ADEBAYO AKINFENWA: Giggs is an inspiration... he's even got me into yoga (after I gave up orange juice)

PUBLISHED: 19:25 EST, 28 November 2013 | UPDATED: 04:28 EST, 29 November 2013

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In his latest fortnightly column, MailOnline Sport’s Adebayo Akinfenwa talks about why Ryan Giggs is BMO, bikram yoga and giving up orange juice.

Ryan Giggs turned 40 on Friday and he is an inspiration not just to young kids coming through but all players – especially older players like me who may be entering the last stages of their careers.

It’s ridiculous that he is still playing in the Premier League and if he came down to League One he would absolute boss it. He is the true definition of BMO (Beast Mode On).

Ryan has talked a lot about the things he has done to keep himself in shape and that’s definitely something I can relate too.

Footballing great: The midfielder Ryan Giggs remains a Manchester United player at the age of 40

I’m 31 now and as I’ve matured over the years I’ve changed my diet, the way I train and generally how I look after myself. As you go through your career you learn what works for you and what doesn’t and you pick things up with experience.

For example, when I was younger I would drink lots of orange juice because I thought it wouldn’t be bad for me. But then I realised how much sugar there was in it and I cut it out.

The younger me would also not work on days off from training. I would think ‘Okay, day off, I’m going to do this and then that’ and the last thing I would think to do would be extra training. Now, when we have days off I’m down the gym doing extra training – sometimes it’s weights, sometimes it’s cardio, it’s whatever I feel I need to keep sharp.

I know Ryan likes his yoga but that is definitely an area I’ve got to improve on. I went to bikram yoga once, it was fun, but boy was it tough. So I’m still trying to work on getting stretching and yoga into my routine.

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The Beast: Gillingham's Bayo Akinfenwa (left) has no intention of retiring while he remains fit and mobile

Ryan is 40 and I don’t know if I’ll play to that age, but I’ve no plans to retire yet. I’m still enjoying my football and as long as my body can take the bashes and I can still run the channels and play my game then I’ll keep going.

So defenders watch out – The Beast is going nowhere yet.

As I said earlier, with age comes experience and that is helping me deal with being a bench player at the moment. I know the younger me would not have been able to take spending this much time on the bench. This is the longest spell I’ve had on the sidelines. But I know why I’m there and what I’ve got to do to get on the pitch and – because of my experience – I know how to handle the situation.

As a player on the bench, you become like a fan really. You’re sitting there shouting ‘why did he do that?’ or ‘no don’t pass it there’ and I can see why fans get so frustrated. But then I remember what it is like being out there on the pitch and how players can’t see everything that fans can see.

Watching football is not my thing, though. I’m not one of those players who always gets to games or watches every game on TV. If a game is on and I’m free, I’ll watch it but I won’t make my schedule around a football match.

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The only game I’ve played in recently was our FA Cup replay defeat to Brackley Town. It was a tough game – we knew they would be up for it – but I thought we deserved to win.

We were obviously gutted to lose and crash out so early, but in the long run it may help our season.

There are positives and negatives to everything and we have to take the positives from the defeat.

The main positive is that now we can solely focus on the League – because we are also out of the League Cup and Football League Trophy. The FA Cup is a fantastic competition but realistically we were never going to win it. Our goal this season was to stay in League One and, in my opinion, less midweek cup games will help us later in the season.

But that’s just my view and I know not everyone will agree. But I’m just trying to look positively at the situation. On the flipside, the club will miss out on valuable money and a good cup run can help boost a club – like Bradford in the League Cup last year. Of course, we would have loved to have gone on a run like they did – especially for the fans – but you have to be realistic.

Disappointed: Gillingham manager Peter Taylor was understandably unhappy about his side's Cup exit

Don’t get me wrong, we were all disappointed to lose to Brackley – especially the gaffer Peter Taylor.

After the game – and the defeat to Oldham a few days later – he let us know in a big way that he was not happy with the two performances and that basically our performances were unacceptable. We know we can’t perform like that again.

As for the League, we’ve got Rotherham on Saturday. They are seventh with 28 points and we are 16th with 21. So we are seven points off the play-offs, which a couple of months back seemed a long way away.

We’ve won three of our last four in the league but we are only five points ahead of Sheffield United in 21st place – so we know we can’t get complacent as this league is so tight. Defeat puts us right back in the relegation mix. But we go into the game full of confidence.

PS – The reaction to the BMO dance, which I showed you here in my last column, has been great. I did another video with some young guns at Gillingham two weekends ago. The senior players said I bullied them into it, but that’s not the case. They recognise it is a good dance! Hopefully, I can score soon and do it live or get one of the other lads to do it. Believe me, I’m working on it.

Follow Adebayo Akinfenwa on Twitter @daRealAkinfenwa and buy BMO clothing at www.officialbmostore.co.uk