WHOOP Podcast - Mastering Pressure, Adversity, and Expectations - Quarterback Riley Leonard

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

What does the road to a college football National Championship look like? On this week’s episode of the WHOOP Podcast, WHOOP Founder and CEO Will Ahmed sits down with former Notre Dame Quarterback Riley Leonard. Riley began his college career playing 7 games for Duke as a true freshman in 2021 and was named starting QB in his sophomore season in 2022. In 2023, Riley entered the transfer portal, ultimately transferring to Notre Dame. While Riley almost entered the 2024 NFL Draft, an injury pushed him toward the decision to play at Notre Dame for another season, where he led the Fighting Irish to the National Championship game against Ohio State. Riley will be entering the 2025 NFL Draft in April.In this episode, Will and Riley discuss how Notre Dame approached the 2024/25 season (00:37), Riley’s unconventional preparation for every game (02:16), Riley’s journey through the transfer portal (03:58), injury, rehab, and recovery (04:32), and how Riley uses his beliefs to grow as an athlete (08:55). Riley breaks down Notre Dame’s road to the National Championship (11:16), playoff games against Indiana (16:03), Georgia (17:41) and Penn State (19:22), and the details of the National Championship against Ohio State (21:34). Will walks Riley through his WHOOP Data (23:31) and the importance of sleep consistency as an athlete (28:38). Riley closes out the episode by building the perfect NFL Quarterback (31:16) and giving WHOOP exclusive insight on his next steps in his career (34:01). Resources:Riley Leonard - InstagramRiley Leonard - xSupport 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

I had something to prove. Like, my back was against the wall. Like, I didn't care what anybody said. It was just kind of, like, us against the world, like Notre Dame versus everybody, because everybody's going to count us out. Like, my first couple home games, I'm getting booed. Like, we had so much to prove. And I think that just came out of, like, our integrity and the character in that building again

because you got to recruit a special person to go to Notre Dame. And it's very easy after, you know, an early loss for everybody to be like, all right, I'm just trying to get mine. Like, you know, I'm just trying to go to league at this. point now we had a vision and a clear goal to to make it to where we ended up making it to riley welcome to the woo podcast appreciate you all having man what a season unbelievable it was wild a lot of ups and downs dude who would have thought all we we went through and ended up you know in the national championship games it was a lot to remember uh fun one but you know

came up a little short but no regrets you know sometimes uh athletes have feeling at the at the beginning of a season like hey i've got a special team here we might be able to go the distance did you guys have that kind of feeling or did it sort of build on itself over the course of the season yeah it's a good question i think whenever we started to get together in spring ball we kind of had a vision of of where we wanted to end up and obviously that was in the national championship and we kind of understood the team we had um pretty early on uh in the summer and things like that i think the biggest thing about Notre Dame is just like the maturity there like I walk into the facility and everybody is always doing something to better themselves and to like better the team to win a

championship so we knew we had a mature group and like a bunch of experienced guys I remember I committed to Notre Dame really because I went to dinner with like 12 of the guys 13 of the guys and all of the defensive players were there saying they were coming back and I had played them in the previous year. So I had an understanding of what kind of defense I was going to be playing with. And obviously, you know, they all showed up and bought out this year. So it was pretty evident from the beginning. We were going to have a good squad. Well, I love it. It was amazing following you guys. And obviously, it was cool that we partnered with the Notre Dame Athletic program this year and had a bunch of teams wearing whooping. Obviously, most importantly,

you all. Let's start off. I read this and I got a kick out of it. You read a text before every game that says you suck this is true so this is a long story that kind of got blown up ever since i got to college but we've been me and my mom have been doing that since freshman sophomore year of of high school and it was really sophomore year because my freshman year everybody you know in a small town you know small community that riley leonard this great athlete he's so great you know he's on the varsity football varsity basketball team and everybody was just talking about me so much and saying you know good things positive things but it kind of affected me a little bit and I think I got complacent there for a second so I went

