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Teagan Taffer, a football player at the University of North Dakota, is interviewed on the Sam Fresnel Podcast. He discusses his journey to college football, the physical demands of the sport, and the importance of taking care of one's body. Teagan mentions the intense winter lifts and the benefits of the strength and conditioning program. He also talks about the challenges of playing in games and the need for proper recovery and self-care. Teagan has not experienced any injuries yet, but acknowledges the importance of the training room and taking care of one's body. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Real Housewives of New York. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast number three of the Sam Fresnel Podcast. Today, we have a special guest, Teagan Taffer, a teammate of mine here at the University of North Dakota, football player, he's a coroner. Teagan, welcome to the show. It's an honor to be here, Sam. Well, Teagan, can you kind of explain your journey through football and how you got to the University of North Dakota? Yeah, well, you know, just like everyone here, you always have that dream to play college football. So, initially, I went to high school at Alexandria Area High School, where I played varsity there for two years. And yeah, you know, I had a blast. I played with some really high-level players there. And yeah, so now we're here. A lot of hard work, a lot of extra time put in, and now we're here. Sir, how was, I know normally we're in spring ball, so we're a little bit over the quarter weight down into the first season, but how do you like it so far? It's been a blast. It's definitely been a learning experience, just because it's a different speed going from Minnesota football up to the FCS level, that's for sure. FCS, yeah. But all in all, it's been good. Definitely learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself. It's been a lot of fun just meeting a bunch of people that, you know, you wouldn't normally meet. And, you know, you go from playing with a bunch of kids you've played with your whole life to playing with a bunch of guys that you just met. So, it's been a blast. Yes, of course. All right. So, the first topic today that we're going to talk about is, or the only topic really that we're going to talk about, is the physical body, the physical effects of college football, which we know that plays a major, major part in our day-to-day lives and just college football in general, because it's such a huge part, if not the biggest part. But first, I just want to talk about how does your body hold it up for the first season? Well, since, you know, the freshman year, we really didn't get to play a lot, which so physically it's not like I got extremely, extremely beat down because, you know, if you take that, you know, that hitting aspect out of the game, you don't really get beaten up that much. But as far as just like the wear and tear on the daily, you know, it definitely kind of builds up as you go throughout the season. But then, you know, once we had a little Christmas break, I was able to kind of rejuvenate the rest a little bit. But yeah, more so for me, like, you know, yeah, I don't really feel that too much right now. Yeah. Obviously, for me, I just got done with a knee and skull surgery three weeks ago, today actually, three weeks ago today. So I should be in the recovery time in about a month. But they just took out some cartilage, some inflammation and shaved down some bone and some membrane in my knee. But it was mostly just because of overuse, not because of college football, but because of overuse in high school and then playing through that pain for a long time. So, I mean, that kind of what caused it. But the overuse or the amount of use it caused definitely added to it. So, I mean, outside of that, outside of my knee, the body feels really good. But then again, I mean, I've been out for about a month now with my knee, so I haven't been able to do any activities or anything. But that's how it goes. But first, I just want to talk about the lifts. Because, I mean, that's like, a lot of people are like, that's a huge topic when we talk about college football because a lot of people like, they just, they're worried about it or they're excited about it. It's kind of here or there. But how are you feeling about lifts so far? Yeah, essentially what we've experienced is kind of the, I don't know what you'd say, the heat of the, or the main part of the winter lift. It was good. Obviously, I think our main goal this year, this winter at least, was to put some weight on everybody. So, for the first five weeks, it was just a lot of heavy lifting, kind of your big three movements, squat bench and clean. So, we've done a lot of that. Towards the end, obviously, it felt a little bit, my body was gassed just because, you know, you lift for five weeks straight and just pounding your body up and down in the squat rack. You know, it tends to wear you a little bit. But yeah, then after that, we started running a little bit. And the runs were smooth. They were, you know, I felt like I got faster. I felt like I got more agile. And yeah, I felt like the workouts were super applicable to the game of football. And, you know, our strength and conditioning staff here, you know, it's awesome. It's great. But, you know, once you get to, you know, you do the workouts for several weeks, you obviously kind of, you get exhausted. Your body gets tired. So, it's definitely nice. We just got back from spring break, so that was nice to kind of give your body a little bit of a rest to kind of recover from that grind. I know you came, every freshman kind of comes to campus a little bit at like different times. I know you