Who are you?

I’m a software engineer for a small technology company. In my spare time, I lift heavy things and read about lifting heavy things. I studied Physics at UPenn and generally care about scientific research.

What is this site?

I spend a lot of my time reading about strength training, programming for strength training, powerlifting, and weightlifting. I also live in a community of people who are really averse to strength training. Much more so than the general population, Indian communities are very hesitant, and I would go so far as to say scared, of lifting heavy weights. The refrains are the same as you would hear in any other commmunity: “You’ll get hurt”, “You’ll look big and ugly”, “Why would you want to gain weight,” but with even more fervor and dogma.

I think part of the problem is that there aren’t many visible Indian lifters, at a high level or otherwise. There are fewer still Indian lifters who also came up as nerdy STEM graduates. The latter problem has been getting addressed a bit more recently, with CrossFit getting more people under the bar and people realizing in general the benefits of lifting weights. But there still aren’t visible Indian lifters who care about the science of getting stronger, nutrition, and everything in between.

I’m hoping to change this. This site is a combination of a few things:

  1. Keeping you all dear readers apprised of my training plans and progress
  2. Providing another avenue to become more informed about strength training, programming, and nutrition
  3. Approaching these concepts from the point of view of someone who has been hesitant to lift until relatively recently