💪 Books and Biceps Issue 228

Wrestling Dave Bautista, the War of Art, 100 pull-ups and...

Books & Biceps is the only weekly e-mail that combines reading recommendations, exclusive workouts, fascinating stories & more…

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BOOKS

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Writing this newsletter has an awesome flywheel effect when it comes to books. For every book I recommend, I get several people writing me back saying something along the lines of, “Finkel, if you liked that, you’ll like this…”or “Finkel, I only read books from meatheads who bench press in their garage at 6AM”**

It’s very cool and it’s what I love most about our Books & Biceps crew. I try to offer up great reads and you fire new ones right back.

Of all the books I’ve ever had on my list to read, I’d say the one that was most recommended by other authors, entrepreneurs, podcasters, my favorite follows on Twitter and more is this one: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

I’ve had this book sitting on my bookshelf for a long time and finally, after listening to Pressfield on the Tim Ferriss podcast, I decided to dive in.

Man. I should have read it sooner.

First, the book isn’t at all what I thought. It’s not technically a “book”. It’s more like a series of essays and thoughts and short observations from Pressfield (a NY times bestselling author and screenwriter) on how to destroy fear, doubt, procrastination and anything else standing in the way of you accomplishing your goals. The work focuses on writing, but it can pertain to anyone who has a dream they’re aiming for.

The “war” Pressfield is referring to is what he calls our inner battle against the Resistance. In this case, the Resistance is every single force in the universe trying to distract, dissuade and demotivate you from reaching your full potential creatively.

“Resistance is like the Alien or the Terminator or the shark in Jaws. It cannot be reasoned with. It understands nothing but power,” Pressfield writes.

He’s got sections titled, “Resistance is Insidious” and “Resistance and Trouble” and “Resistance and Rationalization”.

The writing is one long middle finger to Resistance and you will be nodding your head the entire time. Yes, I do that… Yes, that has distracted me… Yes, I’ve been unfocused like that… If you’ve got a big goal you want to tackle for 2023, I HIGHLY recommend you pick this up ASAP. It’s about 150 pages. You’ll read it in a few sittings and come away energized. I promise. Buy it here.

**nobody says this

BICEPS

THE 100 PULL-UP CHALLENGE

I’m a huge fan of coming up with random challenges to motivate yourself and keep things fresh when it comes to exercise.

The other morning I walked into the Flex Factory (my garage gym for you new readers) and I had a back/biceps workout planned.

I wasn’t feeling it. Needed to switch it up…

So the idea popped into my head to try to do 100 pull-ups with a bunch of different grips for time (pull-ups, chin-ups, neutral grips).

I set my goal for 20 minutes and got moving. I’ve done a few random challenges like these and I know from experience the worst thing you can do is burn yourself out on the first set or two. Then your muscles are shot and you’re toast.

I opted for sets of 8, which proved to be the right move.

I knocked out 12 sets of eight with about 1 to 2 minutes rest in between. Then I did the final 4 to round it out. Finished in JUST under 20 minutes.

Now I have my baseline. I think I’ll try this once a week and see if I can get it down under 18 minutes as my first goal.

Pick a comfortable number of pull-ups you can do in one set. Then see how many you can knock out with one minute rest in 20 minutes. Give it a shot. Let me know how it goes…

QUICK FLEXES

This time of year I tend to watch way more movies than normal and it seems that I can’t escape my old pal Dave Bautista. He was in the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special I watched with my boy and of course, the new Knives Out movie on Netflix that millions watched.

I think it’s important for you to remember that before he starred in Glass Onion, he got his start turning my head into a crushed grape:

We took this shot after spending two days together for a Muscle & Fitness cover story back in the day. This was right after our final workout/photo shoot in John Cena’s gym, of all places. I think I sold the pain really well. Not pictured is 45 seconds later when I suplexed Dave into the squat rack.

PS:

Don’t forget to check out my list of the 15 Most Memorable Books that I Read in 2022.

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Have a great weekend! - Jon