up to my mom my dad I was like I need somebody to tell me I suck every once a while like I need some motivation my mom kind of took it and ran with it so like if you see my high school senior locker like there's a huge like poster that she made that says like you suck just trying to keep me humble so whether whether I'm doing good or bad you know after we lost the niru I was like dude I hope I don't get this text because you know I kind of need some positivity around my life now but no she's consistent and no matter what i do like even this podcast she'll text me hey don't suck at the podcast don't stutter or something like that you know it's just just keeping you grounded i mean it sounds like the the hype for you began at a pretty young age so you're you know

you're in high school and people are already telling you you're going to be a great professional athlete one day yeah kind of you know i wasn't heavily recruited but because you grow up in a small town and you obviously play quarterback and basketball a lot of lot of people are just going to tell you how good you are all the time. So I kind of need to change my wires up a little bit. And you initially went to Duke and you were there for a couple years and then you ultimately decided to go into the transfer portal. Like what what led to choosing Notre Dame? I ended up getting hurt at Duke and I think I wanted to go to Notre Dame because I wanted to just put myself in the best position to win a national championship. And I think

at Duke absolutely, you know, could have done that. But I think it was just time for me to get a, you know, new change of environment right i had gotten really really injured when i was at duke so i just wanted a clean slate uh just just go somewhere new for my final year of college football you're speaking to injuries right you had a shoulder challenge you had an ankle challenge if i've got that right i mean what was the rehab process for that or the injuries what was the rehab process yeah so i got you know i had never really had an injury before so two years ago played notre dame ironically and Howard Cross, who is now one of my close friends, landed on my ankle, separated my fibia, my tibia. So I had a high ankle spray in there, ended up recovering from that, played three games later,

tweaked it a little bit more, and then played the next game against Louisville and had turf toe. So for anybody who doesn't know what turf toe is, pretty much, the toes stuck into the ground, hyper extends because your foot's not really able to slip out on turf as well as it is grass. And I could be completely wrong with it. I'm pretty sure what it is, and toe hyper extends, had to get surgery on that. So that surgery was done in November, and that's like a four-month recovery process. So in November, I have the surgery. I go through the whole transfer cycle on crutches that Notre Dame's trying to get me up there.

I'm in a, I'm in like a scooter thing. And I'm like, dude, I'm not coming on a visit in a scooter. Like, this can't happen. So they're like, no, we need to get you up. I can't go into my new team like that. I waited until I got off crutches and was able to walk around, took a visit up there, got there the first day, and they decided it was best to actually operate on the right ankle, which Howard Cross ended up, was the one to fall on, who was obviously Notre Dame.

They made a joke out of it, like, you break it, you buy it. So they broke my ankle, and they ended up taking me. So got surgery there, and then had another right ankle surgery just to kind of renew that surgery a couple months later. So I had three surgeries this offseason, a lot of recovery, missed all of spring ball and winter workouts, which was like really tough for me because all these guys are looking at you to become like, you know, the guy to take them to, you know, a championship and you're just sitting around on crutches doing nothing. So I had to make sure I made good relationships with them

kind of off the field to make sure we were, we were good whenever I were to step onto the field. What were you doing for rehab during that period? I'm on the Whoop podcast right now, but like, sleep was like something. I was like, bro, if I'm going to do nothing right, I'm going to get a bunch of sleep. Like, I understand how important that is. So I really did live by that. But I think, you know, I really had to learn how to walk again. So like I'm just the basics walking.

You're doing all these ankle mobility things. Like the toe is hard to rehab. What are you going to do with your toe? You can't do too much. You kind of just got to weight that one out. But there's a lot of stuff you can do it to ankle. So I'm on like the anti-gravity treadmill often, which is like from your waist down, they can have it to where it's like 15% of your body weight and you're just running on a treadmill.

