WHOOP Podcast - Adam Thielen shares his journey from overlooked Division II athlete to NFL All-Pro

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

Adam Thielen has become one of the most recognizable names in football, but his success in the NFL was far from guaranteed.  He joins the WHOOP Podcast to detail his journey from an overlooked Division II athlete to a star wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings, and explains how his determination led him to the NFL after going undrafted. Adam discusses his lifelong dream to play sports (2:32), why he chose football (5:16), his "good delusion" and how it helped him pursue the NFL (6:36), the mental side of performance (9:51), proving yourself (13:55), his mindset (17:36), injury prevention and overcoming setbacks (21:28), preparing for Sunday (25:17), using WHOOP (27:36), the importance of sleep (33:43), defining the many types of talent (34:51), and fulfilling your potential (37:30).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

What's up, folks? Welcome back to the WOOP podcast, where we sit down with top athletes, scientists, experts, and more to learn what the best in the world are doing to perform at their peak and what you can do to unlock your own best performance. I'm your host, Will Amit, founder and CEO of Woop, and we are on a mission to unlock human performance. All right, we got a great guest this week. Minnesota Vikings wide receiver, pro bowler, Adam Thielen. Before we get to Adam, a reminder, you can use the code Will to get 15% off a WOOP membership. That's at WOOP.com, WILL, and join the WOOP community. All right, Adam Thielen is one of the most recognizable names in the NFL and is undeniably one of the best players at his position.

He's got an amazing story, and it's pretty remarkable that he's even gotten into the NFL. He was born and raised in a small town in rural Minnesota and was overlooked for, years as an athlete. He was a four-sport star in high school, but didn't get any interest from major college programs. He was offered a $500 football scholarship from Division II Minnesota's date. It wasn't even enough to cover books, but he took the scholarship anyway and became a standout player. Still, he went mostly unnoticed. He wasn't picked in the NFL draft, but his hometown Vikings offered him a spot at a rookie camp. And from there, he worked his way on to the roster, became a special teams ace and is now an all-pro wide receiver in the NFL. It's a great story, one of

determination and perseverance. Adam talks about the mental side of performance and how he took advantage of every small opportunity he was given along the way. His approach to recovery and what he's learned from Woop about how his body bounces back from strain, dealing with injuries and how he thinks about injury prevention, how he defines talent, and why he thinks it goes beyond physical ability, and I ask Adam some rapid-fire questions on some of the hot-button issues in the NFL today. Without further ado, here is Adam Phelan. Adam, welcome to the WOOC podcast. Thanks for having me. So you've had an amazing career, really an underdog story. You've had just amazing success after

largely being overlooked. And I want to go back in time and just talk about some of those earlier. years for you. Did you always know that you were ultimately going to be a professional athlete? I always tell people this that I had delusion to me. I had this delusion that like whatever sport I was playing, I was going to be professional. So whether it was basketball season, football season, golf season, baseball season. I played four sports all the way through high school. And whatever season it was, I was like, no, like I can do this at the highest level. And I always kind of tell people that I'm kind of glad I had that delusion. I'm glad I didn't really have a really. holistic approach because it kind of made me better every single year because I just had this

drive and passion that, like, no, like, I'm going to do this. I don't care what it takes to get there, but definitely was delusional in thinking that, but definitely I believed in it. Where do you think that belief came from? Were your parents very supportive of you playing sports? Did you have siblings that were egging you on? Did you just sort of sense that you had a talent? You know, I didn't have anybody pushing me. My parents were extremely supportive in the fact that they kind of just stayed out of it. And whatever I was passionate about, whatever I loved doing, their only requirement for me was that I finished the season. So whether it was a sport or whether it was band or choir, like, their only requirement was like, you give it everything you got and you finish. I think it was just my mindset. I just love to play sports. I absolutely love to play sports. If I could have played 10 sports in high school, I would have. I would have played hockey. I literally would have played every sport because I just enjoyed the competition. I loved changing sports. I love going from season to season and trying to master that sport. Probably the reason why I'm so addicted to golf

right now because I want to master it. I want to find a way to be really good at it. It's my like escape. It's my love, my passion and which makes it fun. Now I understand you actually want a state championship in golf in high school. Yeah, we want a we want a team state championship. So kind of a crazy story. We end up actually being co-state champs, which I didn't even know. We didn't know it was possible, but we ended up tying for the state championship. And there was no tiebreaker in the state of Minnesota. And I actually melted down in my last three holes. I think I was playing the best golf in my life. The conditions were extremely difficult. It was like Minnesota in the spring. So it was like thunderstorms and just crazy wins. And end up playing like some of my best golf I ever played

coming down to the last three holes and I was overconfident and tried to hit some shots I didn't need to hit and hit a couple out of bounds and ended up finishing pretty poorly. But we end up winning the state championship as a team, which was really cool. So how did you know that football was the path? Was that the one you felt like you were best at? I mean, baseball, basketball, and golf, it sounds like you were really talented at all four. I didn't know the only reason why I played football because it was my only scholarship offer. And I was cool. Whatever sport, I always told my parents, I said, whatever sport that I can get the highest, get to play at the highest level at is what I'll choose to play in college. And, you know, a Division II school, Minnesota

