Mukund
Hi, welcome to pedalmyway.com this is Mukund and Rob. If you’re a fan of the show, Please remember to subscribe to this podcast and follow the website peddlemyway.com. Also follow at peddle my way on Instagram to let me know if you’re cycling and fitness. How are you doing?

Rob
Doing alright, how are?

Mukund
You not. For this week, I think we’ll last week we ended on continuing the conversation about strength training. Did you have any questions?

Rob
Yeah, this is something that I’ve been interested in a long time. For a long time and I don’t have the experience and strength training that you do. So I’m gonna let you. Dive in on this one and provide some details to people because I know people probably got a lot of questions about strength training in general and what they need to do so yeah. I guess my. First initial question for you on strength trainers. You’ve been doing it a long time. When did you get started and what was your motivation to get started with strength training?

Mukund
So I got started. Actually after college, even though my friends when I was in college used to hit the gym, some of them regularly and got all buffed up for like for lack of a better word for some reason it didn’t. You know, I didn’t find the. What do you? Call it. I didn’t. I didn’t find interest in it, but for some reason, I still had my. College gym membership after I graduated. So I said, why not use it? So I started going there. I started getting, you know, I I started liking it for some. And I have not let go of it since and it’s been close to 20 years since I graduated. So that shows my age well. I mean, again, you know my, it’s my personal experience. I’ve not gotten any professional help per say like as a fitness trainer, but I’ve did a lot of research and I talked to a lot of people and yeah, so. And recently, you know, I became a CrossFit level 1 coach as well. So I’ve been doing CrossFit for a few years now, so I’ve been.

Rob
What is sorry to stop you, though? What does a CrossFit level 1 coach mean? What does that entail?

Mukund
So CrossFit level 1 coach means that I can try. In people. But under the supervision of a higher level coach and in a CrossFit certified gym.

Rob
OK.

Mukund
CrossFit did go through some changes in the past couple of years that is politically motivated, so I’m not going to get into that, but I think it has changed in the last couple of years. I don’t know if the rules still hold. I’ll be losing the certification this year, unfortunately because I have 5 years. From my Level 1 certification to get a Level 2 and so forth. So but pandemic got in the way it kind of you know for a lot of people it kind of affected. The past couple. Of years. So my gym kind of, you know, went through a hard time as well. A lot of gyms closed down. So I mean mine is valid for the next couple of. Months, but after that I can’t be. Cross with coach anymore, but as of. Now I am. But the knowledge is is still there, so I don’t teach. And another thing about the level. One is I cannot teach anybody for money.

Rob
OK.

Mukund
Meaning I cannot run a gym I need. To have a. I need that to open a gym and I can only train people under a gym for and using the CrossFit brand in a licensed way. If that makes. So I cannot teach you one-on-one saying that I’m a CrossFit coach and you’re paying me for that does not and I’ll be breaching.

Rob
Right, right, right.

Mukund
Some some codes there, so I’m I’ve not told anybody that, but you know I’ve. Friendly kind of. You know, guidance. I’ve been giving my friends and friends and family. So that’s the extent of my experience and knowledge on this. Yeah. So to answer the question, that’s what the level 1 means.

Rob
And is that I know CrossFit training, it hit popularity. It feels like about 5 or 10 years ago. Like everyone within the CrossFit, and it started becoming a big trend in, in the the fitness industry. Is that something that you found sort of exploded or was it something that is that there’s a lot of high demand for CrossFit? Training in the in the strength training industry.

Mukund
So I believe, or rather, I think that CrossFit by itself. So this is the kind of what made CrossFit famous, right? You and I are from different backgrounds. You know, we are from different, you know, environments, right? But the CrossFit, when you and I go to the same CrossFit at the same time, we do the same workout of the day it’s called Woods, wards, workout.

Rob
OK.

Mukund
It’s kind of a painful process for those 15, 20 minutes. What I mean is you go through a high intensity workout and we both kind of survive it within quotes. So it kind of forms a bond between us, right? So we both endured that together. So doing it in a group setting like you know 10-15 people together kind of forms a community. Right. So so that was kind of a strong point for CrossFit as a group community. Like in terms of everybody suffering at the same time, kind of doing the same thing. Sorry.

Rob
That makes sense. It becomes a bonding experience. It becomes a bonding experience for everyone.

Mukund
Exactly. So that was what was brought it together. And also the workers themselves were challenging. So I like the challenging part. Of it. I didn’t buy into the group dynamic part of it.

Mukund
It’s just me. So you know, it’s not. It’s nothing against how the gym was run or any other person, but it’s just me, right? So I like the work. I love the workout. So that’s why, even though I’ve not been to a formal gym for some time, I still do the workouts, but by myself.

Rob
Didn’t fit you?

Mukund
I learned to learn about how to design A workout, how to kind of plan this out, how to challenge yourself. And I do it every day. Like, you know, I mean, I should say every day, almost every day. So that’s what kind of made the CrossFit itself famous or popular. The past few years, I don’t think the thing has died down. Maybe after the pandemic and the workout scenario itself has changed the workout industry.

