A slice of personal heaven

I got tired of complaining about Madras. So I decided to start carving out a slice of my idea of personal heaven, in a place I respect and adore — the middle of nowhere in Kerala. Needless to say, it helps that my missus is from here.

Personal heaven, for me, includes equipment, protein and books. Fairly straightforward stuff. The protein part is sorted — fresh and processed produce are readily available. Books I cart over. And the equipment part has been set in motion: I’m going to build out a gym filled with all the gear I enjoy using.

I’ve started with the basics — a pull-up bar, a full dumbbell set through 25 kg, plyoboxes, a trap bar, a sled and rings. What I still miss is my seated calf raise machine, the t-bell, odd plates, a setup for t-bell deadlifts, nunchuck pull-ups, a lever squat setup, an odd box for push-ups, a glute ham and landmines. I’ll plug away and get all of these up and running over the next year or so.

For a start, here’s my inaugural trap bar deadlift — a neat 157 kg for 10 reps. The t-bell deficit deadlifts really do pay off. The set in the video is the first one, at 157 kg for 6 reps.

The trap bar weighs 47 kg. It was the first heavy bar I made, back in 2016 — and it hit me that I’ve had this beauty for ten years now. The plates are standard bumpers: 25 kg, 20 kg and 10 kg.

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