What Is Different This Time?

Making Best Ball Summer Count

Author

Davis Mattek
May 21, 2024

What Is Different This Time?

Making Best Ball Summer Count

Quick editorial note before we get to the good stuff: Automattek Absolutes is returning, albeit in a different form. All serious fantasy football stuff (best ball ranks, dynasty ranks, etc.) will live on www.patreon.com/taekcast. This space will focus on more of what I am interested at any given time (mostly health/fitness) and the journey involved.

Friends, welcome back after a brief hiatus (read: not brief). I return to you on the precipice of what our year revolves around: Best Ball Summer. For the next approximately 100 days, we are all going to spend a huge chunk of our waking hours drafting fantasy football teams, thinking about drafting fantasy football teams, and thinking about thinking about drafting fantasy football teams.

As usual, I will participate in Underdog Fantasy’s "Cardio Club” and go into the offseason with the best intentions of keeping my mind and body right while devoting a non-trivial amount of time to a numbers-based game about football.

But what does that mean? You’ve all been watching the Swolecast or listening to the Taekcast for long enough to know that I am prone to dramatic, sweeping declarations of change, only to fall back into the same pattern. I am far from alone in this pattern of changing everything and then reverting back to homeostasis, and I have found that the more communal the change is, the easier it is to maintain.

So…What Is Different This Time?

Hopefully, this space is it. With almost 4 months until the beginning of the NFL season, we all have the time to make real changes before Patrick Mahomes throws down versus Lamar Jackson on opening night. Over the next 107 days (and hopefully in the following months), I plan to use Automattek Absolutes to hold myself accountable to first myself and, secondly, to you all. It is my hope that some of you readers join in Hot Best Ball Summer with me and share either here, on Twitter, or Patreon your cardio club and weightlifting success.

What plan do I need to be held accountable to? Thanks to my old friend and co-worker Colin Drew, I have devised some S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals for the drafting period.

My goal for the time period now until the NFL kickoff is to achieve a body weight of 150 pounds, with a measurable body fat of under 20%. My starting weight is approximately 175, so roughly 8 pounds per month over 3.5 months easily gets me there (therefore, achievable). None of these specifics matter to you, and if you plan on joining, I would encourage you to define your own specifics. Simply “trying to get in better shape,” “moving more,” or “eating better” has never, and I mean never, worked for me.

This is my plan to achieve the aforementioned goals: I will use the Lose It app to track calories and progress (this is just the app I have used; there are literally hundreds that are just as good), resistance train five days a week using a push-pull-legs split (I will post that below), and get a minimum of 10,000 steps per day with at least one aerobic exercise a week (skateboarding, golf, running/sprinting…anything where explosive movements occur repeatedly).

The Best Ball Summer Workout Split

Day 1: Push (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps)

  1. Bench Press - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  2. Overhead Shoulder Press - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  3. Incline Dumbbell Press - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  4. Lateral Raises - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

  5. Tricep Dips - 3 sets of 8-12 reps (use an assist machine if needed)

  6. Tricep Pushdowns - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

Day 2: Pull (Back, Biceps)

  1. Pull-Ups - 3 sets of 8-12 reps (use an assist machine if needed)

  2. Bent Over Rows - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  3. Lat Pulldowns - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  4. Seated Cable Rows - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  5. Bicep Curls - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

  6. Hammer Curls - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

Day 3: Legs (Quads, Hamstrings, Glutes, Calves)

  1. Squats - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  2. Leg Press - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  3. Leg Curls - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

  4. Leg Extensions - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

  5. Calf Raises - 3 sets of 15-20 reps

Day 4: Push (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps)

  1. Dumbbell Bench Press - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  2. Arnold Press - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  3. Cable Flys - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

  4. Front Raises - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

  5. Skull Crushers - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

  6. Overhead Tricep Extension - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

Day 5: Pull (Back, Biceps)

  1. Deadlifts - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  2. T-Bar Rows - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  3. Face Pulls - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

  4. Single-Arm Dumbbell Rows - 3 sets of 8-12 reps

  5. Preacher Curls - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

  6. Reverse Curls - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

This basic workout split can be used and modified for beginner, intermediate, and advanced lifters. I’m probably more in the intermediate category myself at this time, and other than the deadlifts, all of this can more or less be achieved by anyone walking into a gym. Far from a fitness professional however, this is just what has worked for me to build strength (though we are now shifting our focus to narrowing the waistline).

Here are some resources if you have more questions or feel like nerding out a little bit: Jeff Nippard’s YouTube channel is some of the best science-based lifting content on the entire internet, Dr. Mike Israetel has great information about how our bodies work, Peter Attia’s book about metabolic health will reshape your worldview (it did mine), and this Fitness Sharing subreddit has workout plans for all shapes and sizes if you are interested in seeing what is out there.

Over the next few months, I will post updates on my training, musings on helpful (or non-helpful) exercise physiology findings, perhaps a success story or two from readers, reviews of books that made the cardio time go by much faster, and anything/everything in between. While fantasy football remains my first true love, I’ve found my passion for the health/fitness space has burned brighter over the last year or so, and I will be indulging that passion as much as you all will let me. Now, let’s have ourselves a hot Best Ball Summer!