Boom! This is Books & Biceps #375!

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If you’re a new subscriber you’ll love this profile that the New Yorker ran on us.

Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur by Jeff Pearlman

There are very few authors who I’d feel comfortable recommending one of their books when I’m only about 25 pages in, but Jeff Pearlman is one of them.

Pearlman is in the pantheon of the greatest sports biographers we have. I think I’ve recommended at least five of his books in this newsletter since it started, including his biographies of Bo Jackson, Walter Payton, Brett Favre and his books on the USFL and the Showtime Lakers. He also wrote an incredible blurb for me for my book ‘1996: A Biography’, for which I’ll always be grateful.

And now Jeff’s taken his first crack at a subject outside of sports, the hip hop and entertainment icon, Tupac. Pearlman’s researching chops are legendary. For this book he interviewed 372 people and spent three years on the project.

Having tackled a few big biographies myself, I can tell you first hand that these things take a lot out of you. When you’re writing them you’re kind of living two lives. One is your brain’s total immersion in every aspect of your subject’s life and the other is your own life. Your head space tends to get occupied by their head space. You become an expert on someone else and it’s just, I don’t know, weird sometimes.

I spent two years in the brain of the Macho Man and I mostly enjoyed it haha. But three years inside the mind of Tupac had to be exhausting.

I just got the book yesterday so I’m only on page 20 or so, but Pearlman is doing what he always does: going deeeeeep and putting you right there.

I’d say that 99% of the time the phrase “no stone left unturned” is a gross exaggeration of someone’s efforts. But in the case of this book, I think it’s accurate. You can tell. You can tell in all of Pearlman’s books, in fact.

If you grew up in the 90s like most people reading this, then Tupac was a part of your entertainment lives. Music. Movies. Tabloids. Pop culture. All of it. This book takes you back and gives you the behind-the-scenes and the context on…everything. Check it out.

This past weekend I was at the Miami Beach Excellent Adventure for Midlife Male. On Saturday morning we all got up and were put through a brutal workout on the beach with the most basic lifting tool ever: a simple and sinister kettlebell.

There were fifteen of us and when we got to the beach we each got a mat and a kettlebell. Being the meathead that I am, I grabbed the heaviest one. This, in short, was a mistake.

Me and Midlife Male Founder Greg were smiling after the warm-up, but…

…we were in for a world of hurt the next 90 minutes haha.

The workout consisted of a series of 90-second burner routines, with 30 seconds of three different movements. Then we’d get 30 seconds off and do it again. And again. Then we’d move onto three more 90-second sets.

We did so much volume so fast I don’t remember all of the sets, but these two (below) from the middle stand out for the legs and back. All of these were with holding the KB at your chest or otherwise indicated.

Legs:

30 seconds Split Squat Right Leg Forward

30 Seconds Split Squat Left Leg Forward

30 Seconds Goblet Squats

Repeat three times.

Back:

30 Seconds Back Rows Right Arm (in push-up position, so one arm down on arm doing rows)

30 Seconds Back Rows Left Arm

30 Seconds Upright Rows Both Hands on the Bell

Repeat three times.

There were about 8 more of these types of routines that had most of us gassed for the last ten minutes, but I specifically remember these two.

Going to use the back one for sure in the Flex Factory.

So simple. All you need is a kettlebell and some space.

Oh, and don’t use the heaviest bell available haha!

Also, in case you’re wondering, this is what 15 meatheads look like training on the sand of South Beach:

If you’re a guy over 40 and you’ve been looking for a new digital magazine that’s written for midlife men, by midlife men, on the topics that actually matter to us: family, fitness, fashion, finance, food & fun, then join us at Midlife Male.

I write a column every Tuesday called The Manologue. This week I wrote about a topic near and dear to every dude and dad’s heart: Costco. Specifically, the time I got to experience the secret, underground world of Luxury Costco. Yeah, it exists. Read on:

And check out how sick this pool is?

What swimmer wouldn’t want their own 50M indoor pool to swim through some beautiful architecture:

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Here’s something for your brain:

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Here’s something for your body:

Try our “Read More, Lift More” Challenge, the world’s only one-month training program that pairs an awesome book with 30 proven workouts. Ten pages of reading a day with one workout based on your reading.

THE BOOKS & BICEPS 30-DAY “READ MORE, LIFT MORE” CHALLENGE

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