Boom! This is Books & Biceps #325!

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Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer by Lynne Cox

You think you’re tough sitting in your little cold plunge tub for 4 minutes at 48 degrees?

How about trying a one-mile open water swim in Antarctica battling icebergs, killer whales, leopard seals, deadly currents and 33 degree water…?

Lynne Cox did it in 25 minutes. At 45 years old… Incredible, right?

Longtime readers know that stories about endurance swims or challenges in the water fascinate me - and Cox has made a career out of impossible swims. I wholeheartedly recommend this book, but I put together a short breakdown of her Antarctic Ocean swim for you because it’s so incredible:

1/ The first thing you need to know about Lynne Cox is that she’s tougher than anyone you know.

Maybe mentally tougher than anyone ever She’s held the record for swimming the English Channel. Twice. She was the first woman to swim the Straights of Magellan. And…

2/ Lynne Cox was the first person to swim around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

Yeah, the same cape where boats crash all the time because they can’t make it around due to the strong winds and currents. In 1987, she swam the Bering Straight from Alaska to the old tip of the Soviet Union. Took her 2 hours and 6 minutes. So…

3/ If anyone could complete a one mile swim in bone-chilling, certain-death conditions for 99.99999% of humans…

It’s Lynne Cox. But even she admits there were extra challenges she had to train for. Like…

4/ The currents were a dangerous, possibly deadly mystery:

“The currents and tides aren’t mapped. They’ve been studying them down there for 17 years and people still don’t know which way the currents move,” she told a Wisconsin radio show. “They could make swimming impossible…”

5/ The unpredictable weather could overwhelm her and her team.

“The weather there is so unstable. It can go from very calm to 60 knot winds within 15 or 20 minutes.” A wind gust at those temps could drown her. Then, of course…

6/ The ice could prove to be an unstoppable killer.

“You can have glaciers snap off and become icebergs. And if you’re swimming around them, it can be a bad thing,” she said, understating the possibility of navigating a 10 or 20 foot wave full of ice shards…

7/ But even with all those challenges accounted for…

A big one remained: Could her body survive the sub-zero temperatures?

In order to put the odds in her favor, she had to train to swim a little differently than normal. She explains:

8/ “You lose up to 80% of your heat through your head. You know that being in Wisconsin, ” Cox said.

“And so the idea is that if I could swim head up, I would be able to prolong my ability to stay in the cold. But at some point, you know, you get tired or because you’re pressing your entire body against the water, you’re sort of almost swimming upright. So in order to compensate for that, I had to do a whole lot more weight training.”

Incredible. Don’t forget, Cox wasn’t a college kid. She was in her mid-40s…

9/ In 2002, Cox splashed into the arctic water 1 mile from the beach in a place ironically named Paradise Harbor

The water temps swung from 32 down to 28. The currents shifted. She lost feeling in her hands, feet and limbs. Became disoriented. But she never stopped swimming. And she made it ashore…

10/ It took Cox days to stop shivering. And months to get the feeling back in her skin.

So why do it?

“I like this kind of exploration. I like the idea of pushing the body beyond what’s been done and sort of feeling out what human beings can do and how far that reach can be.”

This is just one of the swims she talks about in this book. It’s so good. And it’ll make you realize how much you can accomplish with some grit and guts. Get it here.

I’ve got my swim meet next weekend and I admit I’ve gone full blown into the weeds - even watching Olympian Caeleb Dressel butterfly videos to get my hand entry positioning on my stroke just right.

Also, Dressel is famous for having the most explosive start in swimming history. The dude launches off the blocks (and has somewhere near a 40” vertical). Here’s the leg routine he shared with Men’s Health before the Olympics that he uses to power his lower body:

This is… a lot. No wonder he fires off the blocks faster than anyone ever.

Also, I found this great video of Heisman Trophy winner and fellow Florida Gator, Tim Tebow, racing Dressel in the pool below.

Tebow is yolked these days. Looking more like a bodybuilder than a football player, even. As you’ll see, the difference in their physiques is striking. In fact (and I’m not comparing myself to Tebow here), this is often how I feel/look at practice when I’m paired up in a lane with a few triathletes or dudes training for the IronMan who are long and lean and weigh about 165 while I lug myself down the pool over 200 pounds haha.

Watch how smooth Dressel is when he dives in.

It’s like a dolphin racing a cinder block:

I had a big night in the pool on Tuesday… hit my 1st sub-35 50m fly off the wall in decades at practice. So pumped. The meet is 10 days out and I’m feeling strong… Rebuilding my butterfly one practice at a time is paying off.💪🏊🏼

FROM THE BOOKS & BICEPS CREW:

One of the coolest parts about writing this newsletter is how many writers and authors read it weekly and reach out to tell me about their own projects.

Like all of you, I have stacks of books waiting to be read - and I never want to be a bottleneck when an author in the B&B crew wants to share a book they think would be a good fit for you all.

With the NBA season underway, author Shane Anderson thought you’d enjoy his book, After the Oracle: How the Golden State Warriors Four Core Values Can Change Your Life Like They Changed Mine.

Here is his summary:

In 2016, Shane Anderson made a vow to live according to the four core values of the Golden State Warriors to escape a decade of defeats—including divorce, debilitating spinal surgery and a suicide attempt. The basketball team’s values of joy, mindfulness, compassion, and competition became Anderson’s guiding principles, providing him a lens to investigate a myriad of social, personal, philosophical, and political issues, such as homelessness, the promises and failures of rave culture, and the limits of self-help. Part memoir, part essay, and part chronicle of the greatest five-year stretch of a team in NBA history, After the Oracle depicts the makes and misses of one expat trying to make a life worth living.

Check it out here.

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.

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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:

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I’ve been using the same brand since they launched about a decade ago: Jym Supplements. I’ve known the owner and founder for fifteen years and it’s the best tasting, highest quality stuff around. Try my favorite pre-workout (Blue Arctic Freeze) and protein powder (S’mores) here.

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

The “Rated ‘N’ for Nostalgia’ is my favorite part.

Go ahead and pre-order it now. Every single order means something to me personally. There’s no middle man here. This is a Meathead Media original.

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!