So it's, it's- Yeah, those are amazing actually. It's crazy. It's like, so that helped me out a lot. And I'm in the underwater treadmill as well. So there are a lot of different tactics you can use to rehab the ankle. But whatever we could do, I was doing a lot of it. And obviously spending a ton of time with your teammates and getting to know them. Absolutely.

was the biggest thing like it didn't matter to me if you were a freshman long snapper like if y'all if they were a group of guys going out to eat or something like i wanted to be a part of it um just you know get myself out there i hated like sitting around um you know in the apartment i just always wanted to be out with the guys just showing them kind of who i am my character and letting them know that you know although i can't compete you know on the field with you guys like i got you back i'm there for you and i care about you well i mean it does seem like Notre Dame took a big bet on you and you with Notre Dame. I mean, it's a funny concept of a recruit showing up in crutches for a visit. It's not necessarily the tone you'd want to be

setting ideally. It's amazing what you were able to come back from in that process and then ultimately, obviously, the success that you've had. Yeah, absolutely. I think, like I said, that process is not easy at all. Like, I felt terrible going in there, but I knew all along. I just had to have faith that I was going to turn things around and be able to play. again so it took a lot of faith and it took a lot of trust beyond knowing right you don't always know the outcome to a lot of things we just got to trust that you know the good lord's got a plan for your life talk a little bit more about faith i mean uh do you have a process that's enabled you to kind of unlock these amazing chapters in your life i mean it's a real low i would say going from these

surgeries and and you know questioning how far you might be able to go in football to all of a sudden the high of playing in the national championship game i mean those are so far apart the will that you must have had during that period must have been quite high and i'm just curious what kind of processes you used for that yeah well there there were two things that kind of stuck out to me number one is like i always told myself like if i knew what the lord knew i wouldn't ask any questions to whom am i to sit around and ask him like why i'm in the situation that i'm in because he's probably just up there chuckling thinking like you're so shallow minded riley like don't you're you see what I see like you're the the plan I have for your life is so beautiful why would you

you know hesitate you know the situation that I put you in and then number two is like I'm a big perspective guy like no matter what I'm doing I always have perspective and I transferred as a college quarterback to go play quarterback at Notre Dame that is like the coolest thing ever and I'm going to sit around and moat because my ankle twisted up a little bit like there are way worse things in this world than having to sit out winter workouts and, you know, rehab an ankle and a toe. Like, come on, what are we talking about? So I think I get that perspective really from my grandfather. He runs a nonprofit organization called Biobrit Foundation in Zimbabwe, Africa, where he's built, you know, like 20 or 30 school blocks.

They got up to feeding 20,000 kids a day. They're building wells and stuff over there. And, yeah, that's kind of all over the place. but I'm big on perspective, like somebody's always got it worse, like stop sitting around and complaining. There are a lot of worse things in this world than being quarterback at Notre Dame having to put your foot in an ice tub a couple times a day. I love that. And I'll say I've interviewed a lot of amazing athletes and some of the best athletes of all time on this podcast. And I do feel like it's a recurring theme of perspective. There's a drive, but there's also a

gratitude, so to speak, and like a sense of presence that comes. comes through often when I'm when I'm talking to these athletes and um it sounds like you've got every bit of it riley so good for you brother i appreciate it so let's let's go back to this past season 14 and two record 13 game win streak which of course means you started one and one talk me talk me through just like out of the gates you know it wasn't quite so obvious you guys were going to be playing in the national championship game obviously got off to a slow start wasn't really able to practice up until uh fall camp with the team. So whenever we got to fall camp, I was kind of learning the insaw and everything. And obviously, you know, it took me a second there to get comfortable. And I feel like every single

week, though, I mean, I was stacking five extra practices every week before every game. So like, week four versus week five, Riley, is so much different. And then week six Riley is so much better than week five. So like, I just kind of continued to get better and more comfortable in the offense. And obviously got off to a slow start. I think one of the greatest things about being a quarterback, though, is, like, I can walk off the field against N IU and be like, dang, like, that was completely my fault. And, like, I can live with that. But, like, I'm never walking off the field thinking, dang, like, you know, if he would have thrown that ball better, like, I'm the guy throwing the ball. I'm the guy touching the ball every single play. So, like,

I can live with that. I can rest my head of night thinking, dang, I'm just not good enough. Not, you know, I could have been so much better if I love having that responsibility. So we kind of ended up turning things around. But that week, too, was tough now. Like, I remember going to class and a black hoodie. I'm like putting my head down. Nobody noticed me, which was the complete opposite from week one when you beat A&M, who was my former coach. A lot of my former coaches went to A&M with Coach Elko, beat them. You know, you're the man. Didn't even play well that game, but winning solves everything. And I was that the quarterback's going to get all the credit. So it was a very good week for me. And I didn't know how to handle success. And especially

not at a stage like Notre Dame. So yeah. That was a fast lesson in celebrity. You know, the high and the low, I like the image of you in a black hoodie, kind of keeping a lower profile after week two. Yeah. I mean, from there, you guys built a ton of momentum. I mean, it really started to roll. What are a few things that stand out prior to getting into the playoffs? Yeah, it's funny.