State, Mancato came with a scholarship offer, even though it was $500. It was my biggest offer of any sport. And we had a chance to go play Division II football and took that chance and went for it. I got to ask, like, if you'd gotten a scholarship in, say, baseball or basketball and you just committed to one of those, do you feel like deep down in your? heart you'd be a professional athlete in one of those. So this kind of comes back to that that delusion because I honestly believe that I could. People think I'm crazy for saying that, but I would have definitely tried. Well, it's only crazy until you do it, and that's entirely what your football career has been. So if I'm looking at this right, 2012, you have this

breakout senior year. You're playing wide receiver, 1,100 yards, 8 touchdowns, but you're still not getting the recognition really that you might have deserved at that time from NFL teams. What was your mindset then as a senior in college who's performing great who's also telling himself, hey, I'm going to be a pro? Yeah, I think for me it was just, again, like I had this delusion to think, like, no, I'm going to get an opportunity. I just got to go make the most of it. And then when none of those opportunities came and, you know, my college coaches are kind of saying, hey maybe maybe like you try to play in like the canadian league or something like that it kind of just like put a chip on my shoulder to say no what i'm gonna i'm gonna prove everybody wrong here and i kind

of heard some rumblings of people like thinking i was crazy for trying but uh again it just kind of like put more of a chip on my shoulder and it made me more excited to prove people wrong i went all in i stopped drinking i did whatever it took nutritionally to try to like eat really good and until this combine uh so i could run my best 40 and and test the best i could possibly test i knew that I had the skills as far as playing receiver, but I'd never tested in my life as far as a 40 and pro agility and all that. I've never, I never did any of that. I played sports. I didn't run track. I didn't do those things. So I knew that if I could just put a good 40 up there, that I would get an opportunity. So when I did that at this at this combine and I ran a good 40, I tested it out really

well, I thought it was kind of a no-brainer that I would get, I would get some calls and get some looks because I could do all the football stuff really well, and I've done it really well for a long time. The only question was, can he run? And can he move? Is he an athlete? And when I felt like I proved that, nobody called. So it was kind of a weird deal. And luckily, I always say it's better to be lucky than good. Luckily, that I had a couple teams say, hey, would love to have you just come for the rookie camp. And the chances of making it from there are almost zero percent, but it was an opportunity. And first up was the Minnesota Vikings rookie camp went there and I have never left. That's amazing.

So you run a 4-4-5-40. And the whole combine thing, by the way, that's its own circus. I mean, I've gotten to understand it a little bit better in the last few years because whoops, the official wearable of the NFLPA. It's a pretty intense, you know, moment in a young man's life. Like, were you nervous for that 40 or at that point you're just like, look, I paid my way to get here. I've done everything I possibly can like I'm going to crush this I was I was extremely nervous just because I knew it was like my one chance it's not like I get like I can like come back or or go somewhere else like it was my one opportunity to show like hey I can run and then I can test really well and then it was like okay now you're doing these like routes on air which I could do in my sleep at that point but but it still is so nerve-ranking because like you drop a ball or you slip on your route it's like they're not even going to especially where I came from they're don't even give me a chance. So it was like, it was like, holy bug, it's like, I got to be

perfect here to get any look. Even though I know I can do it, even though I know I'm, I'm really good at it. It still is like that fear of like, man, hey, I got one opportunity, which was, it's crazy looking back. And I'm probably more nervous now looking back at it than I actually was in the moment. Did you have any practice in your life at that time that was around visualization or around, you know, mindfulness or some kind of mental performance, you to put yourself in the state to have that perfect combine? Because like you just said, if one thing goes wrong, we're never having this conversation probably. That's a great question. I never did. In fact, at that time, I never even heard of anything like that. I don't think there was much