came in August, right, for fall camp. And I was, me and Payne, another one of our teammates who's a linebacker, we came right away in June. So, I mean, we were almost done with a whole year of college football lifting. And I'd say like strength-wise, you definitely get a lot stronger and you add weight. And, I mean, that kind of will affect how like you go everywhere else. I mean, like in the summer, I gained like 15 pounds. So, I was about 210 going into the fall camp. And I just, I was not as explosive as I felt like I could have been. So, I kind of have lost about five. So, I'm at 205 now. But I'd say the lifts are pretty smooth. I mean, it's not like anything bad. I know during the winter workouts and sometimes in the summer workouts, it's a lot of high reps and high intensity and that can be tough. But, I mean, it's not like something you fear or something you're scared of. It's just something that, you know, you want to do and you've got to do if you want to be good at football. So, I mean, it's just, it's all about having a positive attitude going into the lifts. Because the lifts aren't going to break down your body, but they're going to make you sore. You're going to get tired. You're going to get tight. And you just got to take care of that in the training room and all that stuff. The next thing I'm going to talk about is the bodies and games. And I know both of us are freshmen and we redshirted. So, we don't have any game experience. But I just want to, like, talk about, like, how the games would go and how the lifting would go hand-in-hand in season. Because I know that we never played in a game yet. So, we just lifted and practiced, which was pretty smooth. But games are definitely going to add some wear and tear to that. I don't know. What's your opinion on that? No, like Sam said, we don't have direct experience with that. But just from us to how the older guys go through it, you know, it definitely kills your body, you know, going through that. Especially the season's a lot longer. High school, I think, we played an eight-game regular season and then a four-game playoff. So, last year, we got to the state quarterfinals. And by the end of that, you know, my body was exhausted. It was broken. But, you know, in high school, we didn't really do a lot of in-season lifting. But nothing like we do here, which I think the lifts that we do here are extremely beneficial in keeping your body fresh and helping your body kind of reset. Right now, in season, I think we lift, I think it's Tuesday, Friday, Sunday. I think the Friday lift was just for the redshirts or the guys who don't travel or dress. And that's a wide variety of people, you know, if you're battling injuries or whatever the team needs that week as far as personnel. But, you know, you have the lifts. Lifts in season definitely kind of cater to helping you recover. But, yeah, as a player, from what I've seen from the older guys, you really got to exercise, take care of your body, and putting the extra time in the training room and, you know, eating the right stuff, sleeping, sleeping enough. I think we can talk about that a little bit later. Just make sure that you're hydrating. Right now, like, this is basically our full-time job. The body is how you produce on the field. If you're not taking care of your body, you're not serious about your body, you know, you're not going to play as well as you possibly could. So that's definitely something that I've learned a little bit more how to take care of my body, but also you don't really know until you're out there playing. But just watching the older guys definitely kind of gave me a kind of feel for what it takes. So you said training room, which is actually good because it leads into the next topic. But I spent a lot of time in the training room in the fall because of my knee, and then I'm doing physical therapy right now. I've been doing that for about three months because of my knee. And post-surgery, I'm going to be doing it for a while just to get my strength back. But I know that the training room is probably, like, sometimes actually the separator between good and great football players because they take the time to go recover, and recovering is pretty much half the process because if you don't recover your body, you'll never build up. I know because of my knee injury, I overused my knee, never recovered, and that's what caused my injury. And now I'm losing strength because I haven't been able to work out for about a month now. So, I mean, just talk about what the training room has done for you and what do you do in the training for your routine, and then I'll talk about what I do. Oh, yeah. So for me, as far as my college, I haven't really experienced knockout winning. I haven't really experienced any injuries yet. But, you know, it's part of the game, which you're going to experience at some point. Maybe it's not serious, but it could be just, like, a little ankle sprain or something. But, yeah, you know, the trainers are great. But as far as, you know, my experience in there, I'll just go back to high school. My junior track team and I tore my quad long jumping, and that was kind of a process. We did a non-surgery route. And, you know, we had great trainers that helped me recover. My dad's actually a chiropractor who also is in kind of the sports field. We have a lot of stuff, such as, like, the Norco Tech recovery pants. And it's really just like taking advantage of what you have access to, especially at the divisional level, we have access to a ton of recovery tools, but also just getting you diet, right, and making sure you're doing those things to let your body heal you naturally. I think a lot of times, like, people don't quite understand how powerful your body is. And when you get enough