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BOOKS

Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak

The phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” is flat out stupid. I’ve always hated it. It makes no sense. The whole entire point of a book cover is for it to be judged! That’s why it exists: to entice you, intrigue you, make you curious and make you want to pick up the book. Full confession: I ALWAYS judge a book by its cover.

In the case of this week’s recommendation, I bought Lowdown Road precisely because I loved the cover so much. There is simply no way a cover this good could have a bad book inside.

Now, I saw the cover because a friend of mine, Mike Dolan shared the book on his Twitter feed… And then after clicking on the book I saw that none other than Stephen King blurbed it by saying, “This book is a fucking blast!”

BUT, I would have known none of this if I hadn’t seen the cover and immediately thought, “I want to read this” even thought I’d never heard of the author, Scott Von Doviak before.

Turns out, the book is awesome. Like a Tarantino movie set in the mid-70s. Drugs. Road trips. Car chases. Cool dialogue. Tough guys. Money. Fun characters. This is my first book from Von Doviak and it won’t be my last. Check it out here.

BICEPS

It was a phenomenal Bench O’Clock Monday Morning in the Flex Factory this week (my garage gym for our new friends)… which leads me to PART II from last week’s post about going for a 315 bench. If you missed it, you can read it here.

After my workout Monday morning I did a bunch of extra sets of one rep to gauge where my max currently is. I got up 285 after my workout, so we’ll use that. Not bad. I weigh 190 now and haven’t maxed in a long time so I’ll take it.

I went though some old strength routines in Muscle & Fitness and Flex and found a volume based one I’m going to start out with to build up to 315.

The whole workout is based on a percentage of your max and you do 5 sets of 10.

For instance, if you bench 275, your bench workout would be this:

1st set 55% 10 × 150

2nd set 60% 10 × 165

3rd set 65% 10 × 180

4th set 70% 10 × 195

5th set 75% 10 × 205

The catch is that you have to hit ALL the reps. So if you can only get 6 in a set… You rest and do four more… Or two sets of two…

I’ll be doing other work on support muscles as well (tris, back, etc…) but this will be my base and I’ll do it twice a week, moving the percentages up as I go.

Keep you posted! Three plates here we come!

Quick Flexes

This week’s MLB All-Star Game brought back memories of my favorite sporting event I ever attended:

And if you’ve never heard the story of why Ken Griffey Jr. started wearing his hat backwards, you’ll love this:

STRONG LINKS - EXCLUSIVE B&B OFFER!

For the longest time I didn’t wear a watch (other than an old Timex IronMan for ocean swims which I love)…

My wife got me a nice Citizen for our one-year anniversary over a decade ago and it’s been my go-to timepiece ever since.

Whenever I feel like wearing a watch, that’s the one I wear and I like it a lot, but I don’t wear it day-to-day largely because the band digs into my wrist when I write with it. It’s not author/laptop friendly.

Occasionally I’d see a nice watch with a nylon band and think about getting it, but none ever really jumped out at me…

Then, through the magic of this very newsletter, a reader reached out to me and mentioned that he runs a watch company with a line of affordable, designer watches.

He sent me a link and as I looked over the site, I found one I really liked: a Cartographer with a nylon band. Here it is:

It’s clean, light, looks cool and is comfortable to wear every day. I’ve had it about two weeks and it’s awesome.

If you’re looking for a new watch, visit La Touraine’s site. They’re a family run business with a cool backstory (the name comes from the ship that the owner’s grandparents took from Europe to Ellis Island).

And if you want to buy one, use the code “BICEPS” at checkout for 15% off every purchase over $50.

CLICK HERE TO SHOP LA TOURAINE

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Have a great weekend! - Jon