Like, when you look back at our season, it's like A&M, N IU, nine games, and in the playoffs. Like, all those nine games are just, like, kind of like, a blur. that people forget about, but I just remember, like, every single week, like, Coach Freeman was bringing up that NIA loss. And I was, dude, I was so mad, like, every single week going to every single game. Like, I had something to prove. Like, my back was against the wall. Like, I didn't care what anybody said. It was just kind of, like, us against the world, like Notre Dame versus everybody, because everybody's going to count us out. Like, my first couple home games, I'm getting booed. Like, we had so much to prove. And I think that just came out of, like, our integrity.

and the character in that building again because you got to recruit a special person to go to Notre Dame. And it's very easy after, you know, an early loss for everybody to be like, all right, I'm just trying to get mine. Like, you know, I'm just trying to go to league at this point. No, we had a vision and a clear goal to make it to where we ended up making it to. On the season, you had 2861 yards passing. You had 906 yards running, which is pretty impressive, 21 touchdowns throw. eight interceptions, 17 touchdowns running. Like, what do you look at that and you say,

I feel really good about this or I want to build on this? You know, stats can be a little deceiving sometimes. A lot of these games were winning, you know, by a lot of points. And, you know, some games, touchdowns came easy and some games they didn't. But, like, really, I just feel like I'm just judged off wins and losses. So, like, you know, when we're winning, everybody forgets about how many touchdowns I'm throwing four, rushing for like you just it's either this my coach tells me all the time it's either this or it's this like you know you don't get cut up and all that the stats and stuff you either played well

or you didn't you either won or you lost i don't know i i think i got some stuff to prove in the soft season mechanically and some balls that i need to be sharper on but my day of the day as far as like my last year's stats go yeah i don't pay too much attention to them what's up folks if you are enjoying this podcast or if you care about health, performance, fitness, you may really enjoy getting a whoop. That's right. You can check out whoop at whoop.com. It measures everything around sleep, recovery, strain, and you can now sign up for free for 30 days. So you'll literally get the high performance wearable in the mail for free. You get to try it for 30 days, see whether you want to be a member. And that is just at whoop.com. Back to the guest.

So you beat Indiana at Notre Dame first round of the playoffs. That must have felt really good. That was sweet. It was cool to have college game day there. Shane Gillis was a guest speaker who, like, the whole football team's like huge Shane Gillis, man. It ended up snowing. It was like as cold as possible.

Unfortunately, we were playing Indiana who was also used to the cold. But we were kind of hoping like some super warm team had to come up there, South Bend, and experience the cold weather. But it was a great game. You know, I feel like, you know, when you go to Indiana, a lot like Alabama where I grew up, you either see a Notre Dame license plate or an Indiana license plate anywhere you go. So for that matchup to occur, first ever college playoff game ever, it was really special. And, like, we ended up playing really well, which my first pass was a pick.

And I was like, bro, are you serious? This could not start any worse. Because, like, I had a great week of practice, too. And, like, coach was like, yeah, you practice like you play. You know, you can have a great game. But we ended up figuring out. You strike me as a guy who's not going to linger on an interception for too long. Is that fair?

You know, one thing about my career is, like, I always respond. You look at any adversity, big or small, I always kind of respond. I think my drives after a turnover are very good. That is one stat that I do care about because I take a lot of pride in responding. So, like, every time I throw a pick or turn the ball over and make a bad throw, like the next throw after that or the way I handle myself after that is very important. I just kind of live like a carefree mindset at times where it's like, all right, you throw a pick, all right, cool, like you can get the ball back and score.

