This common misconception is possibly the most absurd concern. It’s the equivalent of wondering if revving your WagonR too hard will turn it into a Porsche. Hard truth The content of muscle cells is very different from fat cells. The fundamental parts that make up a muscle cell be it actin, myosin, titin among many components are very ...

Here’s another absurd belief that needs to be vanquished. Muscles exist to contract and produce force. Activity is the reason muscle exists. And strength training is activity designed to maximise the muscles capacity to get work done. Muscle does not just disappear the moment you stop training. Like a parked Porsche, muscle lays in lim...

Are we paying too much for low quality protein? Are we putting protein isolates in places where it is not necessary? Are we relying too much on processed foods instead of using portion control to eat whole foods that can give us the protein, fiber and fat that we need? Are our food safety and labelling norms lax ? Are we behaving like ...

The evidence that we are a serious people or worthy of the tag of ‘civilised’ diminishes dramatically with every passing day. Having visited Lakshwadeep, I know what Pragya says in this piece is true: https://lnkd.in/gx-wJvff There is no evidence that we deserve any of the land, freedoms or privileges we get to enjoy. We have in Bharat...

You don’t remember the tech. You remember 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞. These lines ring true for any business. I’ve heard really good directors like Tarantino and Nolan speak to this too. I’ve heard the same from great chefs. You can weave a terrific story about ingredients and agonising over slow cooking etc etc but the food has to taste good....

I don’t do transformation stories, but this was too good to pass. 1. What did you eat? At least 102 species of plants mostly leaves and lots of fruit. By fruit I mean figs. Like kilos of figs a day. Not the dried, tough chewing gum crap homosapiens eat. Softer, watery figs which feel like a baby’s bum. Speaking of baby bums, I occasion...

It’s been over 10 years since I started wearing barefoot footwear. I’ve worn non-barefoot shoes on a total of 8 occasions tallying up less than 27 hours in those 10 years. I kicked things off in 2013 with the funky but comfy Vivobarefoot Ultras. These wide toe-boxed, amphibious shoes were great for use in Madras’ hideous monsoons that ...

1 Overweight and under muscled 2 Underweight and under muscled 3 Right weight and under muscled 4 Overweight and enough muscle 5 Underweight and enough muscle 6 Right weight and enough muscle 7 Overweight and more muscle than needed 8 Underweight and more muscle than needed 9 Right weight and more muscle than needed 1,2,3 are always a ...

Here are all the other ways in which FOMO and the fear of not fitting in or losing a competitive edge kills us, both literally and metaphorically : Drug use in college and alcohol consumption at all ages. I like the occasional beer. But too often alcohol consumption is a slippery slope that turns into many more drinks than is fun or de...

If you zoom out, the purpose of life is not just to do jobs. Bill Gates I found the above quote to be entirely asinine. There has always been this rosy notion that take away all the pesky jobs and give people a basic income, we unlock a million Shakespeares, Tolkiens, Louis CK’s, Bill Burr’s, Tarantinos or whoever else evokes the idea ...

As a coach, i bias to exercises or movements that can be scaled, progressed or regressed. There is a messy category of movement that falls into the category of challenging to execute but the benefits are neither linear or obvious. But it’s good fun! And it takes great deal of coordination and strength to make it happen. Some obvious dr...

Bending sideways as an exercise ‘Core’ training is pigeonholed into planking, hollow holds, crunches or leg raises. In reality, almost everything you do when you move is core training. Your mid-section remaining braced and steady as you deadlift, squat or lunge that’s using all those muscles we think of as the core. Doing a single leg ...

The pull up bar is one of the most elegant and straightforward gadgets in a gym. It’s a straight bar mounted at a height. You can hang on it. Do chin ups, pull ups, muscle ups or leg raises on it. You have three ways to grip this bar: 1 Thumbs pointing to each other (palms away from you or prone grip) 2 Thumbs away from each other (pal...

At this point, i am convinced government employees, civil servants and their political overlords have no zeal for their jobs due to their institutional cloistering, lack of competition and zero incentives to perform since they can never loose their jobs. They are drunk with power and practically no accountability. And my few interactio...