out there as far as that goes. I think for me, that always kind of came pretty natural. I've had to do some stuff. Like in college, we had some great mental training coaches. And in my first few years in the NFL had some fantastic mental training coaches that I still use to this day, a lot of that I kind of remind myself, okay, this really helped me in this situation. But I think it kind of came natural to me to how to just live in the moment. And that was kind of something I always have done is just like, hey, like, I'm not going to worry about what people think about me or what I did yesterday or what could have tomorrow. I'm just going to like focus on how can I maximize today, whether that be from a training perspective or practice. Like I'm going to maximize today. So I always took

that approach and I think that really helped me in that situation to like I'm not really focused on like what what could happen if this doesn't go well I'm just going to focus on like this 40 how can I how can I run as fast as I can and that's all I'm focused on well a lot of those practices are designed to ultimately drive towards self-belief and ultimately drive towards being present both of which it seems like came very naturally to I mean what you just described was literally self-belief and staying really present so it seems like that was one of the of your gifts in this whole process was letting that shine. And so there's really no surprise that you crushed the combine. Okay, so you're undrafted, but you sign with the Vikings. And at that

point, did you have any like sigh of relief or you're still kind of nervous, hey, this could all go away shortly? Again, I kind of like look back at this moment, that moment in my career. And like, I'm more nervous now than I was actually in the moment. Like I almost like look at myself, my younger yourself of like, man, you were crazy because like you didn't actually like you had no nerves. You had no like worries. I had no like like when I went to rookie camp without a contract and like the percentages of you making it, there are literally less than 1%. I think it's like close to 0% chance. Like they already have a 90 man roster. Like they would have to cut somebody that they just gave a signing bonus to, you know, a few days before that after the draft. Your chances are like

zero percent. But when I was going to it, I wasn't even thinking about that. I was just like focusing on like, hey, like, I just got to go play football and I'm having fun doing it. I get to go continue my career. I get to go practice for three days and go have fun and compete in which I love to do. So it was kind of like, like, again, like I look back at it. I'm like, man, like, I'm crazy. Was there a moment in that rookie camp where you're like, okay, I think I'm doing enough here? Like, I think I can make this team. Because to your point, it's like a zero percent chance that you're going to get on the team. Yeah, I think I had a lot of confidence in what I was doing. I really was performing well. I was doing well on one-on-ones. I was doing well on the team

periods. And we had a couple first-round draft picks that year. One was a corner, Xavier Rhodes. And I was going against him a lot. And I felt like I was holding my own. And we had another first-round draft pick who was one of my better friends. And my roommate, Cordero Patterson, was playing receiver. And I just felt like, you know, in that moment, it gave me a lot of confidence because I felt like I could hang with these guys. And I felt like, you know, I'm right there. So why would I be nervous? Like, I'm doing what I need to do. And I'm having. fun. I'm having a ton of fun. And that's what it's all about. You know, how much, I'm curious, like, from just a locker room perspective, how much do you feel like an NFL team or an individual

on an NFL team's reputation is earned versus inherited by prior credentials? I mean, you've been on literally both ends of this spectrum where you're the undrafted guy who probably is going to get cut from the perspective of everyone there to captain pro bowler. You know, how much much do you feel like it's it's earning your spot every day versus you know people saying oh okay yeah i've seen that guy's stats he's a good college guy you know like kind of resume versus what did you do for me today yeah i think um i think that's my approach my approach is like no matter what i've done in my career whether it would been the day the first day i got to the vikings or now like my approach is the same like i feel like i have to prove myself every day and at every point in

your career you have something to prove like right now i have i have a lot to prove i have to prove that like i haven't lost a step i have to prove that like no i'm i am that player that you think i was at one point like no that is me and so like i i always feel like i have that mindset like no i'm going out there to prove today whether it's first day of oTA practice or if it's training camp or if it's game number one or if it's a super bowl like i have something to prove i think there's different um as far as your question goes i think there's different um areas so like coaches might give like a first round pick. They might give him the benefit of the doubt over an undrafted guy. But I think as far as a locker room goes, a lot of it is earned. A lot of it is

like earned respect. It doesn't matter what you did last year. It doesn't matter what you did what you did in your college career. Like you got to prove to me that I can count on you as a teammate and that, you know, that when times get tough, like how are you going to react and and what kind of leader are you? I think that stuff is earned and over time and I think is really cool about the culture of the locker room. Yeah, that is cool. Okay, so 2014 to 15, you're on the team.