I like that stat. It's like a resilience stat. After a turnover, how well do you come back? That's good. Okay, so we got Georgia Sugar Bowl. That must have been huge. See, that was cool because I grew up in Alabama. So you're always watching Alabama versus Georgia in the championship, things of that sort.

And then to play in New Orleans, which is like by far the closest game to my hometown in my college career. Everybody was able to make it down there. They were a really good team, really well coached, obviously. We just knew, like, we had something to prove. I feel like every win, they beat Indiana, but all of a sudden, Indiana is a bad football team after we beat. I'm like, no, that was a great football team, really well coached. So that, that win was like very important for us to kind of prove to everybody that, you know, we are who we were. I mean, the stakes are always big in every college game, but did you start to feel any pressure ratcheting up? Or Or do you kind of feel the same pressure for every game?

The most pressure I've ever felt in my life was the Purdue game. That was the game after we played NIU. Because I'm thinking, like, yo, if I don't play good at this game, like, back-to-back games, I'm cooked. Like, I'm gone. So I've never been so nervous for a game other than Purdue. And then the rest of the year, like, by the time we got to Georgia, I had stacked like 9, 10 good games in a row. So it was just like, give me the ball, like, let me go out there. I'm so ready to play.

I didn't really get nervous at all at that point. Just because I had grown so much and overcame so much just in the couple months of our season that I just didn't have a care in the world at that point. That's amazing, actually. It's a good point. There's a lesson in that you face so much adversity early on that almost it all became upside by the end of it where you're like, hey, let's just go do our best out here and win this thing. Okay, so Penn State.

What are our reflections on Penn State? Yeah, that game was a lot of fun. Obviously, you're going down to Miami, kind of understand the stakes of that game. And after beating a team like Georgia, the SEC champ, we're rolling into that game with a lot of confidence. However, we were dealing with the sickness. And, like, I think it kind of made headlines a little bit, but, like, the headlines were legit. Like, a lot of our guys had the flu. And I remember, I've never been a guy that, like, gets tired before games.

I'm always juiced up. But on the bus right over to the stadium, I was just sleeping. Like, I couldn't open my eyes hardly. So I ended up finding some use, yeah, going into the game. And it was good to be able to go out there and kind of make a statement. But it was a little bit of a struggle early on. I mean, I threw a pick early. But, like, that was one of my favorite throws all day because my feet were on time,

made the right decision with the ball, let it rip. It just sailed on me a little bit. Like, those are the things I can live with. Early in the season, my picks were, all right, you hesitated on the one-on-one matchup to the boundary, you on a slot fade, and then you threw a pick. But, like, this was boom, boom, boom. everything's good, just missed it. Like, I can live with that.

So I'm going to the sideline. Like, give me another chance. Responding from that a little bit. Got out, came out with a concussion. Steve Angelly comes in, drives him all the way down the field for the field goal, which was like the biggest driver of the game by far. You look at a kid who's from Jersey. All of his friends went to Penn State.

Like, it was so cool for him to, you know, step in, step up to the plate and deliver like that. And there was a huge momentum swing going into halftime for our team. team came at a half time as you know as always got to respond scored in the opening drive at a half time and then kind of just in that second half we just started to roll a little bit started to let it fly through another pick but you know I knew exactly the coverage Mike C3 Buzz Rock so I knew exactly what I was getting you know just just held on to it you know just a half count too long but I can live with that too so I responded from that and ended up winning the game shout out to Christian Gray and Mitch Jeter for two of the

biggest plays of the season on the last drive and the last kick yeah unbelievable finish to that game and then lo and behold the national championship game any different feelings going into that how had your team feel when you win three playoff games already you're you're a very confident squad and i know a lot of people counted us out but we we went into that game thinking like this is no different than any other game we were very confident in ourselves and you know knew our opponent well. We had a couple more days to prepare for that game. So we knew what we were getting ourselves into. We had played in Mercedes-Benz earlier in the year against Shores of Tech, which helped out a lot. And we went in that game confident. Got off to a really good start the first

