Long way up
Why I deadlift a t-bell with the handles flush to the floor — nine extra inches each way, a knee angle closer to a squat than a hinge, and what that extra range asks of you.
Posts tagged training
Old man strength
Watching Ramesh carry a fridge up a staircase taught me lifting capacity is four things — and the one people skip is practice. On old man strength, and the awkward job.
The dip progression
How a fixed-bar dip block turned into a ring-dip build — and why slow-burn stability moves scale gently while the big patterns let you pile weight on.
Spoilt for load: a field guide to free weights
Sorted not by brand but by where the mass sits relative to your hand — five positions, from the classic dumbbell to centermass bells and long-lever maces, and what each is good at.
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.
The dancer as an athlete
One of my first moments of clarity as a coach came from training Bharatanatyam dancers — deconstructing a performance into a gym stimulus, and why movements that look alike adapt very differently.
Burning calories is the wrong metric
You don't strength train to burn calories — you burn a few in order to strength train. Ten things that happen in the gym that '200 calories burnt' can never capture.
Positional tolerance
How Covid, a too-short t-bell and two plyoboxes led me to a deficit deadlift I've kept for five years — and the coaching lesson about individual tolerance you won't find in most books.
Muscle matters
All muscle isn't built the same. What Type 1, 2A, 2X and 2B fibres are each good at, why size doesn't equal power, and how training and genetics shape the muscle you carry.
The trap bar: neutral grip for the win
Why the trap bar's neutral grip is friendlier on the upper back and shoulders, how it lowers the setup barrier that makes the barbell deadlift so hard to coach, and the variants worth knowing.
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.
An education in exertion
How hard should you push in the gym? Not by rep counts or the clock, but by how many reps you had left in the tank — and learning to read that number honestly.
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.
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.
Get a grip
Grip is the weakest link in most of your lifting — and one of the most trainable. Why it caps your strength, how the way you hold changes everything up the chain, and how to build it.
Cardio comes in all shapes and sizes
Your heart doesn't care whether you run. It cares how hard it works and for how long. A case for conditioning beyond the treadmill — sleds, airbikes and the humble jump rope.
Why pull-ups are harder than chin-ups
The difference isn't just your grip. Why the pull-up is genuinely harder — the handicap of the grip, the scapula, and rotation.
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.
Eccentrics are a different contraction
Lowering slowly isn't the whole story. Why the eccentric is a genuinely different contraction, not just a tempo cue.
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.
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.
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.
Same muscle, different functions
How grip width changes what a muscle actually does — the same muscles working in distinct ways across variations of a pull.
Why deadlifts hurt people
Warm-ups, mobility and bracing won't injury-proof your deadlift. The real reasons people get hurt: bar path, grip, fatigue, and position tolerance.
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.
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?
The non-negotiable capacities (and the optional nice things)
The training capacities every single person benefits from — throwing, pushing, squatting, hinging, jumping, rotating — and the nice-to-haves that come after.
The spinning dumbbell
Machining a bearing-free rotating dumbbell to spare the wrist under heavy overhead load.
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.
Bodyweight is not trivial
"Just do bodyweight" sounds gentle until you do the math. What you are actually lifting in a push-up, a pull-up, a squat.
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.
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.
Accidental hypertrophy
A transformation interview with a chimp. On figs, termites, throwing faeces for shoulder strength, and ten hours of sleep.
There is no natural movement
Training is a substitute for all the movement our environment used to demand of us, and no longer does.
Nine inch fails
A client's safe miss on the lever squat, and why a loaded barbell sits exactly nine inches off the floor.
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.