Rob
Yeah, maybe it’s evolved a little bit.

Mukund
Just work now. Exactly. So I wouldn’t say it has affected CrossFit, but maybe the CrossFit name got dragged through the mud a little bit just because of its owner saying something he was not supposed to say. Doing the back life movement a few years ago. So so that’s what I said. It’s kind of a political change. It went through, but the mindset of CrossFit type workouts is still there, right? So and people always make fun of cross with me saying it’s a cult and all those things. So I don’t get into the into those discussions. People say gold is bad for all you know, right? So and and and and and water doesn’t. It’s good. But it’s it’s it’s here to stay. People do it, people. Some people like it. Some people don’t. You know, I like it. I do it. It has helped me personally. I have gotten literally using that. So, you know, I’m just continuing.

Rob
With what I like and at the end of the day, you’re you’re getting healthier and you’re improving your life through. Fitness and that. Exactly. Very rarely be a bad thing. Is there something you talked about building your own fitness plans and strength training plans? Is there something that what are the things you consider when you’re building a strength training plan for yourself? Is it do you go on a weekly basis, a daily basis? How often does it?

Mukund
So what led me to developing my own plans was what I got from going to cross with gym for. A few years. So CrossFit in general does not repeat its workouts every day, right? You don’t go there, do 10 push-ups every day or 10 pull-ups. You do complex, varied movement that’s going to help you in your personal life, meaning it’s called functional movements. So high intensity functional movements is.

Mukund
In terms of Maine, developing my own plan, I followed a similar kind of programming. So what that means is I know my baseline right? So I know what I can do. I cannot do the days I want. To lift light. You know I do cardio the day I want to lift heavy. I do some strength like lifting heavy with sandbags. Like a heavy cleaned or heavy squats heavy. Lifts. So I kind of vary depending on how I feel that day and but throughout the week I try to get in a good mix of both. Strength and cardio. Training. So I kind of plan the workout so that I get a good mix of both, if not in the same workout but throughout the week I do.

Mukund
So if if that answered your question.

Rob
Yeah, absolutely. That sort of that variety is crucial, right in terms of. You’ve got to hit if you’re doing that kind of training. You’ve also got to figure out the cardio side of things too, because you you’ve got to be you’ve got to feel good while you’re doing the strength training and you’ve got to be right. Your body’s got to be ready for it, and cardio is a huge element in terms of building that foundation of.

Mukund
Of course, of course, yes. And also the other thing is, UM, this is I’m talking about in general, right? So when you are doing a workout, if you are not doing the same thing every day, which most of the coaches, most of the literature I’ve read, most of the pros, what they would say is do not do that just because, number one, you’ll be wearing out the joints. Much faster. Wear and tear, right? If you’re doing, you know push-ups every day. I mean, which is not, which is.

Mukund
It’s not bad, but if you’re using external weights, you might wear out your joints much faster. I’m just giving an example of pushup, but maybe for squats can be for dead lifts. It can be for any other activity, even running every day for.

Mukund
10 miles it’s not good.

Rob
What, especially if, UM, just to go back to the the the idea of free weights if you’re a beginner with free weights, you might not have got the form down right away, and that can be quite damaging if you’re if you’re using the wrong form of free weights quite quickly because a you might go too heavy and. You might be able to. You might flex your arm in the in the wrong direction when you’re trying to lift a freeway and you try to do it for the first time and you might put excess strain on your elbow and all the muscles in your in your arms. So yeah, you’re absolutely right in terms of you don’t put too much strain on your body in terms of when you’re getting started and you want to mix it up in terms of. Using different equipment and doing different kinds of exercises and different different repetition levels I guess.

Mukund
Of course, yes, definitely so. So to answer your question on, you know form was that your initial? Question, by the way.

Rob
It was one of them. I think I threw about 40 questions that year, but you can answer that one if you want.

Mukund
So yeah, so the so maintaining form is crucial because if you are so. So this is what I mean. Again from my experience, right, so to start a workout you have a good warm up right good warm up. This if you’re doing a for again what has worked for me is if I’m doing a cardio workout, running, running, you know, many of those types of, you know, cardio based, heavy cardio workout. I have a warm up run 400 meters or you know whatever 500 meter run a quick light jog so that it loosens your leg muscles and get your heart pumping. And gets your overall body warmed up, right? So and then this can help you. And then I do the the stretches all. You know like. Your shoulder movements, your back, your leg stretches, lunges, all the pre workout movements. And then I get into the workout. So I do this basically for every day that I workout either do 400 meter run or like 500 meter row just to get all the body movement you know back into the workout mode, right? And then I slowly start warm up with the weights. If it’s a heavy weight there I start with light weights. If it’s a dead lift day, I start with.