You're a special team standout, but you haven't quite gotten that look, really, that you want at wide receiver. What are you feeling then? Are you still just like one day at a time, keep proving myself, I'm going to get the wide receiver slot? Like, does doubt ever creep in? you know i wasn't really worried about it i was just kind of focused on on the opportunity and whether

it being practiced like proving like hey i'm a really good wide receiver at the end of the day like i wanted to play wide receiver right like special teams is really hard and it's a it's it you only are on the field for 15 to 20 snaps a game and uh you're kind of doing some dirty work which is fine like i really enjoyed that part of the game uh but i wanted to play wide receiver i felt like my game was good enough like i was getting better and and i was proving myself day in and day out and preseason games and practice. But I just kind of just focused on what my role was. And when I got an opportunity to play receiver,

I was going 99, 100 percent, and balls to the walls and giving everything I got to prove, like, hey, I'm really good at what I'm doing. And when it was time to play special teams, I was giving it everything I had to prove that I'm the best special teams player in the NFL. I always felt like whatever I was doing, I wanted to prove that I'm really good at it.

And I had fun doing it. I loved playing, I loved getting in the game and getting the opportunities to go try to block a punt or to go and try to make a tackle. I thought that was really cool for me because I'd never tackled anyone in my entire life. And now I'm in the NFL and I'm getting paid to tackle people, which was a crazy, crazy deal. But I had so much fun doing that and trying to master that and trying to lead the team in special teams tackles and trying to lead the NFL in special team's tackles. That was kind of always like my approach to the game, which was really cool. Well, just listening to you, I mean, you've got a phenomenal attitude. You know, like even you saying, I had never tackled someone before, and this is an opportunity to tackle someone. Someone who's maybe got a bad attitude would say, I don't know why the hell they have me tackling people. I'm born to be a receiver. Like, I need to be a receiver right now. I'm not getting treated properly on this team.

You know, and if you look at, frankly, a lot of the dramatics that seem to come out of professional athletes, it does sound a little bit like that. It can sound whiny. And your attitude has been completely the opposite. it. So there's no, you know, just listening to you, I'm not surprised at all by the enormous success that you've had and the odds you've overcome. At the end of the day, right, naturally, you tend to lean towards negative stuff, right? Like, you know, something happens or things don't go your way. You kind of like lean towards like, naturally you just want to be like, oh, it's someone else's fault or this. And I've always tried to like flip that mindset. So as soon as that

kind of creeps into my mind, I kind of flip it and you go, know what? I'm going to take this other approach. I'm going to be positive. I'm going to show up to the facility every day. Whether if we win or lose, I'm going to have the same mindset, the same personality. I'm to be energetic. I'm going to have a smile on my face. I'm going to joke around whether we lose or win. And sometimes that rubs people the wrong way. But for me, I just feel like the longer you do that, you start to rub off on people. And whether that be your teammates or even yourself, right? You start to like, you know, lie to yourself enough about your attitude. Like it actually becomes you. And so I've always tried to take that approach of like, you know, I might not feel great

today or I might be in a bad mood, but I'm going to like flip that energy and like say, you know what? No, I am in a great mood. And I try to do that with my family as well. And sometimes that's hard. You know, you kids, we've got three kids. And it's like stuff's everywhere. They're making you mad. And it's like got to flip that attitude to like be positive and motivational and and excited about whatever's happening, whether it's good or bad. So 2016, that's the breakout year and you become a starting wide receiver and then you ultimately lead the Vikings that year in receiving yards. As that's happening for you, are you having like a bit of a pinch me moment or are you just so focused on the present that it's like, nope, this is how it was supposed

to be and I'm going to keep going. Honestly, I don't even like talking about like past because like I don't even want to have that pinch me moment until I'm done playing like I'm so focused on this year and like training and like how can I get better and like how can I prove more people wrong and like how can I feel the best I've ever felt my life last year at 31 years old and my ninth season in the NFL I felt better than I've ever felt before I felt faster I felt quicker I felt more explosive people will like laugh at me when I say that but like no I really did feel that way and yeah so I think it's one those things. I'll look back when I'm done playing and be able to reflect on it. But right now, I'm just, I'm just enjoying the whole process of training and, and, uh, enjoying it with my family and,

and then just like playing football. I mean, heck, I get to wake up every morning, uh, during the season, go to work and like, love what I'm doing. Uh, not, not too many people can say that. And, and, uh, I think that's pretty cool. Now, in 2020, you caught 14 touchdowns and 15 games, and that was the most touchdowns by a Vikings receiver since Randy Moss. And you, like, grew up, as I understand it, idolizing Randy Moss as a guy from Minnesota. Yeah, I mean, again, like I'm not like a real big stats guy, but, you know, I just love to play the game of football. And like you said, I grew up watching guys like Chris Carter, Randy Moss, Jake Reed. Those are the guys that made me want to play a receiver.