drive, and then, you know, two bad drives on offense in the second quarter just kind of costed us. But I thought we responded well in the second half, just kind of ran out of time there at the end. But they were a really good team all around. You know, you see a lot of teams that don't really have all three. And by all three, I mean, the scale of the coaches and then just that grit mentality, that hard work dog mentality, you know, usually, you know, I don't know if we played many defenses that had all three of those things. I think Penn State was definitely one of them and Georgia was too. But those three aspects are what Ohio State had and you kind of feel it out there. But things could have gone a different way, but, you know, it is what it is and

kind of got to live with it. You had a badass first drive in that game, you know, And you personally, especially, like, I think you had 17 carries, 40 yards, you had the touchdown. I mean, that was a cool way to start a national championship game. It was cool. And if you were to ask me, I'd have said, like, I carried it three or four times. I had no idea I had that many carries on the first drive. So it was a lot, but, I mean, that's pretty tired. But I think it was just a good statement to set out there and kind of got the team going.

I feel like the team is kind of a reflection of the way that I play. So I'm always first to kind of put my body out there and, you know, set the stuff. statement that we're on the attack mode. You had an amazing season. I mean, unbelievable congratulations. You mentioned early on in the podcast, like being obsessed with sleep, you know, obviously preparing for the season. You and a lot of guys were wearing whoop. Talk a little bit about what you've learned from whoop. The biggest thing I learned, and I didn't really get into sleep until my junior year of college, and I didn't really understand how important it was. And then I went out to dinner with one of my Duke teammates who's big into it and he was telling me about whoop and I was like dude like that sounds great and he ended up getting me one your subscription which I've took and ran with it completely switched my mindset on everything so like all of a sudden my room started to be cleaner I started to care more about the things that I ate like all these things came with just caring about your sleep and your health and checking these every day and checking your heart rate variation and checking all these different things my whole life kind of

change you're a responsible adult now like you need to take care of yourself a little better so ever since i started wearing it um my numbers have been great i care a lot about my you know heart at this point and like we're always comparing numbers so i got a group chat with dute teammates uh probably 15 of us where we're always texting about the hardest worker you know who's getting the most sleep who's the best i've recovering and then i have a notre dame one as well obviously you guys hooked us up so i have that group chat too. So it's cool because Notre Dame was an afternoon practice team and Duke was a morning practice team. So the Duke numbers, as far as like, you know, hours of sleep were a little bit lower than the Notre Dame guys because we were able to sleep in a little bit. So I'm always

checking those numbers and, you know, seeing the recovery of each team. Yeah, I like that you're able to keep track of your past teammates. I mean, you've got some great data that you shared with those. Resting heart rate, 44 beats per minute. That's a sign you're an athlete. You've got a high average HRV, 153. You're averaging. That's higher. That's not, I'm higher. I'm like 160 now.

Okay. Sorry, you've been boosting it. I just take a lot of pride in it. I take a lot of pride in it. I know. HRVs, it's an addictive stat when you start paying attention to it. You got great sleep efficiency, 93%. So that's essentially the amount of time you spend in bed actually sleeping.

And maybe that has something to do with the fact that you've been tidying your room so much. Yeah, I like to think so. So, you know, one thing I also like to look at is my REM versus my deep sleep percentages throughout the night, you know, how many times am I waking up? You know, one thing I noticed, I'm not too curious about this, but I was told that if you wake up in deep sleep, it's worse for you than if you were to get like an hour less of sleep and wake up in REM or light. And I feel like that's true.

If I ever wake up in a deep sleep, I wake up like super hazy and kind of, it's hard for me to get my day going. So I'm curious if you can answer that for me. Like, is it best to wake up in light, REM, or do the effects of waking up in deep sleep? In general, a transition of waking up from being in a stage of light sleep to being awake is going to be a more natural transition to the day. And you'll probably feel more alert in the first, you know, 30 minutes or even the first couple hours of the day.

I would caution, though, that you don't want to be in light sleep for too much of the night because, as you know, you know, REM sleep, that's when your mind's repairing cognitive. and deep sleep, that's when your body's producing 95% of its human growth hormone. So a guy like you, who's lifting weights, who's exercising all the time, who's taking hits, who's recovering from injuries, like your human growth hormone is the key to recovery. So you definitely want to get as much of the slow wave sleep, the deep sleep as you possibly can. That's really interesting.

