Hope is a mistake
There are 20 million government employees entrenched in their careless and corrupt ways. Around 10,000 work for the CBSE. Another 10,000 IPS and IAS officers.
Blog
Adarsh writes near-daily on HEY World – thoughts on training, nutrition, running a gym, and the state of the fitness industry. The latest posts are below.
R&D stands for reps and development
video-5.mp4
Short on time
A common cause of retreat: I don’t have an hour straight any time of the day to train.
The next gen of coaches and trainees
Movement inc has been around for 12 years now. There are trainees at the gym who started training with us when they were 12-18 years old who are now in their mid-20's. We have 15-20 of these chaps now. Boys and girls…
Profit fuels progress
Profit is an indicator that what you are charging clients is the right price for building a service/product. You have something to show for your efforts without needing any investors to foot the bill in the hope of…
Natgeo Lee Kuan Yew interview
TRANSCRIPT OF MINISTER MENTOR LEE KUAN YEW’S INTERVIEW WITH MARK JACOBSON FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ON 6 JULY 2009 (FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE JAN 2010 EDITION)
The reasons I write
There are four reasons I write:
How India takes offence
When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat.
Daily stressors
There are stressors in your daily life that you control and can avoid : neighbours, family members, friends, social events, family gatherings, unpleasant holidays, pointless meals. The list is long and you generally…
The Devil eats whey
The Miranda Priestly’s who ‘push’ protein on the Andrea’s of the world start with the Rajavel Elango and Lyle McDonald’s of the world. They’re scientists and practitioner’s who are objectively studying what can kids eat…
Right place, right time and right business
My greatest nightmare is of being forced to run my business in 1980-90’s India.
I cannot run my gym at a fee of 18000 per annum.
If my current client base paid me what the average gym in India makes, almost half the revenue would be funneled into rent. 10-15 percent would cover maintenance. I would then be able to pay one of five coaches and take…
Respect my authority
I refuse to offer quarterly, half yearly or annual memberships.
Almost 2 out of 3 people who train with us are women.
This is not by design.
You do you
I get into a healthy number of fights over this stuff. But having gone through a similar ordeal not so long ago, I am going to say it:
R&D stands for reps and development
Even if I wind up spending months studying existing designs, sketching out and thinking through my own designs, there is absolutely no substitute for repetitions done on a prototype or final product.
I hate networking
In 2015, when I badly needed more clients, I attended book launches, weddings, horrific self-aggrandising 50th birthdays and all kinds of bullshit events in the hope that one person would ask me what I did and fingers…
Do, don’t show or tell
This isn’t going to be the last self proclaimed natty exposed as not being a natty.
Modest ambitions
This is a simplistic fairy tale. Not everyone who start their own business have aspirations to change the world or build a giant business.
Does getting stronger or losing fat make you a better person?
I don’t doubt for one moment the confidence that strength training and improved body composition give a person.
A squat for the back and plank for the legs
The back extension is a simple move. You are bending and straightening your spine by consciously articulating every joint that makes up the spine. You are making an effort to engage the muscles around the back to get…
Gym envy
How is that guy squatting so much?
The universal currency we all fight for is attention
Think about all the things one can do for fitness:
When you say nothing at all
I don’t get too many comments on my posts. I like it that way. If folks do engage in a useful way, that’s neat. If they want to troll or fight, I’ll have some fun with that too.
The choice to have children is exactly that. A choice.
It’s a weighty choice at that. One of the most complex ones that factors for our personal world-view, privilege, education, priorities and even time.
Business is personal
The popularisation of the phrase it’s business not personal is one I despise.
My space, my rules
Dress codes, etiquette and rules exist for a reason. Why should every institution bend backward to accommodate every silly request or bit of behaviour. Every institution is allowed to have its rules, style and values.…
Marketing
The best marketing unironically seems to be to shit on traditional marketing. And who better to roast marketing or subvert it than a standup comedian.
Recap
Here is a recap of the topics I have written about since 2022:
The things a gym or coaching service need to excel at doing.
