The Old-College Tactics DK Metcalf Makes notify of to Secure Unreal Energy
This memoir is portion of Males’s Health‘s Secure NFL Solid equipment, a assortment of tales that explore the somewhat a few kinds of physical and mental fitness it requires to attain the toughest sport on earth. Be taught your entire tales right here.
GET READY FOR DK Metcalf’s dirty secret. You’d deem a six-foot-four, 235-pound slab of muscle would enjoy some excessive-protein, all the pieces-imperfect-free diet, especially when priming for the most inspiring season of his football existence. But as Metcalf speaks on this Zoom in unhurried April, he’s . . . bingeing fleet meals. “It’s crawl back and forth,” he says between bites, “so I’m having french fries.” He goes on. “I’ll describe it as this: I’m a plump-ass at heart. If I didn’t play football, I’d now not care about my physique.”
No longer that someone will imagine him, attributable to at any time when DK (right title: DeKaylin) Metcalf takes the discipline for the Seattle Seahawks, he stands out, resulting from a magnificent mix of Thor-stage measurement and Unlit Panther athleticism. In most cases Metcalf is all explosive strength, the form that fueled his 73-yard take-and-breeze-far from two Cowboys corners final One year. Other cases he’s channeling mental strength, the form that drives a individual to trudge down a streaking safety half of his measurement on an interception return (Arizona’s Budda Baker in a gentle-legendary 2020 play). And then there’s Metcalf’s private favourite point to of strength, the brute force he makes notify of to dam, which became once on expose when he forklifted Commanders DB Kamren Curl (who’s also superbly jacked) yards upon yards previous the sidelines in the end of a game final season.
How did Metcalf comprise this strength? By ignoring feeble fitness solutions like “restoration” and “load management” and specializing in one thing much extra wise: practicing f*#%ing onerous. In the present day time’s strength-and-conditioning panorama usually leans into complicated gym-jargon guidelines that lend a hand athletes and common joes alike now not to push their limits. Metcalf isn’t down with that. Two years within the past, the league’s wrecking-ball wideout took a sledgehammer to his exercises, ditching Instagram-inspiring exercises and solutions like heart-charge variability. His recent template: He maxes out his muscle tissues and engine in every sweat sesh. “Well-liked lifts the put I can peek the put I am weight-wise and take a look at my strength,” says Metcalf, who is a Lululemon ambassador, “however also I essentially feel like I’m grimy and getting after it within the gym.”
It’s an extinct-college means that attracts on his college and excessive college days (and permits for french fries)—and it’s working. Metcalf arrives in 2024 new off aid-to-aid 1,000-yard receiving campaigns, even supposing he spent final season catching passes from journeymen Geno Smith and Drew Lock. The upsetting portion: His next step might well well be even extra spectacular.
That’s attributable to he’s mad. He’s aware that he’d by no map been within the pages of Males’s Health sooner than this concern. “So I stopped reading,” he says. (Gulp.) He’s also aware that he’s no longer the prototype receiver NFL scouts prefer. The league’s within the heart of a adore affair with quick Smurf wideouts, resulting from Tyreek Hill’s dominance in Miami, Amon-Ra St. Brown’s ascendance in Detroit, and Xavier Mighty’s drafting by Kansas City. “The one narrate it’s likely you’ll well well furthermore’t coach,” says Metcalf with puny annoyance, “is how to be fleet.” His mission: remind all individuals that it’s likely you’ll well well furthermore’t coach light-tempo freight prepare, both. All he must device is tumble PlayStation numbers (and extra YouTube-noteworthy blocks).
“I’m now not attempting to suit in with no person’s mentality,” he says. “I’m gonna be a total football participant.” To prevail in these heights, he chanced on extra strength this off-season, french fries be damned.