Like, when I was 12 years old, when I was 11 years old, like, there was no question of my mind that I'm a wide receiver. And it was because of those guys and be able to watch them and see them have success and to see them make these crazy catches, these Chris Carter sideline catches, Randy Moss going up in Mossing guys and being able to try to emulate that in the backyard and then now play for the same organization as those guys has been cool. And to be able to meet them and pick their brain and they love ball and love talking about ball. So it's been pretty crazy. Again, it's one of those things I'll look back on when I'm done playing and kind of pinch myself

because it definitely is probably a surreal moment. But for me, like, I'm just playing football. Like, I'm not even thinking about playing for the Minnesota Vikings, a childhood dream. Like, I'm not even thinking about that. I'm just playing football and having fun doing it. That's awesome. 2021, you missed four games due to an ankle injury. And I think that was one of the longer periods of time you had been out or maybe one of the more serious injuries.

What was it like for you first experiencing injury? Take it back. 2019, I missed my first game in the NFL. I had a hamstring injury. I had never been hurt before. I never had a muscle injury. And it was definitely, and I'm very stubborn, so I probably wasn't the easiest to deal with in the training room.

But yeah, it was just, it was an eye-opening experience that actually made me worry about sleep and recovery and training and nutrition is really when I started to dial all that in to say, hey, like, this isn't like an injury. Like, you know, this year I had an ankle injury. It was because I got tackled. It wasn't because I didn't train right or I didn't. have the proper nutrition is like no matter what what i did recovery wise like it was something bad

was happening because of the way i got tackled where like a hamstring injury it's like all right something i was doing um whether it was that week or my hydration or there's so many things i could look at and say okay i need to dial this in because i can't have a hamstring injury i can't have a muscle injury that's going to keep me out for for four games um so it really it really was a benefit to me in my career. It really made me look at what I was doing, where I was at my career, and to really dial some things in. And probably the reason why I felt so good this year, the best I've ever felt, because of those things that I kind of was able to look at a big picture and say, okay, let's dial this in. Well, I love the way you described those two different injuries, one that was kind of in your

control, so to speak, and one that was out of your control. You know, you reflected on the hamstring injury as something that maybe you could have taken better care of your body, whereas the ankle injury just happened to be the way you were tackled. What are the things you can actually control and what are the things that are out of your control and having sort of the right set of assessment on the controllables because the controllables are the ones that, you know, you really have to manage against. Anyway, I just appreciate the way that that you describe a lot of these things. They're all, they're all sort of little nuances, but I think just your, the way you're, you, you shape so many of the things that have happened in your life, the attitude that you have

towards them. It's just an amazing mindset. And it's, it's why you're going to continue to have great success. I appreciate that. And I think, honestly, a lot of that has been, I shouldn't say it's gotten easier, but, but it really has. It's gotten easier because of my faith. The stronger my faith has gotten, it's been easier to do some of these things, to have a positive mindset. You know, I think there's a reason that I'm able to have some of that mindset. Like, again, at the end of the day, like, it's a lot easier said than done a lot of these things. And a lot of it, I have difficulty doing on a day-to-day basis, but it becomes easier when you kind of just have trust and faith and that someone greater than you and greater than any of us has a plan

and it doesn't mean it's all going to be good and it's not going to be easy. But when you trust that, I think it becomes easier to have a better mindset, in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, things happen for you. They don't happen to you, right? I mean, that's what you're describing here. You were talking about going 100%, right? And I feel like when an audience hears that from an athletic perspective, they think, oh, you know, he's running really hard or he's working out really hard. But talk about some of the other things that you're doing on a 24-7 cycle because so much of what I've gotten to appreciate from whoop and working with athletes like yourself is there's just an insane amount of time and energy that you can spend on recovery, on diet,

on faith, on mindfulness, like talk about some of the things that you were doing outside of that practice facility that you think may have contributed to you making these additional leaps in your career. This is a topic that I could talk about for hours. I think it's crazy that people, the average fan are most fans, right? They see what we do on Sundays. But I don't think, I'd say 99% of people don't have any idea what it takes to get to Sunday. And I think that's probably one of the coolest things in my profession is how I approach

or how I see other guys approach how to get to Sunday. And I think it starts with your training, your diet, like you said, your recovery. And my full day, I know it sounds crazy, but my full day is wrapped around, okay, did I do enough or did I do it the right way to be able to have success when it comes around to the season? And, you know, I'm, what are we, five, six months? I don't even know, away from the season. But, like, I'm preparing right now, like, it's tomorrow. Like, it's happening tomorrow because of the way that I have to watch what I eat,

how I train. Like, I got to get up every day and I got to go grind in the weight room. Do I want to? No, but do I take pride in that? Yes, for sure. You know, that's been kind of something that's always in the back of my head is, like, after the season, like, I don't take much time off because, like, this is my one opportunity when guys are, like, taking a couple weeks off, going on vacation, drinking,

