“We don’t want to make a book that looks like it was made in 1935, we want to make a book the way they made the book in 1935,” Coudal says. “That’s a real distinction. we’re not trying to be retro; we’re trying to reproduce previous techniques because we like the results these techniques came up with.” Jim Coudal The fact that we make ...

How many people were part of the study? If the study is based on other studies, how big were the groups studied in those. Was the information collected reliable? Often studies need people to reliably recall how much they ate, what foods they ate and when they ate. Is the study saying X causes Y. Or that we noticed that whenever X is th...

I don’t understand the hype around this snack. Let’s break this down. Is it high in protein? You need to consume 350 calories of makhana to get 10 grams of protein. The same protein can be had for fewer than half the calories from the following sources: You need to consume around 130 calories of eggs. Around 100 calories of skim milk. ...

Ideas, by definition, are always fragile. If they were resolved, they wouldn’t be ideas. They would be products that were ready to ship. Jony Ive We need a pull up and push up rig. The push up rig should accommodate push ups from 6 inches high all the way through 36 inches. And it should lend itself to inverted rows. It should also be ...

Quality is an attitude of mind Norman Foster We get called value conscious. But I see that as a euphemism for an unwilligness to spend time, pay attention or part with money for anything that spells quality or attention to detail. Rule breaking, corruption, public nuisance, lack of hygiene standards, tightly cramped buildings, spitting...

I enjoy eating ice cream with my daughter. We do it once a month. We go to a place around the corner and she has her scoop of strawberry icecream with sprinkles. And I’ll get a salted caramel. And Ibaco does something cool. They give me this tiny portion of 30 grams. Just 3 spoons of icecream. I drag it out into 6 spoons and take my ti...

Most parents are terrified of kids lifting weights or even training at a gym. The concerns: *Any kind of loading will damage bones *Any kind of loading will hamper growth All bones are constantly getting rebuilt. One of the key stimulus for rebuilding: Compression through activity under the auspices of earth’s gravity. Astronauts lose ...

Psychological needs does not dictate physiological realities. What you want to do is not relevant to what you should be doing. Lyle McDonald The above words ring in my head every time someone complains about not finding the right place to train or that they don’t enjoy lifting weights or doing some basic bodyweight movements. Modern li...

Carries are a criminally underrated category of exercise. They engage your upper back, forearms, arms and mid section. Basically your entire upper body contracts isometrically as you cover distance. You could do them with dumbbells, barbells, trap bars, kettlebells or any implement. But at our gym, we have one whacky implement that let...

Fitness is 30 percent exercise and 70 percent diet. What is fitness ? Fitness for what? Fitness for a hike up Kilimanjarol or fitness for 21k. Or do you just want to be fit enough to be pain free. I’ve argued against the use of random percentages. If you have tendinitis of the knee, isometric exercises and quadricep extensions are 100 ...

Not a day goes by when I don’t wonder why do we get taught to use centimetres instead of millimetres in school. No one in the real world uses centimetres! And millimetres neatly scales to inches and feet. And it teaches you about the scale of things. Milli means one thousandth. Millimetres is used by carpenters, plumbers, electricans, ...

The less time you have to dedicate in a day to activity, it becomes crucial that you spend all of the little time you have in a day to build muscle and move as many joints through as many range as you possibly can. If you have fewer than 3 hours a week to spend on being active. And most of us actually have only that much time. You shou...

Most people who say they gained weight or packed on ‘mass’ when they started strength training are getting wrong. This behaviour is akin to blaming a scammer for the loss of 500 bucks when you have a spending problem that sees you waste 50000 bucks. Strength training being the scammer and your eating habits being the spending problem. ...

People draw a clear line in their minds about cardio and strength. Cardio: running, walking, cycling, swimming, jump rope, stepper, elliptical, rowing, burpees, stairmasters. Strength: dumbbells, barbells, push ups, squats, pull ups, pulleys, cam-based machines. The thinking goes as follows: I warm up with cardio Or My doctor wants me ...

When a potential client calls and asks us ‘are you a CrossFit or Hyrox gym?’ Or ‘do you do functional training?’ Or ‘do you have HIIT workouts?’, my answer is: ‘We borrow and steal elements from anything and everything to get the job done while avoiding labels for ourselves’. Labels are useful and familiar. But labels are also limiting...

