Last offseason, while some players were vacationing, working on their golf game, simply resting their bodies or doing whatever players do in their off time after a grueling NFL season, Detroit Lions running back Zach Zenner was preparing for his life outside of football.
Last spring, Zenner was a volunteer research student at Henry Ford Hospital, working on a research project that looked into the effects of fructose induced salt-sensitive hypertension in rats.
Zenner and his research team controlled the rats diet with fructose and high salt to see how it affected their blood pressure.
"I became friends with the rats and then became enemies,” he said with a grin.