When I critically look at our gym and online coaching service, I try to understand how we are faring against a few qualitative yardsticks:
From the archive
Why we won't chase you
Most gyms are built to chase you. We're not. Our three-strike rule, why conviction beats persuasion, and who our coaching is actually for.
Strength is a basic capacity
A newspaper finally takes muscle loss seriously — good. But its frailty tests are table stakes, not a finish line. Strength isn't a specialty; it's a baseline for a life with agency.
The most comfortable tool for something uncomfortable
My favourite equipment does one thing really well. Why single-purpose beats the do-everything machine.
Little boxes and not being stuck in them
Nothing in my institutional experiences or college courses could have guided me to doing what I do. On exams, dead ends, and trying things.
Ikea has no patina
On being a discerning consumer: what it really means to ask how the things we use are made.
Blast from the past
Following in the proud tradition of my dad and grandad, I walk into my forties proclaiming art was much better when I was growing up.
Don't just brace, embrace the curve
Why we run both back-extension machines and add Jefferson curls. The spine is built to move, so we move it.
An ode to single leg squats
Single-leg work deserves centre stage, not accessory status. More depth, freer hips, and real symmetry.
The habit of reading
As content gets more interactive, narrow and focussed, I have to fight stupidly hard to ensure the skill to read and dive into detail is never lost.
How you get hurt even when you do everything right
A muscle protests before it fails. Tendons tear without warning. Creep fatigue, explained through my own rupture.
The talent dilemma
A country of 1.4 billion has a potential Wimbledon champion within its borders. The problem is they don't know who they are.
I tore my achilles tendon
It happened with a pogo jump over a hurdle. The same kind I have done thousands of times over the last 12 years. Here is how the repair and rehab went.
Details matter
The hand-laid knurling on our bars, and the machinist who has been laying it down, by hand, since 2016.
The weights that anchor me
100 days outside Madras in 4,200. Owning a gym is a maximalist life that weighs you down in literal tonnes.
It just works
Designing a pivot that never fails: stainless bushings, sea air, and putting function ahead of form.
I cannot run my gym for ₹18,000 a year
The business of gyms rewards absentees. The business of coaching needs you to show up. They are not the same.
Building tools is being human
Reverence for tools and how we make them is as human as it gets. On why building equipment satisfies so deeply.
My own museum of failure
Seventeen gym-equipment builds that didn't work, and what every one of them taught me.
You don’t know what you are missing
It's a pain to go to parties, events or gatherings and be a sane person.
Why your knees and hips need to move
One in three over-50s dies within a year of a hip fracture. Train the joints through the range they were built for.
The neighbourhood aunty's first pull-up
Why do strength coaches chase athletes? There is no fame in an aunty's first pull-up. Only joy.
Why we make our own equipment
The question we get asked most: why not just buy it? Control, cost, proportions, durability, and fun.
Why gyms quietly die
Rents, poor retention, coaches who leave with clients. Why I'll never open a second space, and the model we flipped.
Does getting stronger make you a better person?
Lifting builds discipline, resilience, and trust in the process. But is it as transformative as the hype claims?
An adult sandpit
Not every business wants to change the world. Mine is just somewhere fun to work while paying the bills.
Two events cured me of networking
In 2015 I needed clients, so I went to the parties. Two was all it took to send me back to just coaching.
The spinning dumbbell
Machining a bearing-free rotating dumbbell to spare the wrist under heavy overhead load.
The last hour of coaching
There will be a final coaching hour someday. A last cue for a last client. The thought terrifies me more than death.
Brands, methods, activities, outcomes
Most people start with the brand and never ask the right question. Start with the outcome and work your way up.
The nice things always ran out
A 90s childhood of imported chocolates and toys that always ran out. Why I would rather make things than wait for them.
A reluctant entrepreneur
From a terrified salaried man to a twelve-year-old gym, via one prototype pull-up bar and a well-timed nudge.
