The only tool that matters is you
A year-by-year timeline of every tool we've added to the gym since 2014 — the list is past fifty now and still climbing, but the most important one has never changed. It's you.
Posts tagged philosophy
There is no natural food
The food-world twin of 'there is no natural movement' — humans have manipulated the food supply for millennia, and the natural/organic/ancestral nostalgia does a disservice to how far we've come.
Why I love exercise
The result is proportional to effort — not time, not money. Why exercise is the rare investment where the body never lies and the returns are yours to claim.
Rules and principles
Diets built on rules work by quietly restricting calories, then fall apart the moment you break one. Why principles — conviction in the outcome — outlast them.
Paralysis through information and excuses
We drown in fitness information and hide behind excuses. A Lee Kuan Yew line, the excuses we reach for, and two simple truths that cut through them.
Lifting weights ≠ bodybuilding
Going to the gym isn't bodybuilding. Lifting is a set of tools that produce many different outcomes — bodybuilding is just one of them, and you never have to chase it.
You vs society
The hardest part of changing how you eat and train is the people around you. Why your circle may push back, and why your conviction is the only thing that carries you through.
Ikea has no patina
On being a discerning consumer: what it really means to ask how the things we use are made.
The 10,000-hour myth
The 10,000-hour rule is false. Why a few thousand focused, well-practised reps do more than endless mindless hours.
It just works
Designing a pivot that never fails: stainless bushings, sea air, and putting function ahead of form.
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.
Gyms are libraries
If the gym felt boring, don't blame the gym. A gym is a library; whether it comes alive is on the librarian — the coach.
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.
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?
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.
There is no natural movement
Training is a substitute for all the movement our environment used to demand of us, and no longer does.
The recreational strength athlete
Not a bodybuilder, powerlifter or crossfitter. Just someone strong enough to make everyday life a little simpler.