You are reading Books & Biceps #277!

Welcome to the 129 new sophisticated meatheads joining us this week.

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Yo! If you’d like to pre-order my Macho Man biography as a gift this holiday season, send me a screen shot of your pre-order and your address and I’ll mail you one of these SWEET hologram stickers of the book cover as a placeholder…

Just slide this sticker into a stocking or an envelope and… BOOM… the Macho Madness lover in your life can display it until the book shows up on April 2nd.

The e-book and print version are ready. Audio coming soon.

BOOKS

American Demon by Daniel Stashower

If you’re reading this there is a very good chance that you’ve seen the classic movie The Untouchables starring Sean Connery, Robert DeNiro as Al Capone and Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness, the leader of the Untouchables squad who took down the notorious bootlegger and gangster Capone.

For me, and for probably 99% of you, that was the last we heard of or thought about Eliot Ness. But did you know he was only 28-years-old when his team helped arrest Capone?

And did you know that after Ness left the Prohibition Bureau he became the Director of Public Safety in Cleveland, Ohio (then the United States’ 7th largest city)… And that while he was in that job, he found himself investigating an infamous serial killer known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, AKA, America’s Jack the Ripper.

I knew none of this: neither about Ness’s post-Capone career or his battle of wits with the Mad Butcher (named after the fact that he often severed his victims in half or in quarters and placed their body parts scattered throughout the city).

This book reads like you’re living in Cleveland in the 30s and on the hunt with Ness. It’s fast and informative and gives you details into Ness’s mindset as well as the killer’s. It’s like an R-rated CSI episode set in the 1930s… but gorier and more gruesome. And since the events take place almost a hundred years ago, the low-tech tactics and old media used are interesting and a nice reminder of how things used to be.

Here’s my favorite example: right now, hardly anybody you know subscribes to the local newspaper and reads it every morning. When this case was headline news, papers often printed morning and evening editions and most people read both. Every day. Some even had shorter afternoon editions.

Old school journalists even filed two, three or four stories a day to fill the editions. And yeah, many people read 3 editions of the same newspaper every day. For 2 cents a copy. Crazy…

There are shades of Silence of the Lambs and other fiction books on the hunt for serial killers to be sure…but the difference is this all happened. And the fact that Eliot Ness is the main character makes it all the more intriguing.

This book came out in late September and it’s my first read from Daniel Stashower. Good stuff. Check it out here.

BICEPS

This week kicked off with a very special session Monday morning in the Flex Factory, which included an epic circuit called Clubber Lang’s 4 Rounds of Pain.

Here was the layout:

And here was the the workout:

If you can’t read my horrendous handwriting, here’s the printed version:

20 x Slam Ball

1 minute jump rope

15 x Hex Bar Deadlift

15 x Dumbbell Bench

10 x Pull-ups with Chains

15 x Landmines each arm

15 x Band Biceps Curls

15 x Crunches

100 yard jog

REPEAT 4 TIMES

Yeah, this one was brutal…

But it was for something very cool that I can’t share with you just yet… All you need to know right now is that the Flex Factory was filled with dudes listening to 90s rap and throwing weights around. Good times had by all! Can’t wait to fill you in on this… All our fellow sophisticated meatheads will love it.

Quick Flexes

It was Larry Bird’s birthday on Thursday and to celebrate, I compiled my five favorite cocky and confident quotes by the Hick from French Lick:

After Florida State got screwed in the college football playoff this week, it got me thinking about how uniquely incredible Charlie Ward was and what he’d be worth in today’s NIL market.

Had about 60k views on this over the weekend:

And if you didn’t know, I wrote the definitive biography on Charlie, which you can check out here:

The Athlete: Greatness, Grace and the Unprecedented Life of Charlie Ward

Strong Links:

About five years ago, after posting an early morning photo of the Flex Factory, I received a DM from an Instagram account called Garage Gym Experiment. The account, as you can guess, features garage gyms and highlights the best set-ups, equipment, etc…

Jake, who runs it, wanted to feature the Flex Factory on the account, and of course, I said 'hell yes’!

I’ve been a fan of GGE ever since and recently we crossed paths again because of their newsletter, Knurled News. First, I love the name. Second, they feature weekly deals on garage gym equipment, the latest home gym tech, cool videos, other people’s garage set-ups and more.

I think you’ll like it. Sign up here:

Want to start listening to AUDIO BOOKS??? 

I’ve long resisted, but recently become a fan and have one or two going right now… I like them for fiction and have been listening to them in place of podcasts during drives…

A nice way to “read” a few more books a year.

If you love audiobooks or are thinking of joining Audible, use this link below and support Books & Biceps:

→ USE THIS LINK for an awesome Audible Premium Deal

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Thank you all for reading.

Have a great weekend! - Jon

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