Statistically probable advice for most Indians
A blunt list of what most of us over- and underestimate about our eating, our training, and our health.
Make in India, not mimic in India
A real reason for a subcontinent equipment brand: design for the bodies it actually serves, not the ones it copies.
Portfolio theory of eating
Manage carbs, fiber, fats, protein, multivitamins and water like you manage your portfolio to get an optimal ROI on what you eat.
Longevity is mostly genetics
You don't train and eat well to reach a ripe old age. You do it to live better once you are there.
Lifting in the gym vs. lifting in the real world
There is a glaring difference between objects designed for lifting in the gym and those found in the real world which makes "functional training" inside a gym a bit of a farce.
Pay for experiences. Not for spaces.
It’s an exciting time to be a gym-goer with coaches around the country opening small, boutique spaces. Find a coach and style that works for you.
Visiting cards
A coach who walks the talk, trains and eats as they ask you to, will be a more empathetic coach who will be able to put themselves in your shoes more comfortably.
Things you don't control
At some point, the economic advantages of living in a dense, commercially vibrant urban environment will be far outweighed by how much harm it inflicts on our health and need for quiet and space.
What’s happening to your muscles
As our understanding of how muscles work grows, fundamental questions and their nuanced answers can become the key to making sound coaching choices.
Kids and strength training
Kids need to play, run and climb. Some systematic training can enhance their ability to do the first three things.
World protein day
Celebrate World Protein Day by asking three crucial questions about your protein intake.
Let's wait for a study to try something?
Working with clients in the real world sometimes means embracing cues, exercises and protocols that might not be dogmatic, yet. As long as clients respond positively, this is fine.
The margins for getting it right are tiny
Grip thickness, bar width, plate diameter. The details mass-market gym gear quietly decides don't matter.
The baggage people carry
Five things clients believe that hold them back, from inherited diabetes to the fear of deep squats.
Seven years of the t-bell
How our hand-built t-bell evolved from V1 to V2.2, and why it makes loading a deadlift so accessible.
The infinite monkey bar, start to finish
A long, honest build log of one machine. 'Made in India' is never quite made in India. Everything is made on Earth.
Accidental hypertrophy
A transformation interview with a chimp. On figs, termites, throwing faeces for shoulder strength, and ten hours of sleep.
The most unlikely advantages for a gym
Punctuality, maintenance, pride, no quick bucks. The boring things that quietly turn into a moat.
Sucker comfort in strength
Via Lee Kuan Yew: we all find comfort in something. Mine is trying to get stronger, at 4am, every single day.
Mistakes
Sixteen ways I've been conned or screwed up in twelve years of building a gym. We powered through anyway.
There is no natural movement
Training is a substitute for all the movement our environment used to demand of us, and no longer does.
Literal product-market fit
Copy-pasting equipment dimensions builds uncomfortable tools. The safety squat bar, resized for Indian frames.
Nine inch fails
A client's safe miss on the lever squat, and why a loaded barbell sits exactly nine inches off the floor.
The idiot index, applied to barbells
Musk's cost lesson, borrowed for a gym: why I make a stainless barbell for ₹7,500 instead of buying one.
Interview with Moo Jackman
A jacked bull explains myostatin, genetics and steroids, and why his muscle is far less useful than yours.
Don't want your kids to lift? Don't let them be astronauts
Astronauts lose bone mass in zero gravity. Kids need loading, not protecting from it, to build strong bones.
The recreational strength athlete
Not a bodybuilder, powerlifter or crossfitter. Just someone strong enough to make everyday life a little simpler.
A personal story
I move terribly and was never good at any sport. But I love solving the problem of getting stronger.
The necessary, unnecessary and counterproductive
You can judge your consumption of food and exercise on three simple parameters: the necessary, the unnecessary and the counterproductive.
Do you want to be healthy, fit or a sports whiz? Its not all the same.
Health, fitness and sports skill are three distinct capabilities. Be crystal clear about why you are undertaking a certain regimen.