In episode 68 of the Strength System podcast, coaches Nivedhan and Cheryl discuss their respective experiences with training through pain - a 2 year old hernia for Nivedhan and costochondritis for Cheryl. They discuss: - their experience with the medical industry in navigating through pain, - contradictory messaging that they received and how they managed the fear and panic often associated with long-term pain experiences, - how taking accountability for their situation helped come to terms with their new 'normal', - questions to ask the medical industry when going in with pain, especially in the context of returning to training, - modifying and managing training through pain. If you're someone who deals with any kind of pain, give this a listen!
In this week's episode, coach Nivedhan catches up with Cheryl, who co-runs Muscle Mechanics, a YouTube channel that's established itself to be the gold standard for fitness information in Tamil, especially in the context of muscle building and body transformations. They discuss: - benefits of muscle building other than for aesthetics - top 3 factors that can affect muscle building - realistic and practical timelines for someone to look like a magazine model - low hanging fruits everyone can prioritise to keep building muscle along with other training goals - common mistakes people tend to make during initial stages of muscle building - closing thoughts on body image issues and training for aesthetics If you're interested in building muscle, we highly recommend giving this a listen!
In this episode, coaches Prashanti and Nivedhan catch up with he who wishes to remain anonymous aka Muscle Hypertrophy on Instagram. They discuss everything from the role that meme pages can play in dismissing fitness misinformation to how people can identify misinformation online to the accurate ways of drinking water.
In episode 64 of the Strength System podcast, coaches Nivedhan and Prashanti catch up with 5 of our most consistent and bad ass members, all of them with different goals and expectations from their relationship with fitness. We discuss: - their first training experiences. - their training goals and how they've evolved over time. - their relationship with training and how they view progress. - ways in which they've managed to build a long-term relationship with training and stay consistent. - things they wish they'd known when they first started training and advice to anyone who's just starting to figure out training. If you're someone who currently trains or are considering getting started on training or are struggling with staying consistent with it, we highly recommend you give this one a listen!
What happens when things don't go according to plan? Maybe you lack motivation to train, or your progress plateaus, or you're dealing with pain or injury. In episode 63 of the Strength System Podcast, we talk about how to troubleshoot your training program when you hit one of these roadblocks. This is the 3rd part of a series, so make sure you listen to the previous 2 episodes for maximum context!
Episode 62 of the Strength System podcast is up! Picking up from the previous episode, Varun and Chirag discuss how to approach an actual training program. You have a piece of paper (or a pdf) with exercises, sets, reps and (maybe) weight written out. How do you go about translating this into a workout? And how do you progress these workouts every week? We walk you through how we approach training programs and how we help our trainees make decisions when we coach them. Next week, we'll cover how to troubleshoot when things don't go according to plan, so stay tuned for that!
Training ought to be relatively simple, but the fitness industry loves to make it unnecessarily hard. Usually with arbitrary rules like: - doing an exercise with imperfect technique is useless - having 'must-do' exercises for specific complaints - emphasizing warm ups, mobility and cardio more than actually training productively The trouble with all of these is that they make you less likely to actually enjoy training and make it a part of your life. In this episode of the podcast, we talk about how we like to view fitness and some really, really basic principles for long-term success.
Strength training during pregnancy can be a controversial topic and often heavily misunderstood! Since our opinion will be biased when it comes to this topic, we thought it might be best to bring on two experts to talk about training during pregnancy. Gayatri, who is currently on her second pregnancy and Amrita, who trained through her pregnancy a few years ago, talk to coaches Prashanti and Varun about their personal experiences. If you're considering getting pregnant or are currently pregnant, we highly recommend you give this a listen!
Ever been a little skeptical of those sensationalist media stories reporting the latest nutrition study? You should be. Varun and Chirag discuss a typical newspaper article they came across lately about eggs and diabetes and how the actual study's findings were rather different. So do eggs really increase your risk of diabetes? No, despite whatever the headline on your newspaper might be screaming.
Coaches Varun (while sipping on his fat-burning green tea) and Prashanti (trying hard not to let sleep deprivation get to her) discuss the ever-elusive concept of the caloric deficit. While we all know that being in a caloric deficit is the only thing that matters when it comes to fat loss, what it entails in practice is rarely discussed. Listen till the end for our top takeaways!
Coaches Varun and Prashanti have a freewheeling chat with coach CJ Murphy - competitive strongman athlete and powerlifter, owner of Total Performance Sport (Massachusetts). They discuss: Murph's lifting and fitness business ownership journey Powerlifting as a way of training for non competitive athletes Why women shouldn't be afraid to lift big weights Fitness industry trends and predictions in a post-covid world Why our junior trainer Krithin needs to get a haircut
In this episode, coaches Varun and Nivedhan give you our current thoughts about foam rolling. Foam rolling has been around for a good decade now - It's something we used to do a lot of, but not anymore. We talk about how foam rolling might work, the (small) benefits it has, and why we don't use it anymore. References: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4637917/
In episode 55, coaches Varun and Prashanti talk why quick fixes, magic pills, detoxes and other far-fetched health claims might actually work sometimes. They discuss: - the mechanism behind why these diets work sometimes. - why we need to be more aware of the multiple variables involved in positive outcomes. - how we can be more discerning when it comes to consuming health information. - Varun's personal tragic experience with the low-carb diet.
In this episode of the Strength System podcast, Varun and Prashanti talk pull ups! We talk about: -When we got our first pull ups (later than you might think) -Why the pull up is such a worthy goal -How to train for the pull up when you can't do one -Why women CAN do pull ups (since some people say they can't) -and much more If you listened to the podcast and are currently struggling with pull ups, make sure you check out our Instagram for our #PullupwithSS program. All you need is a place to hang from and you're ready to go!
There's a spectre haunting the fitness world - the spectre of 'mobility'. No one really knows what it means, but everyone feels like they don't have enough of it. This means lots of time wasted on pointless foam rolling, stretching, activation drills and bodyweight shenanigans. This is valuable time that could be spent training productively with actual weights. And guess what? If you train right, you'll get more mobile without having to do specific mobility work. Coaches Varun and Nivedhan hop on the mic today to discuss just why this excessive focus on mobility is a problem. We're not just breaking stuff down, however. We give you some concrete ways to incorporate a mobility focus in your strength workouts.
This week's podcast tackles a difficult subject: how do you make the most out of limited equipment? It's a challenge for almost everyone training now - whether you're training at home or at a gym. Varun and Nivedhan take you through some of our strategies to ensure you get the most out of every set, whether your goal is to get stronger or to bud muscle
In this episode, we have a freewheeling chat with the co-owner of The Strength House, Coach Tony Bonvechio! We discuss The Strength House's core values, their work with youth athletes, coaching in the post-covid age, and a lot more. We also talk about Coach Tony's famous BenchLikeABeast program and his carefully curated beer recommendations for Chirag when he hits his first 100 kg bench press! Follow us on: Instagram | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter
If there's one person that the entire fitness industry looks up to and agrees with unanimously, it's coach Dan John! For our very special 50th episode, he joins Varun and Prashanti to discuss his ideas of fitness as relevant during the pandemic, gives some very profound fitness and life advice and promises to officiate Prashanti's wedding!
Coaches Varun and Chirag sit down to talk all about how beginners can get started with training. They discuss: - Who a 'beginner' is in the weight room - Their fitness journeys as beginners and the super secret stories of how they earned their bro cards - What beginners should know when they hit the gym for the first time - What you can do as a beginner if you don't have access to a coach Click here to access our free at-home bodyweight and dumbbell based workouts. Follow us on: Instagram | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter