When Greg Olsen was playing in the NFL, he trained to make sure he could play every Sunday. But now that he’s retired from the league, Olsen has different goals when it comes to staying healthy. In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Olsen talked about how his lifestyle has changed now that he’s a former NFL tight end.
“I just think the demands are different,” Olsen exclusive told PopCulture. “Everything that I had done when I was playing was all built on performance. It was built on recovery. It was built on performance and being able to maintain that performance on a day-to-day basis, whether it was through my training or through the season.”
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Olsen continued: “Right now I want to be able to wake up in the morning and feel good and be able to go outside and go play golf or play tennis or take my kids to the fields and be able to run around, play catch and not be sore and not be banged up. I just want to live like a normal, healthy life that everyone hopes to live. I’m not out there running marathons. I’m not trying to be a hero, but I do want to be active and I don’t want to be in pain and I don’t want to feel sore and banged up, which is kind of a common result at the end of guys who played in the NFL for a long time.”
Olsen, 37, played in the NFL from 2007 to 2020 and ranks among the top tight ends in league history when it comes to receptions yards and touchdowns. He was selected to the Pro Bowl three times, the All-Pro Second Team twice and helped the Carolina Panthers reach the Super Bowl in 2015. He now is a commentator on the NFL on Fox broadcasts.
Olsen is staying healthy with the help of Thorne, which is a company that sells different supplements that help people live healthier lifestyles. Thorne has launched its Healthy Aging campaign, and Olsen was a top customer well before he joined forces with the company. “So I was really familiar with their products just from my time playing and training and all that,” Olsen said. “And then, now since in retirement, Healthy Aging campaign, I guess they were looking for an old guy who was no longer playing and training but just trying to live a healthy and active lifestyle, which is kind of the phase of the life that I’m in.
“And between their biological age testing and, again, a lot of the similar products that I had taken when I was a player, so many of them are just as effective if not more so for my life and the demands now. So it’s been a great partnership now working with them in retirement, helping me age a little better so I can stay healthy, stay active, be out with my kids, still continue to kind of repair a lot of damage from my playing days and try to age with a little more grace.”