WELL, THIS DOESN’T occur usually. Metcalf is struggling. It’s mid-March, and Metcalf has accurate started his off-season program. He’s in UCLA’s weight room (his same outdated off-season haunt), his fingers greedy a loaded barbell on the bottom weighing a gargantuan total of 288 kilos. He’s going to strive and energy-easy it six cases, some extent to of explosive strength that can gasoline him to breeze far from extra DBs—and that can well well save an Olympic weightlifter to shame.
Metcalf takes a deep breath, then powerfully stands with the burden, pulling the bar up toward his shoulders. He drops the burden to the bottom. He does four reps, then tries a fifth. Aside from the bar won’t accelerate. “I kinda pissed myself off,” he says. “I couldn’t hit these final two reps.”
Metcalf practically by no map misses his reps, says his coach, Trey Shaw. He truly makes some extent to device the replacement, sneaking in an additional acquire in the end of every situation. A One year within the past, when Metcalf started working with Shaw, he settled underneath a bench press and ripped by reps. Shaw went to prefer the bar after counting them out. Metcalf hissed at him to extinguish—then did a few extra. “I assumed I miscounted,” Shaw says. “Or now not it’s now not related what I interrogate for, he constantly does one [more] acquire.”
In most cases which map doing a situation of heavy barbell lunges for ten reps, then adding an additional. On Fridays, he usually runs 100-yard sprints. Shaw will interrogate him to device six. He’ll gut out seven. Whatever he does, he objectives to push onerous ample that the final acquire is a concern. This taxes his physique, he says, while building mental strength. “There’s a quote: The physique will quit lengthy sooner than the mind will,” says Metcalf. “I deem it’s accurate pushing myself . . . constantly attempting to prepare myself for a fourth quarter of a game.”
This suggests to your practicing stipulations you to understand it’s likely you’ll well well furthermore constantly push extra difficult. Metcalf proves this a few weeks later, when he returns to UCLA and these 288-pound cleans. He with out narrate does six easy reps—and that trademark seventh. “I do know I’ve accumulated potentially hundreds of reps higher than potentially the same outdated individual who’s within the gym doing what’s on their notify card,” he says later. “The total lot to me is mental.”
Metcalf realized this behavior from his dad, Terrence Metcalf. Terrence, who spent seven years within the NFL enjoying offensive line, started bringing his son to off-season exercises when DK became once seven. When Terrence retired in 2010 and moved the family to Mississippi, he spent even extra time practicing along with his son.
“It’s ME ATTACKING THE YEAR—somewhat than vice versa.”
Every every so often father and son would head to Ole Omit, the same campus the put Terrence had developed into an All-American (and the put DK would neatly-known individual), and breeze sprints. Other cases, they’d hit the weights at DK’s excessive college weight room. Wherever they had been, Metcalf saw his dad pushing onerous. “My pops constantly instructed me to accurate device an additional acquire, and I accurate constantly saved that with me,” he says.
Till he reached the NFL. Partly resulting from a fractured cervical backbone as a junior at Ole Omit, Metcalf slipped into the second round of the 2019 NFL draft, touchdown with the Seahawks. To manual obvious of accidents, he ditched his one-extra-acquire philosophy. He spent his first few years as an expert in athletic practicing services, and these kinds of prefer a kinder, gentler means to getting pros game ready. Rather then pushing an athlete’s limits, expert trainers usually make certain they steer obvious of accidents and distress, limiting the balls-to-the-wall items Metcalf adored. “No longer announcing anything became once unpleasant with the practicing-facility job of caring to your physique,” he says, “however I deem of distress as potentially a fair appropriate narrate.”
So within the summer season of 2022, Metcalf shifted gears, deciding on to work out alone. A One year later, he hired Shaw, who understood the importance of gym classics like squats and bench presses. “Somehow,” Metcalf says, “I came to the conclusion of ‘I’m now not gonna device any passive lifts.’ ”
FIRST HE SHOCKED you along with his french-fry behavior. Now he’s magnificent you along with his . . . steadiness? It’s June, and Metcalf’s doing his Males’s Health shoot, making a notify video at the Proactive Sports actions gym in Los Angeles, a cutting-edge facility filled with all the pieces from Bosu balls to SkiErgs to Keiser machines (fueled by pneumatic resistance) to a pair of giant sticks that athletes “lope” into the bottom.
