Coach AA's Sunday Newsletter

Hey hey! Are you watching the Olympics? I caught some of the track and field events that happened yesterday but have missed out on a lot of it. Thankfully, YouTube and other things exist to catch up on a few events. But over the past few years, I’ve realised that I am cutting back on things because it is just impossible to keep track of. As a kid, I used to know the entire squads of every cricket...

Hey! Hope your Sunday is off to a good start. Thanks for spending a few valuable minutes of it with me here. I appreciate it. The 3 things for today, * 3 questions on strength training . Will it help you lose fat? Will it help you build muscle? Will it make you bulky? * 3 quotes , as usual. * on the ever-expanding universe of our lives . You realise that some things were scarier in your head than...

Hey hey! Having a good weekend so far? If not, well, there is still time to make something out of it. Maybe a good dose of doing nothing. Or hanging out with the family. Or by yourself. Or seeing some friends. Curling up by a book? There must be something that will perk you up. Off you go and do it. Right after you finish reading/listening :) The 3 things for today are * in the early stages of my...

Hey! I started today’s post by working on polishing/editing a draft I have about endurance training. But as I was writing it, I kept being buffeted by questions I’ve faced, questions I’ve seen my students ask, and realising asking the wrong questions is the cause of going down a rabbit hole. And I ended up asking a few questions of me and you. While I am not sure if these are the right questions,...

Hey hey! Hope your Sunday is pleasant so far. At The Quad, we are gearing up to start the 3rd quarter in a couple of days. With the ease of lockdown, our physical centres will open up on Tuesday. While we will continue to maintain distance and safety norms, it will be great to see people come in to lift! On to the 3 things for today, * I see many instances of flailing wildly . Trying insane diets,...

Hey hey! Last week of the training cycle at The Quad. This quarter was fun and even though we ran classes in our centres for only a brief period, we were able to improve on our pretty darn good virtual experience even more. Excited about the final week and some fun workouts, and about next quarter. On to the 3 things for today. * on crazy commutes and efficiency. My original post was a jumbled mes...

Hey there! Hope your Sunday is going well. I had a break from my usual Sunday morning schedule - normally the first few hours of Sunday are me, coffee, reading, writing down brilliant ideas (that funnily lose their brilliance in 24 hours), and writing my blog post. I met and hung out with my family for a couple of hours this morning. Which was great, especially because I haven’t done it in a while...

Hey there! Three things for this week are * a fun night of drinking (or whatever). But then, the next morning, guilt hits. Oh, why oh why?!?! * 3 quotes . Featuring Jack Welch and Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. * let us meet the Hacker . This is the 3rd post in my series, based on George Leonard’s book. Let’s get on with it! meet the Hacker In the  first post, we met the Dabbler . In the  second, we met the...

Hey there! Hope you are having a good Sunday. I miss training with my Saturday group. While I enjoy training by myself, there’s just something to having a bunch of like-minded folks around to inspire and grunt together with. But in the scheme of things, minuscule stuff. On to the 3 things for today. * The Obsessive . Last week, we met the Dabbler . Continuing my take on George Leonard’s Mastery an...

Hi there! My cousin’s getting married today and well, unfortunately, I am not able to attend it in person. Sucky times we live in but I realise even that is a position of privilege. Good that things like live streaming are the norm today. Funnily enough, about 20 years ago, my dad’s company did that as a service - live streaming weddings to junta living overseas and who couldn’t make the wedding....

Hey there! Hope your weekend is going well. As the lockdown in Madras continues and we are caught in the midst of this pandemic for more than a year and some, this weekend is at least showing some semblance of things slowly getting better, at least in the rest of the world. The FA Cup final yesterday had fans back in the stadium, at 25% capacity. My buddy in SF is going camping this weekend. I thi...

Hey, A lot of random things buzzing around in my head and I don’t think I am ready to talk about any of them here. So, let’s just skip ahead to what posts I have for this week. * 30 minutes between you and change . Start small. Start today. Don't waste time figuring out the best method. Pick something. Do it daily for 30 minutes. Don't second guess yourself. Don't pick something that yells fad. *...