Metabolism Metabolism (/məˈtæbəlɪzəm/, from Greek: μεταβολή metabolē, "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. A fast metabolism does not imply that the reactions are happening more ‘quickly’. Nor are there more ‘reactions’ happening. The way most people speak about their metabolism is the ease with whic...

There is a good chance you do not have the time, energy or inclination to measure or portion your food. The simplest intervention is to pick foods that are more nutrient dense, more fibre and more protein rich. In the attached image is a list of foods and what percentage of the calories in those foods comes from protein. If you fill be...

There are many things that it takes to sustain a training habit (training is exercising done with structure and purpose). And it's not money. Time. We overestimate how much time we need to invest into strength training. Most people believe they need to train '5 or more days a week'. This is an overestimate. Most people will do just fin...

And it is quiet. Except for crows and the occasional car/truck/bike. And we have a no music policy at our gym. So we are not a pollutant. Except for the sound of re-racking a bar and chatter during class hours. But there are downsides to the location. We are invisible. There’s a reason commercial spaces pay top-rupee for Main Streets. ...

If you ask a bodybuilding coach the value of hip rotation, you might get a shrug and a talk about hip abduction, adduction and flexion. If you ask a powerlifter about pistol squats, you are going to get a groan. If you ask a physiotherapist about a conventional deadlift or dips with full range of motion, an eyebrow may be raised. If yo...

But that's all just numbers. What really gives me a geeky tingle is seeing the hardware racked up and ready to rock. In the cloud, you never see what's actually yours. It's all opaque. Not so with your own gear. DHH It’s good fun to see someone who’s in the upper echelons of running a firm actually talking like a real human about what ...

When you follow rules, it works. Be it exclusion diets, rigid volume or weight targets for food, training plans with progression and volume targets, body composition targets, photo shoots, competitions, workshops etc. They work. Until you hit a wall. The wall is the ability to adhere to the rules. The wall comes in the many forms: It c...

Murky does not begin to capture this. But it’s not really the tip of the iceberg. It’s more like sticking a finger in the Kola Superdeep Hole. That hole is close to 13 kms deep. And the Russians would have made it deeper too if they had the tools. But our proverbial hole of pollution, corruption and discord grows deeper with every brea...

When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat. George Carlin Replace USA with India and it works even better. My general policy is if I really like some stand up, art or music, I’ll share it with 3-4 people. And we generally enjoy a good chuckle over a drink. I’ve generally s...

1 Being on time. Let’s take our online service. We’ve conservatively run atleast 5000 hours of group classes. We’ve had a late start during 2 hours online. Once when I forgot I had to coach our European batch at 11 am on Thursday in 2024. I started that session 6 minutes late. Another time, when we had to reset our password in 2021. We...

Our inability to buck up and learn to adjust to new textures and tastes is childish. I’ve heard the same complaint about Skyr and Greek Yoghurt. It does not taste like full cream curd. That’s because it is not full cream curd. Removing the fat makes is better for most of us who need to restrict calorie intake. Same goes for vegetables ...

Who should be allowed to talk about food, eating and nutrition. I got a bachelors of science degree in biotechnology. I was far from the best student but memorising how cells work for two semesters left me with some elementary understanding of how it works. I got a diploma in broadcast journalism from the ACJ. I then got my diploma in ...

Goals change with age. But I’ve stopped framing goals. I chase skill and adaptations. I’ve seen my goals go from training for vanity to training for strength to training for skill to training for maintaining physical capacity and skill. There are five key points: 1. You will never have enough time to do all the activity you need to do....

I feel like my squat is getting better I feel like i am getting thinner I feel like I am eating less I feel like I am bulking up when I lift weights I feel like my pull up range is better Why do you want to have feelings about something you can objectively measure and know as true or untrue. You know if your squat is better 1. If you a...

Gestational diabetes is far too common in India. And this is a direct function of inactivity and a surplus of calories consumed during pregnancy. Besides, the quality of calories i.e protein, omega 3 and micronutrient intake by the mother has a much more direct and critical impact on the brain and healthy development of the foetus. Far...

I wrote about coaches that pander to their trainees by not nudging them enough to train harder. The greatest pandering, bordering on manipulation, is by any institution (corporate, government or any group of people trying sell services or products). Once they latch on to some simplistic/silly ,messaging that resonates, they lean into q...