut carbs and sugars out of his diet. It helped him shed some excess weight to get much closer to the 240 pounds at which he is listed in the team's media guide.
The result has the quarterback looking leaner and revitalized on the playing field with very little need for that post-practice ice.
"How do I feel, whether that’s my arm, my shoulder, my elbow, knee, ankles," Roethlisberger said Tuesday when asked how he judges things. "It’s just a general feeling of my body. I think my arm feels stronger than it ever has. That’s a big key. After practice, how many times am I putting ice on my body? I think it was one time at camp this year. That’s a good sign."
A good sign indeed for a 36-year-old quarterback.
The Steelers wrapped up their training camp at Saint Vincent College last week and are now back at the Rooney Sports Complex putting the finishing touches on their preparation for the 2018 regular season, which begins Sept. 9 in Cleveland.
The training camp was a success for Roethlisberger in terms of getting through it and having increased practice time thanks to his redefined body.
But that doesn't mean training camp wasn't without its scares. Roethlisberger was leading the team in a "seven-shots" drill to open the final practice last Tuesday at Latrobe Memorial Stadium when he dropped back and lofted a pass to the back left corner of the end zone for JuJu Smith-Schuster.
After releasing the ball, he fell backward after being bumped into right tackle Marcus Gilbert. The quarterback fell backward, bouncing his head off the turf. He stayed down on the field for several moments, his teammates gathered around him in a circle, before he finally got up, sat down on a water cooler and then finally exited the practice field.
"You don’t expect to get hit and then to get hit from the blind side," Roethlisberger said. "Gil just happened to be pushing the guy around and caught me just right. It kind of knocked the wind out of me, too."
He quickly knew he was OK, even though he had to be checked for a potential concussion because he had banged his head off the ground. When Mike Tomlin announced Roethlisberger was in concussion protocol, many assumed the worst.
After all, Roethlisberger has suffered at least three concussions since joining the Steelers and those issues were one of the main reasons he was considering retirement after the 2016 season.
"The scary thing is the verbiage — concussion protocol," Roethlisberger said. "I think what a lot of people don’t realize — players included — is that it doesn’t mean you have a concussion. It means you go into a protocol system to get tested for a concussion. Right away, there were no symptoms. I took the test at the facility and then again when we came back here, and everything came back perfect. I think everyone, because of the reporting and just a lack of knowledge, assumed I had a concussion. I never did, so that was a good thing."
The quarterback was quickly cleared and made the trip with the team to its second preseason game in Green Bay. Roethlisberger, as scheduled, did not play in that game as rookie Mason Rudolph started and was relieved in the second half by Josh Dobbs.
This week, however, Roethlisberger figures to get his first -- and perhaps only -- work of the preseason when the Steelers host Tennessee Saturday afternoon.
He's looking forward to the chance to get on the field.
"It’s kind of live action. We’ve been at practice, but everything gets a little faster, a little quicker," he said. "I hope I don’t get hit, but I know it’s good to knock that rust off as well."
Knocking the rust off and avoiding a big injury to any front-line players are big reasons why so many teams have limited the playing time of their starters in recent years in the preseason. It's a fine line to walk to get players enough live game action to get prepared. But last week was a good reminder to the Steelers of how quickly things can change if they're not careful -- even in practice.
It certainly was for Roethlisberger.
"Hopefully, the hardest hit I take all year is from Gilbert and we can laugh about it at the end of the year," he said with a laugh.