eating whatever they want like it's my one opportunity to like separate myself from them to get a little bit of an advantage like to get an advantage of the NFL is like almost impossible but it's like I always kind of like take advantage of those little opportunities that like have an advantage over over some of my competitors and it's kind of a weird approach but there's just so much that goes into it and so many things that over my career that I've tried to like figure out the best way because time management is huge right like you only have so much time in the day and like I have a family and like I want to make sure that I'm a present father and doing you know going 100% in all in on my family as well and I got a business ETS and like helping athletes train and help them get to the places they want to get and do the things that I wasn't really didn't have opportunities to do when I was their age so there's just a lot of things that I take a lot of pride in and a lot of passion and I want to be involved in and all in on so it's like time management skills like how important is that wow it's like I've never had those skills but I've had to learn those skills through some of those things. So how long have you now been on WOOP?

Very soon after, you know, the NFLPA had a partnership with WOOP is when I kind of found out about it probably a couple years ago maybe, was that? And how have you been using it? Well, I kind of like geek out over it as we when we had dinner together. I was probably talking too much about it. But, you know, I'm really, especially now, like later in my career, I'm just like really interested in, like, how can I maximize my recovery, my training, all that, right? And so, like, it's hard to have, when you're talking about recovery, we're talking about massages or different things that you can do to try to help you play your best football on Sunday, it's hard to, like, have tangible evidence or, like, how to, like, figure out, is it benefiting me? Like,

is what I'm doing, like, benefit me? Well, well, whoop was the first opportunity I had to, like, have evidence. Something to look at to say, hey, what you did that, you did that, you did that, change this and ultimately now your recovery score is better. That was what I was really excited about and why I really kind of was all in on whoop is because of that right there. And I've done a few different things with recovery stuff that now I do consistently because of what it did on my whoop score. So kind of crazy. I love that. Now what are some of the specific examples of things that you've added or taken away from your overall lifestyle for recovery. Yeah, so a couple of things. Infrared sauna during the season, I'm like very strict on pretty much like

three to four times a week. And the reason why I'm all in on it is because I checked like, you know, you can like go back and you can look at a week's span of like recovery. And then you can go to like the current week and like, okay, this is my week's worth of recovery. Well, when I did that, I did a week without infrared sauna and then I did a week with every day for a week and every day for a week without. And I just kind of put them side by side and my recovery scores were like this compared to this. So I'm like, okay, obviously like it's doing something. Now am I like smart enough to like have any idea what it's doing? No. But I don't care because it's doing something. And again, like that little bit of an advantage maybe over an opponent or or a little bit of

advantage to have a little bit more recovery. I'm all in on it. I also did the same thing with magnesium. So every night I have the same magnesium sleep drink that I have every night. And when I do that, my recovery scores are like way better. And I notice it when I don't have it, like if I'm traveling or something and I don't have it, it's like noticeably different. And another thing that I've really bought into is sleep, like how important sleep is, how important the right type of sleep is and how that affects recovery. So I'm pretty strict on like when I go to bed, how I go to bed, blue light blockers, like things like that have really helped my sleep. So there's a lot of things. I kind of, again, I kind of geek out over it. And my wife's into it as well. So it's kind of fun to

be able to do some different things. I love those examples. And, you know, you make such a good point about AB, you know, sort of A-B testing these things on your body, right? Which is something that we always envisioned the product could be used for, which is to say, okay, if I do this thing and then I don't do this thing, how does it affect my body? And to actually be able to measure that, you know, you can only really manage what you measure. So I love what you said about the infrared sauna and how, you know, by doing it, you saw that it actually elevated your recovery. And the interesting thing, Adam, is like, for someone else, potentially a wide receiver in the NFL too, they could have done that exact same experiment and had the exact opposite results.

And it comes back to how personalized, I think, so much of this is, particularly recovery. Obviously, there's generalizations you can make around, say, sleep, where it's like getting more sleep and higher quality sleep is better for everyone. But the path to actually achieve that and the path to achieve better recovery is highly personalized. And so I love the way you've described using it. You shared some of your whoop data with us. your average sleep is seven hours and 49 minutes that's pretty damn good that's a lot of sleep what are some things that

you do right before bed so you mentioned the magnesium yeah the blue light blockers i've been really tried to be good on that i i love blue light blockers i'll just explain for a second why those are great essentially they block all the blue light uh in your life before you fall asleep and if you're someone like me who's sometimes looking at his phone before bed or watching a television screen or on a laptop, all of those things are producing blue light, right? And that's essentially stimulating your brain to stay awake. And the blue light blocking glasses cut that out. And so they sort naturally make you feel a little sleepy at the end of the day. And for me personally, I've seen it enormously boost my REM and slow way of sleep. I've always gotten a lot of sleep because we

