Second Nature

Strength was not a quality that anyone, even my closest friends and family, would've associated with me until I was almost 30. I was a weakling growing up. The technical term in Tamil is songi/soplangi (a skinny weakling, I guess, is the closest. It still does not capture the emotion though).

Going to the gym was not second nature to me. Until I was 21, I did not even know gyms existed. And once I knew they existed, I associated beefy, muscular dudes with it because that's the kind of people that were portrayed in the hoardings and advertisements. It was not something that was for me, obviously. 5'6" and about 40-odd kilos of rippling muscles - that was me.

Me and most of our students at The Quad are proof that while strength training (or going to the gym, or doing anything fitness-related) might not have been second nature, it is by no means immutable.

Some of you will find it harder than me. Some of you will find it easier than me. It is just how it is. But know this - if you want it, and it really clicks with you, you need to get to it. It will transform you in more ways than you can imagine.

My goals when I started this were simple - not resemble a round object and not be a weakling. That's it. It snowballed into long distance running, into triathlons, into CrossFit, into squatting double bodyweight, and into becoming a teacher and a coach.

You too can create that snowball. You never know where it will take you. But it will take you way beyond just "I need to lose 10 kilos". Believe it!

It was not second nature. Until it was.