You know it’s hard work. The fact that lifts and escalators exist means we are avoiding the physical work of taking the stairs. If you are short on time, are injured or have to lug something heavy up, avoiding the stairs make sense. In other scenarios, why not take on the extra dose of activity? But in the era of step counters and runn...

It does not matter how it is framed. Circuits, obstacles, competitions, lifting seminars, structured training programs. Whatever format works. Whatever can be sustained. Anything that can be thoughtfully implemented with good technique in the right doses. The effect it has on tendons is just incredible. Tendons are the attachments betw...

Posture is framed as sub-optimal, optimal or perfect. Pain resulting from posture is framed as an outcome of bad posture. But one person’s bad posture can seem perfectly tolerable to someone else. Another person’s good posture can be painful for some. So what’s happening ? ** Tolerance for an adaptation and different positions. ** You ...

Mechanical loading has profound influences on bone remodeling. Disuse or lack of loading causes an acceleration of bone turnover with bone resorption overwhelming bone formation resulting in a rapid loss of bone mass. This type of bone loss is observed in astronauts who spend extended periods of time in the weightless environment of a ...

Here are the variety of ways I have gotten conned or screwed up in the last 12 years: 1. Paid for 304 steel and gotten 202 grade steel. I lost a lot on this. 2. Incorporated as a private limited company with no necessity for it. 3. Wasted lakhs on building a nutrition website that no one asked for. 4. Did not think through equipment de...

We have 2 coaches handle groups of 10-20 people. Multiple times a day for an hour each time. A common question: How do we create an individualised program for each and every client? We don’t. We have goals for every client. 12-16 quality sets of squatting. 12-14 quality sets of pushing. 12-14 quality sets of pulling. 12 sets glute ham/...

I work 60 hour weeks. Not all of it spent coaching. Some of it is on admin stuff and a chunk of it on equipment etc. I like hanging out with my wife and my daughter. I find my work meaningful. And the 60 hour weeks while taxing have something useful to show for it. My clients are stronger, healthier and enjoy their exercise sessions by...

For some it’s about a perfect selfie. For some it is about dealing with pain. For some it is looking good in an outfit. For others the strength they feel is empowering. For others it’s a sport. A perfect bicep peak or perfect squat is like a perfect forehand or cover drive. But for most of us, if life is a sport with walking, hanging, ...

I hated quotes like that in school. But as I get older, the general wisdom makes sense. Some of the leaner, protein-dense ingredient options that can help you hit 80-100 grams of protein consumption a day are not readily available on every store shelf. Let’s take my staples: 3 eggs 80 grams of low fat paneer 250 grams of Skyr 25 grams ...

When constraints are useful Your hands are tools. They can perform surgery, handle a knife or scissors with skill, swing a racket, punch hard and everything in between. This capacity to produce plenty of force as well as the most delicate movement is a function of having muscles that are small and delicate like in the fingers or big an...

Far too often medical professionals recommend rest and inactivity as tools for recovery from non-traumatic injuries. This approach is clearly counterproductive. And the opposite camp that espouses movement as part of the solution is fast emerging. In a nutshell: rare is the injury that requires you to lie still and do absolutely nothin...

Ghee lubricates your joints. What is a lubricated joint? A rather commonly cited advantage of consuming ghee is that your joints can move more freely. Much like spraying WD40 on a squeaky hinge will get a door or metal joint moving freely. WD40 does this by loosening up rust, and reducing the friction and allowing two surfaces to move ...

Our cities are uniquely corrupt, polluted and dirty. Even by developing world standards. One of the terrific advantages we have as we build our mega cities is to learn from all those who have come before. We get to see the choices made by London, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Singapore and...

A business that pays its own bills, funds its own dreams, and builds loyal customers. That’s freedom. That’s success. Dilip Kumar Such a terrific line! I wish I had come up with it. For the longest time, I’ve been looking for a way articulate why we are happy running one gym in a quiet corner by the beach in Madras and a large online s...

There’s outrage over 10 minute deliveries. There’s snapshots of Japanese fast food with boiled egg sandwiches and fresh sushi on the 7/11 store shelves. Why can’t we have the same options? The fault lies not on our store shelves, but in our food preferences. Zepto sells the same sugary beverages, stale sandwiches, cream puffs, samosas ...