Team USA Volleyball & Silver Medalist Chiaka Ogbogu's Best Wellness Tips

Playing on Team USA Volleyball during the 2024 Paris Olympics, the 6’2” middle blocker Chiaka Ogbogu just took home the silver with Team USA. She was also on the 2020 team that won a gold medal in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. 

Hailing from Texas—where she led her high school team to two straight state championships and played collegiate volleyball at the University of Texas Austin—she now plays internationally, most recently in Turkey. And of course, she plays for Team USA. 

“I think for young girls to see [women’s sports coverage in the media] is really important, because I didn't see that growing up,” she told me recently. “And it's cool that I got to this point, but I'm like, What would my journey have looked like if I got to watch women’s volleyball as a kid? Just the idea of little girls getting to watch these games is really special for a lot of us and future generations.” 

Ogbogu: I’ve had such an interesting relationship with nutrition—learning about the food that offers the best support for what I’m doing on the court versus what I think I need to be eating in a day versus what sounds the best. 

But for me, I feel like I’ve gotten accustomed to finding color when it comes to my food. I like to make sure I have a lot of color on my plate, and making sure that it’s visually appealing to eat. I’ve worked with so many dietitians and nutritionists throughout my career—I’ve learned that just the presence of color not only fuels your body, but it’s good for your mind too. And I know I play my best when my mind is also in the right place. 

Ogbogu: It depends where we are in the season and how my body's feeling. As I’m getting older, too, my body is telling me I need to be really good at recovery.

I don’t have a specific routine, but I have things I rely on. I try to be good with sleep. Post game and post practice, I'll use Normatec recovery boots. 

Then supplements have been a really big game-changer for me, especially on the road. I take sleep aids and things that help your body recover—like magnesium, calcium, things like that. 

Ogbogu: I don't know if anything I've done has been super crazy. I've seen athletes who do oxygen chambers or like sleep chambers. 

I've done cryotherapy. For me, that was extreme because I hate being cold.

Ogbogu: I’ve started doing pilates with my other teammates and I’ve seen the benefits—especially with how well we’ve been able to recover going back into volleyball. 

Ogbogu: I think now it's different from when I was in college. It's so funny because I feel like in college I needed to get really hyped. I was on all the coffees and all the energy drinks. It was all about getting to like my highest state of concentration, which later down the road, it's not sustainable.

Then with each level comes new pressures. So there's obviously more anxieties present when you’re playing at the highest level. So now it’s more about getting to my most calm state, which has been interesting. 

I think part of this journey is just about maturing. It’s about understanding that you probably think your most rationally when you’re at your calmest state, versus when you’re younger and it’s about benign spirited. Technique and IQ are not as much of a factor then, it’s just about physically. 

Compared to now, when everyone is physical. Everyone has been playing the game at a high level for a long time. So then it’s all about what team has the IQ to win. 

Ogbogu: I'm sure there's something innate in high performing athletes in which we have this addiction to pursuing mastery. So that's part of it. But I think a lot of us—and I know specifically with the national team and then myself on an individual level—work with sports psychologists to help us develop tools to move through sticky citations, such as losses or high-stress games. 

They help us acknowledge feelings, compartmentalize things when we need to, and then move on from them. It’s important to not dwell on what has happened, be that good or bad. How do we develop tools to be able to acknowledge things, compartmentalize things, move through 

For me, I'm a big journaler. I like to dump it all out after a bad match. Getting it on paper gets it out of my mind. It allows me to physically turn the page on something, so I can mentally focus on the next thing. 

Ogbogu: I'm thankful that I had that teammate experience growing up as a kid because it taught me how to work well with others, especially when you come from different backgrounds.

I think being a good teammate is first acknowledging that not everyone grew up the same way as you or has the same way of thinking as you.I think just on a basic level, understanding that helps you have empathy. 

And then the other important factor is empathy. I know my favorite teammates just had the most empathy and respect for everyone around them. It didn’t matter if they disagreed with someone, they always knew that that person was still important enough to contribute something to the team.

Ogbogu: Honestly, my advice would be to try as many sports as you can or be part of as many groups as you can.

I think that was helpful for me growing up because I learned a lot. I played basketball. I did Taekwondo. I took something from each sport because I think each sport attracts different types of people and has different challenges. 

Ogbogu: I think for us athletes, a lot of us are kind of Finally! Where has everyone been? It’s exciting to see volleyball now emerging in the States, like it's exciting for us because we haven't had a professional league yet. But now it’s starting up next year. And just all the hype and media around women’s basketball has been inspiring.