What are some of the things that are helping or hurting you in the Whoop Journal? You know, I got into the cold plunge and the sauna. I think two other things that have really played a big impact on me is number one, creatine. Obviously, we use that a lot in college football with our strength and conditioning programs and our nutrition. I think it really helps out with the brain cognition and the way that your brain is operating during your sleep. And it's helped me out a lot. And then number two, something that's really, you know, I've been able to see is magnesium. I've been taking that before I go to bed.

And the amount of REM and deep sleep that I get now is, is through the roofs. Magnesium has done a great job of decreasing the amount of a wait time that I've had throughout the night, which is usually around 45 minutes, 30, 45 minutes of a wait time is now going into REM and deep sleep. So I'm just buying time through taking magnesium. So those are two things along with the sauna and cold plunge that I've seen tangibly increased throughout this process.

Yeah, those are pretty consistent with what I've heard from other. WOOP members. And it's funny how just tracking that stuff also just makes you more hyper-aware of how it's affecting your body. You know, I've at least found just over years of measuring this stuff just by being very intentional about saying, oh, I am doing a cold plunger. I am doing a sauna. It gets you just much more thoughtful about how it's actually affecting your body. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I actually had another question about naps, because some people are for them, some people are against them. Should you be a napper? When should you be a nap or can you kind of get into that for me yeah it's a great question i mean

generally speaking if you are trying to perform at a high level as an athlete and you're tired in the afternoon you're better off napping than not napping so to speak because your body clearly has some kind of a sleep debt that it that it needs to work off i think there's plenty of athletes that never nap and there's a lot of athletes who always nap i think it's a little bit harder to be someone who's infrequently napping. I find that in talking to athletes, routine is really important. Like, you want your body to be operating on some kind of a regular circadian rhythm. And one of the things that we look at a lot is called sleep consistency.

So that's going to bed and waking up at the same time. And the better you are at that, actually, the more it's going to boost your heart rate variability and it's going to boost your REM and slow wave. So that's actually an area from your data I think you can get even better at. Right now it's at 69%. Some of that might be due to travel and other things. But if you can get really focused on trying to go to bed within the same 30-minute window and wake up within the same 30-minute window, you'll find that a lot of your numbers

naturally go up even more. That's so interesting. And as a college athlete, right, your schedule is just changing all the time. You're playing this time. then you're one night to sleep in is Saturday night, but then you get too much sleep and you're tired the rest of the day on Sunday. And like I'm just all over the place. And then of course on Saturday night, like you win the game.

You're wanting to stay out later with the guys. And then that just jacks everything up. And I feel like I'm just playing catch up so often. So like I really envy the people who are just getting consistent sleep, right? You're consistently getting seven hours versus somebody who's six hours, 10 hours, five hours, 12 hours, like that person, you know, it was kind of like me is going to be all out of whack. So I'm looking forward to really increasing my sleep schedule and just being more consistent. Well, you're in a good place. I mean, you're in a really good starting place.

Your sleep numbers are solid. Your HRV and your resting heart rate are excellent, like, you know, top 5% excellent. So I think sleep consistency, if you can, if you can improve that with all the challenges of being a student athlete and all the travel, you'll find that you get an even better set of data and you'll feel better. I assume you like watching professional football. Absolutely. Let's build the best quarterback.

All right, what are the categories? All right, we're going to start with arm strength. Okay, how many categories are there that way I can... Okay, I'll map it first. We're going arm strength, accuracy, mobility, leadership, mental, and clutch gene. So you've got six categories. We're going to go one. one and you can use quarterbacks in the last let's call it 10 years so we'll keep it somewhat

relevant but that gives you a little bit of a larger body of work how about that okay i like it all right so we're going to start with arm strength i'll say joe milton uh threw with him in the manning passing academy flicked it 90 yards easily so we could throw it 90 yards that's not even an exaggeration he's got a rocket he's definitely like 20 years ago but jimarchis russle from oh wow that's a good one had a canon too so one of those two guys all right how about accuracy we'll go brady mobility probably not brady no probably not brady let's see mobility i want to go mike vicar lamar we'll go we'll go we'll go lamar there we'll go lamar jackson leadership let's go Peyton manning i mean he's an operator guys listen um when he talks i've been around him at the manning casting academy

