Boom! This is Books & Biceps #324!

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BOOKS

Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon by Mirin Fader

A little known fact about Hakeem Olajuwon is that after he retired, his 400-acre ranch outside of Houston became a popular pilgrimage spot for elite NBA players to train and improve their footwork. And we’re not just talking about the big men, centers and power forwards who hoped to have 10% of the fluidity, style and effectiveness of Hakeem. No, we’re talking about all the NBA superstars who want to get better.

Kobe.

LeBron.

All of them.

Even if you’re a First Team All-NBA Selection and potential First Ballot HOFer, you have something to learn from Olajuwon.

If you were an NBA fan in the 80s and 90s you first knew Hakeem (then Akeem) as a member of the Phi Slamma Jamma hoops team at the University of Houston and then as the #1 overall NBA Draft Pick in 1984, the year Michael Jordan went #3. You also know him as the game’s dominant center for a decade, winning two NBA Finals and embarrassing a young Shaq, sweeping his Orlando Magic in 1995. In the 1994 NBA Finals he demolished Patrick Ewing. About this, Kenny Smith said, “Hakeem was the first person I saw make Patrick Ewing look mortal.”

Whoever he was up against: Ewing, Shaq, David Robinson, Dikembe Mutombo… Didn’t matter. His team usually came out on top.

Not bad for a kid who didn’t even want to play basketball, despite being 6’8” in his early teens. In fact, as Mirin Fader points out in her awesome book, Dream, Olajuwon wanted to play just about every other sport except basketball, preferring to focus on handball until a basketball coach couldn’t take it anymore and made his play for the young man.

This early portion of Olajuwon’s life takes place in Lagos, Nigeria, which is the backdrop for a childhood that created one of the most respected NBA stars of a generation, which is incredible considering that as a child he would intentionally hunch over as much as a foot when he walked to hide his height, which was originally a source of embarrassment for him.

Fader does a terrific job walking us through the characters in his life, his commitment to basketball, to winning, to his teammates, to Islam and to his community. This is a sprawling biography with nitty gritty details about some great NBA playoff battles in the 80s and 90s while shedding light on what made Olajuwon the man he became.

I recommended Fader’s biography of Giannis Antetekuonmpo in Books & Biceps a few years ago and this is just as good Check it out here.

BICEPS

Let me tell you about the best $15 I’ve spent on fitness this year in two words:

Squat Wedges

I don’t know why I didn’t buy these things sooner. They’re amazing.

Whether you have tightness in you calves, hamstrings or glutes, or you have stiffness when you squat down, these two little blocks can help A TON.

I’m currently using them for the Knees Over Toes program I mentioned that I started last week (you can read about it/sign up here).

But having these blocks around has changed my ability to stretch in general. They’re perfect to elongate your calves after a run or a heavy kicking workout in the pool.

And if you’ve been sitting a lot during the day, doing just a few sets of body weight squats on these things, with a 5 second hold at the bottom, feels amazing and opens up your hips, knees and back.

All for $15. A bunch of fancy brands have fancy blocks, and one day I may buy a wider one so that I can get both feet on at the same time, but for now, if any of this appeals to you, try these.

QUICK FLEXES

Shout out to my buddy Kynon for sending me this. I’ve never seen anything like it. Dude looks like he just stepped off a construction crew site and cranks out a ludicrous 675 pound drop set! Banging out sets of 5 and 7 as he sheds 90 pounds at a time:

A member of our Books & Biceps crew sent me this and it’s kind of mesmerizing:

Someone created these workout playlists on YouTube with images of super heroes working out. The thing is, the image is just one motion image of the super hero almost lifting the weight and the music is just some sort of synth house beat… And yet… I found myself leaving it on in the background while I worked.

The images are, without question, cool. Here’s one of Hulk deadlifting:

And the one here of Thor doing hammer curls is pretty bad ass:

I’m honestly not sure what to make of the videos and playlists themselves. They’re…weird. But cool. You can decide for yourself here.

I’m less than three weeks out from my first swim meet in about 25 years and the training has picked up. Love these night swims now that it gets dark so early:SR

STRONG LINKS

1) KNEES OVER TOES

This is the EXACT workout I’m using to cure my longstanding low back pain, along with my longtime pathetic mobility and flexibility. The program is called Knees Over Toes. I’ve been doing it for 3 weeks and the results have been remarkable for me. My tight hip pain has disappeared and my low back pain has gone from a constant five down to a two. Doesn’t even hurt to bend and put on socks and shoes, haha.

If you’d like to sign up, please USE THIS LINK FOR BOOKS & BICEPS READERS.

2) MIDLIFE MALE

If you’re a dude over 40 and you used to read Men’s Health or Esquire or GQ, and you’re looking for a digital magazine to get you on top of your game and keep you on top of your game, with incredible A-List interviews (Troy Aikman, Don Saladino, Gunnar Peterson and more), original columns and a curated list of weekly items second-to-none, subscribe to Midlife Male Magazine.

I’ve been helping build this publication from the ground up and it’s the magazine I used to wish existed - and now it does:

3) GET YOUR SIGNED GENERATION GRIFFEY COLLECTOR’S EDITION COVER CARTRIDGE NOW

Check out the actual Ken Griffey Jr. N64 game VS. our book cover inspired by the Ken Griffey Jr. N64 video game…

How’d we do? C’mon, the “Rated ‘N’ for Nostalgia’ is a dope!

I ran out of the first printing last week and just got another set of 100 in but they’re already going fast. Your support for these projects means everything.

If you’ve been thinking of getting this, pre-order it now. Every single order means something to me personally. There’s no middle man here.

It’s just me and this book and you so let’s goooooo!

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PS: You still reading Gus and Mallory? Thanks for getting through the whole thing! No skimming!