have three kids and like just like the grind of training and all we got going on. I'm tired at the end of the night. But like you said, like the quality sleep, I can always have hours of sleep, but like knowing like the quality of sleep and how like the blue light has affected that, even though I'm getting the same amount of sleep maybe, it's just better quality. I'm getting into a deeper sleep faster. And being able to have like tangible evidence of that is is amazing for me. Yeah. I mean, I think every player in the NFL should be obsessed with how much slow sleep you get because that's when your body produces like 95% of its human growth hormone. You know, people get in trouble for taking human growth hormone.

Well, if you can just figure out how to get more sleep, you're literally like a performance-enhancing drug. For someone who's lifting as many weights as you are and getting hit and potentially having little strains here and there, I mean, all of that gets repaired during slow way of sleep. Yeah, and that's what I tell people all the time. It's like, you know, you see stuff come out on guys in the NFL that spend all this money on their body.

And it's like maybe, maybe that is benefiting them, maybe. But, like, it doesn't cost anything to get a good sleep. And, like, how important that is compared to, like, a massage, right? You have to pay for a massage. Is that really going to help you sleep better and, like, help you recover? I just don't think it's as good as getting a good night of sleep. I try to, like, emphasize that to guys on the team, like, especially younger guys that come in, like, just, like, how important that is. Like, I know you're young and I know, like, it hasn't been that important to you, but, like, it will benefit you and it'll prolong your career.

It'll help you play better, fast. you know, it'll help you be faster, stronger, and it'll help you recover faster. If you think about your success and you reflect on things like work ethic and faith and some of these sort of themes that have come up in this conversation, does part of you feel like talent is overrated as it pertains to becoming the type of success that you have, you know, is sort of being in this point whatever percent of professional athletes. I mean, obviously talent gets you somewhere and you're obviously talented. But the recurring theme I hear is everything else that you've done. That's an interesting question. And I think I probably will go down a little

bit of a rabbit hole. But I think talent is like a very like broad term. Like what is talent? Like is it physical talent? Is it mental talent? I think there's a lot of different talents that lead to success. And I think you have to have kind of a mixture of a lot of them to have success, especially at the highest level, right? Let me qualify this a little bit because you could argue that your attitude is a talent. But let's define for a second talent the way that an NFL combine recruit might define talent, which is physical attributes, speed, skill, so to speak, in cutting or in catching. Yeah, for sure.

And I think, again, I'm going down a rabbit. because I just have a weird approach to this. But, like, how do you get to that, right? Like, some people, like, just, boom, like, they have it. Some people have to, like, work extremely hard to get to that point, but they might have the exact same talent as far as, like, numbers, right? Like, I feel like I could put my numbers up against a lot of guys, and people would laugh because they'd be like, no, no, no, you're not that athletic.

And even though, like, my numbers are the same. But how did I get to that point? You know what I'm saying? It's kind of like a, I don't know, I'm probably, again, I'm going down a round. at a whole. But I think there's a lot of different ways to get to the same place of what I'm trying to say. And then when you get to that place, how are you able to use those talents? How are you able to use those skills? If you run, I mean, there's plenty of guys that have that run sub four four, but they can't catch a football or they can't run a route or they can't

move. They can't move side to side. Like there's just, you have to have more than just physical talent. Like you have to be able to do a lot of things really well. It doesn't matter. what sport you are. I mean, some of these NBA guys, like, they might be the fastest or the jump the highest, but man, their basketball IQ. I mean, you look at a guy like Chris Paul, his basketball IQ is off the charts. He doesn't have to be the fastest guy. He doesn't have to be the, you know, the highest jumper in the NBA. Like, he is so good at what he does, and he might have different talents. So kind of a crazy, like, you can just look at it from so many different perspectives. When you see a first-round draft pick, flame out,

in two years or let's call it a short period of time what do you attribute some of that to do you attribute just the NFL is hard and it's really fucking hard to make it or do you think that again on this theme of mindset and work ethic and commitment do you think that that can fill in the holes for some of these people who maybe didn't reach their potential the question's about potential it's all these things we've talked about right and especially today's NFL every single person has to train, has to work harder, has to try to find a way to get better, because if they don't, they are out of the league. And I've seen it time and time again, that guys that are very talented that, I have all the skills and the tools that they need to have success, don't have