sleep, and you hydrate, and you eat the right food, your body can do a lot of great things as far as recovery. So as far as getting those big three right, and then, you know, taking advantage of what the trainers have, the knowledge that our training staff has is critical. Yeah, so you mentioned Norman Techs, and that's kind of what I used a lot before I injured my knee. For the viewers out there that don't know what Norman Techs are, they're little boots that you zip up around your legs, up to your, probably almost close to your hip, and it kind of puts some pressure and helps the blood flow and just helps the recovery process in a better way. So I used that a lot. But other than that, I used cuffing. I've used needling. I've used different, like, stem treatments, which, like, send electrical volts into your body that help the recovery process and help, like, pain. If there's pain, it'll bring different things in your body that'll help make the pain normal and help the recovery process even quicker. So, I mean, that's kind of what I use the most. But during physical therapy, it's a lot of body weight stuff. It's a lot of just building back your strength and getting, like, your mind connected to your muscle, really. It's just mind-muscle connection is probably, like, one of the hugest things. And I know we're going to talk about mental health and mental effects in our next episode. But getting your mind connected to your muscle is really important and helps you move smoother and fluently and faster because your mind tells your body when to move. So, I mean, that's just a huge part that I've been working on in physical therapy. You also mentioned sleep. And I know everyone talks about it, but sleep is a huge component in your recovery. And you're supposed to get at least 78 hours of sleep. And that's something I kind of strive for every day. How does your sleeping process work? Yeah, it definitely depends on what time we have workouts. I generally try to get in bed. You know, say we have nothing going on the next day. I'm going to try and be in bed 10, 30, 11 o'clock-ish. But, yeah, say we got a workout. We got to be up at, like, 5.30. I'm trying to be in bed by at least, like, 9.15 just to kind of hang out. I can't, like, lay down and go to sleep right away. So I kind of just lay in bed for a little bit before I do that. So I try to get in bed at least, like, 30 minutes before when I actually want to go to bed. And that all kind of varies. Like, I try to go, like, eight and a half hours to be safe with it. So, like, say we start at 7 o'clock, I'm going to go to bed. However, what's that? Eight hours before that. Yeah, so that's kind of what I do, too, is because I'm a difficult sleeper. I've kind of had different people talk to me about my sleep. So I'll try, like, different exercises of relaxing the muscles in your face and your shoulder and chest and going down to your legs and finally relaxing your mind. And it helps me sleep. But I can definitely tell when I get eight hours of sleep in the morning for a workout or practice compared to when I get, like, six and a half to seven. Because I feel like in eight and a half, you just feel more alert and focused. You're definitely more focused. But also, I feel like my body wakes up quicker. And that kind of helps you with the working out part and definitely makes you go at a higher intensity. So that's kind of what we aim for when we work out is as high intensity as we can because that's when you actually push your limits. The last thing I want to talk about is eating. And, you know, eating is another huge component of a physical body because if you eat like crap, your body is not going to ever, like, increase and get better. So, I mean, is there, like, a certain diet that you follow? I don't know. Is there a diet that you follow? Not. I don't have anything on my paper, like, saying I eat this much or this much. So, like, generally, you know, with us, especially, we eat at the dining center. So we got real food at our disposal. So, like, generally, I'm trying to eat a lot of chicken, eat a lot of rice, you know, get your carbs in after the workouts. But I've been trying to eat a little bit leaner just so I can be leaner. Just trying to get that beach body built. Yes, sir. Yeah, so as far as the nutrition aspects of it, I got a couple, like, food supplements that I take. I've been on creatine, like, periodically. But, you know, if you don't drink enough water, it's kind of pointless. So I haven't been able to drink enough water as of late. So it's definitely something I got to focus on. But, yeah, I don't really have a strict diet that I'm following currently. Yeah, I don't really have a strict diet either. But I do try to have chicken and rice, like, every single day, at least either at lunch or for dinner. But my main thing is I just don't eat much sugar. And that's kind of, like, my main diet that I don't follow because it's just – I mean, obviously, it's something I'll have, like, once a month. But, like, just, like, bad sugary stuff is what I don't eat just because it can – it's not as healthy for you. It doesn't help. But always chicken and rice. And then fruit. I know we always have fruit for, like, lunch and dinner. And then we also get meals for the football team. So we eat that during the season, during spring ball and during the fall season, which is pretty nice and they're all pretty healthy. So, yeah, that's something that we get at our disposal, and that's pretty cool. Thank you all for listening to podcast number three of the Sam Schimdell Podcast. Thank you, Teagan, for joining us for this episode. I'm going to come back for the next one. All right. Well, you might have to. But we'll see. All right. Thank you all for listening. Have a great one. ♪♪♪