Hey! Hope your weekend is going well. With the craziness that’s happening all around us, whatever is doing our bit, let’s try and do it. I think we all hear/speak too much about it already and I’ll steer clear. Let’s get on with it - the 3 things for today. * on keeping score . I’ve written about this before and I think it is important for us to dig deeper. If you could go back to school and tell...

Hey peeps! Gyms and most places are shut down from tomorrow and The Quad will have to be fully virtual, for the next few weeks or months. After a hard year last year for all of us in the community and the Quad Squad, it is a blow to realise we are not out of it. But it is what it is. There are bigger things going on and we need to make what we can out of this. If our health is important, we need t...

Hello there! Hope your weekend is going well. Mine seems to be. I added one more moka pot to my collection of moka pots - every 2 years, my variation of drinking coffee seems to shift around. From drip coffee, it has been moka pot for quite some time now. I wonder what’s next. For today, here’s what I have in store. * on useful binary thinking . Many times, binary thinking limits us. It is almost...

Hey there! Hope you are having a good weekend. I had a good day yesterday - after more than a year, I trained with my Saturday group. I am looking forward to next Saturday already. Our first week of Q2 is also up and running. With the heat, our programming this quarter has a much bigger bias towards strength work. We stick mostly to the Pavel/Dan John school of working at the 80% mark though, and...

Hey hey! Hope you are having a great weekend. I’ve had a rather poor work week - just been unable to get out of my head and get some productive stuff going. It is annoying as heck but it happens. I am hoping to get out of this funk tomorrow morning and just getting some stuff done. Maybe it is time to experiment and tweak my productivity routine/system. My current one is to do a combination of an...

Hello there! How’s your weekend going so far? Yesterday, my wife and I had a nostalgic trip when we re-visited the reopening of our old haunt. Back when we were in school and college, there was this coffee shop that we frequented. They eventually shut it down but after a decade-plus, it is back ! And it was fun going back there, as they had a few of the old favourites still on the menu. Crazy how...

Hey hey! Hope your weekend is going well. I’ve had an up-and-down month, re-adjusting to my new schedule. We’ve restarted in-person classes at The Quad which means I go in to coach Wednesday to Saturday. The past few months, I’ve gotten used to doing some deep work between the hours of 4.30 am to 8 am, as I was coaching only twice a week. As a result, the amount of work I do has dropped as coachin...

Hey hey! Hope your weekend is going great. If not, well, here’s what you’ve been waiting for and everything’s gonna be great as soon as you finish reading this. I have a great episode for you today that I know will add tremendous value to your approach and mindset. Let’s get cracking! * the 5 traits/habits of my successful students. Find out what my students who see amazing results do and copy the...

Hello hello! A couple of weeks into the new year and by now, we should be in our fitness and nutrition groove. Before we get into today’s post, I wanted to ask a question - How can I best help you now? Let’s get to the 3 topics for today. * when we fall, what choice but to get back up and have a go again? This is a story about a student of mine who went from knowing nothing about fitness or health...

Hey hey! Hope your Sunday is off to a good start. Little more than a week into this new year and decade. Resolutions are still strong and maybe now’s a good time to write down what you are going for - and to come back to it when we slip up. On to the 3 things for today, * why rhythm and grace might be a good way to think about physical activities like lifting weights and running * 3 quotes for thi...

Hey hey! Hope the year has gotten to a good start - a long weekend to kick things off is certainly a fun way, right. Let’s kick things off with my first post for this year. The 3 things for today * on a story about hulk arms and saboteurs * a few quotes featuring Rumi and Marcus Aurelius * on confusing bodybuilding and strength training hulk arms and saboteurs * One of my students, we will call he...

Hello there! Hope you are having a pleasant weekend so far. As we wind down the year, I hope to take some time off next week and recharge and come back. Next year promises to be challenging and will require a lot of patience, as we cannot wish for everything to go back to normal. Whatever that means. I will not be publishing an episode on Dec 27 and will be back on Jan 3. On to the 3 things for to...

Hi there! Hope you are having a great weekend. Here are the 3 things I have in store for you today. * a story about an amazingly strong student of mine and how I wish I could’ve communicated that to her better. * 3 quotes, featuring Steven Pressfield, Bruce Lee and Thich Nhat Hanh. * 5 things that I’d like my parents to do about their health and lifestyle. Maybe it’d be relevant to you if you’ve b...