Sensible and demanding, training both mind and body.
A veteran sports trainer serves up a challenging plan for succeeding instead of just trying to get in a good workout.
How-to-build-a-better-body books litter the landscape, but Mancias has a built-in advantage: LeBron James follows the author’s program, writing in his foreword, “I’m staying in the game for as long as possible by being consistent with my training, my recovery, and eating as clean as I can—and a big part of that is because of Mike.” Mancias reinforces these key points by dividing the book into sections devoted to eating, moving, and mending. Before all that comes the mind—intention and commitment. Afterward comes the stretch. James stretches when he wakes up, before a game, and before going to bed, knowing that keeping the body flexible and tuned means longevity. Mancias counsels eating nutrient-rich foods that both allow movement and promote healing and recovery. As he notes, there’s no promise that his program will help a person shed weight, but if that’s a goal, it can be adapted to accommodate. One thing readers will notice is the author’s devotion to drinking water constantly; another is his view that five or six small meals are better than two or three big ones, since they provide “a constant level of energy that keeps your blood sugar levels even all day.” His repertoire doesn’t require superhuman ability, and some exercises seem downright fun (compared to, say, walking a treadmill) while reinforcing the maintenance and strengthening of the core muscles. Interestingly, those exercises require no equipment, and the author is humane about them. If you’re not used to exercise, Mancias allows a two-days-on-one-day-off schedule instead of a boot camp regimen. Finally, the author insists on recovery through sleep, meditation, and massage, among other things, reassuring, “None of these tactics are ineffective or self-indulgent.”
Sensible and demanding, training both mind and body.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9780063316430
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.
The Chicago Bulls stalwart tells all—and then some.
Hall of Famer Pippen opens with a long complaint: Yes, he’s a legend, but he got short shrift in the ESPN documentary about Michael Jordan and the Bulls, The Last Dance. Given that Jordan emerges as someone not quite friend enough to qualify as a frenemy, even though teammates for many years, the maltreatment is understandable. This book, Pippen allows, is his retort to a man who “was determined to prove to the current generation of fans that he was larger-than-life during his day—and still larger than LeBron James, the player many consider his equal, if not superior.” Coming from a hardscrabble little town in Arkansas and playing for a small college, Pippen enjoyed an unlikely rise to NBA stardom. He played alongside and against some of the greats, of whom he writes appreciatively (even Jordan). Readers will gain insight into the lives of characters such as Dennis Rodman, who “possessed an unbelievable basketball IQ,” and into the behind-the-scenes work that led to the Bulls dynasty, which ended only because, Pippen charges, the team’s management was so inept. Looking back on his early years, Pippen advocates paying college athletes. “Don’t give me any of that holier-than-thou student-athlete nonsense,” he writes. “These young men—and women—are athletes first, not students, and make up the labor that generates fortunes for their schools. They are, for lack of a better term, slaves.” The author also writes evenhandedly of the world outside basketball: “No matter how many championships I have won, and millions I have earned, I never forget the color of my skin and that some people in this world hate me just because of that.” Overall, the memoir is closely observed and uncommonly modest, given Pippen’s many successes, and it moves as swiftly as a playoff game.
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982165-19-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
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