Shaw couldn’t make this shoot, so Proactive’s Josh Tuerpe is running the notify. He begins by asking Metcalf to steadiness on one foot on a Bosu, light weights in both fingers. Metcalf leans ahead and flares his hands, stretching his pecs and difficult his leg steadiness.
It’s an notify Metcalf has by no map completed, yet he by no map breaks build. He has zero complications slaying anything Tuerpe asks for. It’s a reminder to all gymgoers: If an NFL receiver doesn’t need uncommon exercises or overpriced notify instruments to comprise strength (and showcase that strength with recent moves!), you doubtless don’t, both. “We stick with same outdated exercises,” says Shaw. “He accurate must gather in there and work.”
Metcalf makes notify of his physicality to outmuscle receivers for catches, and loves blocking, too.
Metcalf does legs on Mondays, specializing in squats and lunges. Tuesdays are about bench presses. After a Wednesday off day, Thursdays bring explosive moves (like energy cleans), and Fridays heart on these sprints and on-discipline work. Metcalf made up our minds this off-season that he wished to be faster after the take, so he’ll throw in extra foot-means work on other days, too.
Every notify lets Metcalf demonstrate his strength. His most WTF pass reinvents the farmer’s lope: Metcalf holds heavy dumbbells, then walks up and down stairs. Since the moves are essentially easy, says Shaw, Metcalf can focal point on transferring easy loads. “He’ll take dangle of up the heaviest dumbbells he can accept,” the coach says.
Some trainers will show you that the fixed pushing might well well sooner or later save on an athlete down. Metcalf says the replacement: He entered Seattle’s 2023 practicing camp in his most productive form, a changeup from his sluggish practicing-camp begins of the previous. “It’s usually me attacking the One year,” he says, “somewhat than vice versa.”
Metcalf can protect his strength in portion attributable to he sneaks in extra restoration time than it’s likely you’ll well well understand, even though these moments don’t advance with compression boots and saunas. All the most practical map by the off-season, he doesn’t prepare on weekends or Wednesdays. And when the 2023 typical season wrapped up, he took all of February to let mind and physique recover.
He looks ahead to retirement, when he’ll indulge that interior plump-ass. “No longer M&M’s,” he says, thinking ahead. “But gummies and burgers. That’s what I count on.”
For now he needs his strength so he can continue to pummel (and breeze previous/by/around/over) NFL defenders. “I can’t focal point too much on the lengthy breeze,” he says. “I’ve gotta protect the put my feet are and focal point on a success video games for this season.”
Secure DK Energy
Three same outdated exercises in DK’s routines. Attain every once a week.
Upstairs Farmer’s Carry
Stand in entrance of a staircase maintaining heavy dumbbells at your facets. Stroll up 10 to 12 steps. Flip around and lope aid down. That’s 1 situation; leisure 60 seconds. Attain 3 items, blasting forearms and core and building underrated aid muscle, too.
Barbell Reverse Lunge
Stand with a loaded barbell held all the map by your mid-aid, abs and glutes tight. Step aid with your accurate foot, then bend at the knees and hips, lowering into a lunge. Press aid to standing. Attain 3 items of 8 to 10 reps per facet.
Inserting Leg Receive
Yes, Metcalf trains his abs, too! Hold from a pullup bar with an overhand grip, abs and glutes tight. Tuck your knees toward your chest. Decrease with control. Attain 3 items of 8 to 10 reps.
This memoir looks within the September-October 2024 concern of Males’s Health.
For extra tales in our Secure NFL Solid assortment about peak mental and physical efficiency, click right here.
