School Of Strong

बाएं हाथ का खेल v 2.0

I did this for my last shoot. Works like magic 🪄 if you’re consistent 💯

FEE or FINE?

Accrued over a decade of training, these injuries are just the ones that bothered me for more than a month. Many of them reaggravated as well.

For some, this might be too much and that’s okay, too. But they’re not a FINE for pushing too hard. Sure, some were from my stupidity/ignorance but many fall beyond logic and biomechanical reasons. Pain/ injuries happen when you train hard, no matter how pristine your form may be.

I see them as a FEE, the cost of not being average. As a bonus, it also makes me a better coach as I’ve already gone through several of their issues, learnt much more about their rehab and know how to train around them.

“This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play” — Alan Watts

If I wanted to “work” I’d be managing a multiple location fitness franchise of my own or ran a fit tech startup but I “teach” because it’s not “work” for me. I hate taking breaks because to me, teaching feels like “play”.

This Guru Purnima, appreciates 🙏🏼 all teachers who choose to teach (not just trainers), especially in person, instead of pursuing something that probably pays better 🤑.

A good student alone can go round the block but a good teacher can show you the world 🌎. Go find one!

DIP into it!

Dips are a controversial🤷🏻‍♂️ exercise in the fitness training circle. It wasn’t always like this though. Dips is an old school exercise even your granddad 👨🏽‍🦳 would have done in his NCC training. What changed then?

Majority of trainers don’t program them anymore🚫 because it “damages the shoulder”. What’s our take on it? Any exercise can damage the joint it moves if the load is more than the joint is ready for.

So , we approach dips with a checklist:

✅ Do you have flexible shoulders (can you reach the 90/90 position shown 👆🏻with your feet on ground without pain or a significant stretch)
✅ Can you perform 10 good pushups (with the same deep range as required in the dip)
✅ Have you prepped your wrists/elbows/shoulders before (we always keep 1-2 movements in the training cycle before the one with dips, crab walk is one such example)

If you meet these criteria, go ahead and dip away 🕺🏻. If not, you have to earn your right first😅.

Red bull may not give you wings but Kicks 🦶🏻 give you Glutes 🍑

You may be doing glute bridges, hip thrusts and n different banded b***y exercises shown on Instagram reels but genuinely training for kicks stimulates the glutes in a very different way. If you trust us, this is where you stop reading and search for “how to throw a roundhouse kick” but for the geeks, here are the reasons why kicks are 💯:

✅ Kicks are fast twitch movements ⚡️ unlike hip thrusts, lunges and bridges hence they stimulate different fibers on your glutes compared to traditional exercises

✅ The leg you’re kicking with gets stretched while the leg you’re standing on gets a full contraction. Both stretching and full contractions are good mechanisms are muscle growth🤓

✅ Unlike lunges which also stretches the glutes, kicks don’t cause soreness so you can do them everyday 😅

✅ At the end, you become a deadly human being if you master it well 😎

If prenatal is done meticulously well, post natal is a walk in the park!

RUTHLESS

Want to get stronger, be patient.

Want to get ripped, be RUTHLESS.

Ruthless with what you eat, ruthless with your training and ruthless with your recovery as well.

There’s no wishy washy diet plan that you only follow 5 days a week to get to a single digit fat %. Sorry fitness influencers but normal people don’t have 4 hours daily to burn enough calories to support “intuitive eating” or “1 cheat meal a day to keep the cravings away”🤷🏻‍♂️

Unless you’ve been a skinny person naturally, getting to a low fat % and maintaining it means you will feel hungry😦 at times or won’t push for those extra two reps at the end of a squat 🏋🏻‍♂️. But guess what, you have to do all of that.

It also means turning off Netflix 📺 early at night because sleep 😴 is more important to regulate hormones which metabolize fats. And who’s waking up early to get some extra cardio in addition to lifting weights? You!🙋🏻‍♂️

With strength, you can play the long game. Worst case, it’ll take you a few extra years to reach the same levels 😌. With fat loss, you have to wage a war otherwise you’ll lose focus and in war, there is no mercy ⚔️

WEAK THINGS BREAK

From using a fridge cardboard box as a DIY standing desk because I couldn’t sit for more than 5 minutes without pain to deadlifting 3 times my bodyweight, I didn’t get here by avoiding lower back movements.

You want a resilient back?

Phase 1:
✅ Arch your back conservatively.
✅ Round your back conservatively.
✅ Load it with light weights.

Phase 2:
✅ Arch it aggressively.
✅ Round it aggressively.
✅ Load it aggressively.

Boom. Now your back can take on the world⚡️

Most obsess over abs or arms but from a performance standpoint, if you’re gonna develop a fe**sh for training one body part, let it be your BACK. Upper and mid back more specifically. Why’s that? Here are two strong reasons:

✅ Your thoracic spine (upper and mid back) is the foundation of all major movements. Be it a heavy AF squat or your first pullup, a grindy deadlift or even a big bench. Even carrying groceries or kids is utmost fatiguing for most people because of their back. Further, lots of neck and low back pain can be addressed by corrective thoracic spine movements and strengthening

✅ Most fitness programs are heavily reliant on squats, lunges, pushups and even plank variations that primarily target the front musculature of the body. Whatever you do in cardio (run/cycle/swim/stairs/HIIT/boxing/dance/yoga) is also front muscle centric.

Keeping one or two movements for your entire back is not enough. Doing deadlifts and hip thrusts target your lower body posterior chain but good programs will at least have a 1:1 push:pull ratio, if not more, in favor of upper body pull exercises as well.

Hence the only body part worth “checking out” is the one you can’t see in front of the mirror. Now go back and work that BACK!

EMPOWERMENT

Many posts today on Women’s day will be on gender gap, stereotypes and women’s safety; how as a society, we must raise young men to respect women for upcoming generations. We wholeheartedly agree with all of them but what about the other side?

History of law & order throughout time tells us that no matter how civilized we get, there’ll always be monsters walking among us and hence women, especially younger ones, need to learn how to defend themselves.

No! We’re not talking about the 2 hour seminar you did on self defense in 2017 where they told you how to twist someone’s fingers to get out of a choke. Neither are we talking about the taekwondo class your 10 year old daughter goes to. “Oh look, mommy! I can do a 360 spinning heel kick.” This isn’t enough when things get rough in real life.

Find a mixed martial arts class to send your kid/ yourself where you can spar once you’ve mastered basic striking & grappling techniques. Sparring allows you to experience high pressure, real life like scenarios, albeit in a safe way. As a bonus, it’s the biggest adrenaline rush you’ll ever get, we promise!

Gender differences may be a social construct but s*x differences in size and strength are real.
How do you counter size and strength as a 50 kg woman with a 70 kg man on top of you?
With skill!

Learn how to fight. That’s true empowerment

Dad Bod

It’s been a year since came in our life and I’ll admit it was hard at first to adjust. But ultimately fitness is a big priority in my life.

Sometimes we let ourselves slip into stereotypes that society wants us to fit in but the fact is, dads can look lean and working moms can wear the same things they wore before pregnancy. It’s not even about time. 80% of it comes from discipline in the kitchen anyway.

It’s also okay to not look lean. It’s okay for you to buy larger dresses because now your maintenance weight is 5 kg higher. Just own the fact that it’s not a priority for you, right now and not because parenting doesn’t allow you to workout or your new job doesn’t allow you to have healthier foods. No, your priorities don’t allow you, for now!

Accepting it is the first step and will shift the locus of control and empower you to change this in long term.