success and get out of the league because they aren't doing the little things. And they don't understand how important those little things are until they're out and now it's too late. And it's sad because there's some really, really good people and people that I've been around in my nine years that that aren't in the NFL right now that really should be but at the end of the day uh you live and you learn and uh i think when you're able to see some of those things happen and you're able to kind of absorb that and be like whoa like i need to i need to to get my butt in gear and there's a lot of guys i've seen have done that and then had success later because they kind of have have learned from others mistakes or maybe their own mistakes and had a second chance and have had success

because they turned around and did those little things. Okay, we're going to try some rapid-fire questions. 16 games versus 17 games in the NFL. What do you think? I mean, I like to play football, so I'll say 17 games, and it makes more money, guys make more money, it's all good. Overtime rules. Do you feel like both teams should get the ball no matter what,

even if one team scores the touchdown first? I spoke out about this a little bit on Twitter the other day, and I think it's great where it is. It incentivizes that you have to make a stop on defense. In fact, I actually really enjoy when we get the ball second, like when we don't win the coin toss, and like the other team gets the ball first because then you make a stop on defense,

all you have to do is kick a field goal, games over. So I really enjoy those rules because I think it incentivized like good defense. Yeah, I think that's what's overlooked in that whole debate is if your defense goes out and makes a, stop, then all you have to do is kick a field goal to win. Like, no one ever says that in this debate. And, like, if you're, if you go down and you have one possession, your first possession, you go down a score, like, in my opinion, you deserve to win because you just, like, that's

not that easy in the NFL, just like one possession, go score. Like, score touchdowns. I think that's difficult. And, um, and if you do that, you should win. Uh, lowest recovery ever on whoop. Oh, wow. I wish I, I wish I had that, that, that, data because I'm sure it's, you know, it's been bad a couple of times where was traveling. It's usually like after a game and it's like traveling from the West Coast. And so it's like you get home at like five in the morning and you barely sleep on the plane. I bet it was around like 7%. I think I remember having a 7% recovery. The NFL player that you look up to the most to admire. Oh, wow. That's a really, really difficult question.

If I have to name one guy, probably would say Larry Fitzgerald just because he's from Minnesota. He did things the right way. Had a ton of success, played a ton of years, and he's a good friend of mine. Loves to play golf, so that's another thing. But there's so many guys. I mean, shoot, I could name a list of 150 guys, even current guys that are still playing that I've really kind of looked up to and tried to emulate my game after. Now, Larry's amazing, and he's become a friend of mine, too. And what a great playbook. He's created for being a wide receiver. for sure. And even what he does off the field, obviously, his foundation and all that he gives and does in the community is pretty impressive. Yeah, it's amazing. What is your favorite city to

play in? Well, that's a loaded question. I enjoy playing in Green Bay because of the rivalry, just the intense, that game's always bigger than it really is, just because it's so important to the fans on both sides. It's always a big game because of the division. But I would say my favorite place to play just from an environment standpoint is probably New Orleans. It's so loud and crowds crazy and it's always difficult to hear, even hear yourself think. Do you follow all the offseason activity? You know, you see on ESPN now, they'll show tweets of other players like commenting on where certain players have gone. And it's really, I mean, the NFL offseason has become like a sport in itself from a media standpoint.

Do you find yourself caught up in the drama of like where are quarterbacks going or, you know, some of these different trades or you try to stay out of it? Oh, no. I'm really involved. I love it. I think it's, I think it's wild that the, it's pretty cool, actually, that the NFL has become so relevant all year round. They've done such an unbelievable job of always having something that creates buzz and excitement around the NFL, which no other sport, no other league has been able to do. that and I think that's pretty impressive, especially when, like, it's my job and I'm still, like, into that stuff. It's kind of crazy. And I know there's a crazy, like, business side of things, and who knows if I'll ever be part of that drama at some point. I'm sooner than later, maybe, you never know. But it's just, it's always fun to just, like, find out, like, where guys are going and what's happening? Are they getting traded? Are they getting cut? And why are they getting

that? And what are these contracts? Some of these guys are made. I always love seeing guys sign for a bunch of money and being like, all right, like, that's good for me. I feel like that it kind of proves that I'm worth what I'm getting paid. But yeah, it's interesting how they're able to keep it relevant for all year round. Well, Adam, look, this has been a lot of fun, man. And, you know, I just love your attitude and everything you're doing. Thanks for being on Woop. And thanks for coming on the WOOP podcast. Thank you. Thanks to Adam for coming on the WOOP podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a rating or a review. You can check us out.

on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. Get 15% off a WIPP membership if you use the code Will and we will be back next week folks. Thanks for listening. Stay healthy. Stay in the green.