he's just the definition of like when he talks everybody listens so yeah pay Speaking of the Manning camp, how is that? I mean, it seems like so many great guys have gone through it. Unreal. And, you know, a lot of people think it's for the college quarterbacks, but it's really like 2,000 kids who work there to mentor. It's just the coolest experience ever. They picked the hottest week of the summer in Tivida, Louisiana. And it is a grind. Like, we go there. And, you know, that weekend's the most exhausting weekend of the year, really. But it's 100% worth it. Met a lot of great people. And learned a lot about myself and, you know, kind of how an NFL quarterback should operate. The mannings are great people, too. Eli's a friend because we play golf together and I've spent time with Peyton, too. But they're just good people, too. Absolutely.

All right. Let's do mental, which could be ability to read defenses. Andrew Luck. I'm going to Andrew Luck. Wow, Andrew Luck. Yeah. Career that ended too soon, huh? I agree, but, you know, I trust his decision-making.

So whatever the case was, he made him retire. You know, I trust that he's a smart dude. What's an example of something you saw him do on the field where you're like, wow, that was really smart? I don't know if it was necessarily me, but I saw like a podcast of the first day he showed up. He showed up a week late to like his rookie minicamp type deal because he had to graduate with like an engineering master's or something like that.

So he shows up a week late and on day one makes a check that's in the end the playbook and the coach just ends up like cussing him out like what are you doing like we're on day one install and andrews just sitting back there like yeah that's sorry coach he just knew the whole playbook that was a cool thing that i saw all right clutch jean i mean he's playing go patrick yeah i'm glad we got my homes in there it was going to be yeah you got to get bummed if we went through six things and that's how patrick wasn't on the list but it's amazing what he's been able to do he's been on whoop for a long time it's crazy seeing his in-game numbers because he wears whoop during games on his upper arm.

He's got this little pad. Oh, does he? Yeah, I've seen it. And by the way, we can make you one if you want. But it's this cool little impact pad, and he's able to slide the sensor under. If you look at his left arm during the game, you'll see a little bump on his left arm. And there's a whoop under there. But he gets like a 20 plus strain for some of these playoffs. Does he really?

He had a 20. He had a 20.5 for the last. Bill's game. Wow, and 21's the max. It's unbelievable how high his strains get. What's next for you, Riley? What can we expect in the year ahead? That's a good question. You know, the biggest thing for me is I just want to reach my full potential. And I think my full potential is a long ways away from where I am now, but I'm just going to work my tail off to reach that. And that's really all I control is the best version of me. So you're going to see a kid that's going to do everything he can to do that and, you know, hopefully, you know, win a Super Bowl. Well, I believe it, man. It's been great getting to spend time with you

and I think you're very grounded, you've got the right perspective, and it seems like you're enjoying it, which is also important. I mean, what you got going on is fun. It's an amazing time in your life. Absolutely, it is. I'm not taking it for granted because there are a lot of people that, you know, can complain about this process, but it's a blessing of something I've dreamed of my entire life. So taking it a day by day, soaking it all in. Well, we're grateful to have you on Whoop and be partners with Notre Dame, and I wish you nothing but the best, brother. Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to our relationship in the future. Yeah, and, you know, keep working on that sleep consistency, Riley. I think that's going

to take you to the next level. It absolutely will. I'll show you the numbers after I get right. If you enjoyed this episode of the WOOP podcast, please leave a rating or review. Check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. If you have a question was answered on the podcast, email us, podcast to Woop.com. Call us 508-434349.52. If you think about joining Woop, you can visit Woop.com. sign up for a free 30-day trial membership. New members can use the code Will W-I-L to get a $60 credit on W-W-A-Ccessaries when you enter the code at checkout. That's a wrap, folks.

Thank you all for listening. We'll catch you next week on the WOOP podcast. As always, stay healthy and stay in the green.