Mukund
My light sandbag do like three sets of 10 wraps just to loosen my lower back and legs, then increase it a little bit to my medium weight bag. Do a couple of more sets with that and then I get into the heavyweight bag. Right? So and depending on what type of program I’m following, I might do. You know, five sets of five reps each, for example, or four sets of 10 reps each or, you know, seven sets of seven reps each. You know, just to challenge my body different, different ways. And this bag is pretty heavy. It’s about two 200 to £250. So I cannot put huge volume on a heavy bag. It will be detrimental to my progress.

Mukund
And kind of I’ll, I’ll injure myself.

Rob
No course. And you’d say you said you’re doing about. 5 reps. Of the 200 pound sandbag.

Mukund
Exactly. So I have like a 3040 pound light sand bag. I have 100 to 150 pound medium sandbag and my heavy is £250. So I I do the maximum warm up with my light light sandbags because number one, I have to get warmed up. My my I have to warm up my legs and my back for the heat.

Rob
OK.

Mukund
Lift and the light sandbags also gives me a good way to see if I am. If my body is listening or not right? So body is going to throw out messages saying Nope not today, right? So at that point I just keep keep it light or kind of change my workout depending on where my. Where the body is not cooperating, right? So so the warm up is really crucial just to make sure that you are not injuring yourself and you’re getting the maximum amount. Of the workout.

Rob
Would would you say there’s a a benefit to doing sandbags versus barbells or rack weights in terms of adding those to your fence training? Is there a reason why you chose sand?

Mukund
So the reason I chose sandbags was when COVID hit all the gyms closed down.

Mukund
You wouldn’t believe it. So when I started to looking for workout equipment. The bars usually sell for about 100 hundred $50. A good bar like like those Olympic bars right where you put the weights on the on the. Those are selling for 400 dollars, $500 because the demand was so much. Wow, right. And that’s only the bar. I need a bunch of weights, right? I need like £10. Like I said to warm up and then all the way to 45 pounds, then £55, whatever you need. Right. 3520 fives. And I have to pay for those things. And those things were also exorbitantly expensive. So I was just thinking I was looking up online, they say why not? I try sandbags because I did work out with sandbags in my CrossFit gym. Occasionally not. Not every day, and it gave me a. Good workout. So I said, why not start with that? And I started using it. It was a little more challenging than free weights using barbells and those. Weight plates just because of the nature of sand, it’s unstable, right? So I don’t know if you’ve carried a bag of rice or, you know, like a bag of sand, anywhere you can see how unstable it is.

Rob
Yeah, I’ve I’ve carried a bag of rice, but very rarely do I carry. A 200 pound bag of rice.

Mukund
So maybe maybe you’re feeling a village.

Rob
I don’t I. Don’t like rice that much? I like rice, but I’m not a big I’m not a £200 a bag rice guy.

Mukund
So I mean, so you know how unstable it is, right? So even rice carrying a bag of rice, it’s kind of, you know, it’s not like carrying. You know, I don’t know. A. A pile of wood or something, right? So it’s it’s completely different. So that gives it the body unstable, the unstability gives the body an extra layer of challenge to work through which is which is good because that’s real life, right. Real life. Your weights don’t come prepackaged in like a plate and a bar. It comes in all shapes and forms. Right. Again, this is my thinking. This is what has helped me. And I can and using sandbags with free weights. You know, like with the bar and plates and dumbbells. It really will form the complete workout exercise, exercise kind of equipment.

Rob
Yeah. And that goes back to what you were talking about, functional strength, right, the, the, the built the using of stand sandbags helps with. General day-to-day life, if you’re, you know, if you’re helping someone move or you’re renovating your house and you’re, you know, you’re moving.

Rob
Various kinds of renovation equipment around. It’s unstable, it’s moving constantly. You’ve got to sort of adjust you’ve. Got to do things. To keep keep it stable within your body and you’ve got to use all the muscles in your body and not just certain ones that you would, you would use with the barbell or dumbbells, right?

Mukund
Exactly because they’re all. They’re all these muscles in the legs than in the back minute muscles. Or rather, I should say minute like smaller muscles which are not as employed because of the stable nature of barbells and the plates. Just because sandbags, you need the entire core.

Rob
Right.

Mukund
Power to lift a bag of sand. All those secondary muscles also are employed, at least from what I experienced and from what I have read about online. Yes, that’s what happens. I’ve felt good results from it. I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t work with the sandbag ever again. You know, I’ve I’ve gained. Fitness using exclusively just sandbags. The past couple of years.

Rob
Well, that’s a good point. Like you haven’t you? You said you. That’s the only tool you’ve used in your science. Training is sandbag.

Mukund
Exactly that and I have a pull up bar, but that’s but. That’s about it, right?

Rob
Yeah. So that that speaks for itself like you. You know you’ve. Gained the the results that you’ve gained without using any sort of other weight other than sandbags that speaks to the value of sandbags, whether it’s.

Mukund
But but sometimes I do feel that you know that a bar and plates would help, especially for squats, because there’s only so much the handle of a sandbag can lift. So a bar can lift much more, so you know. So there is a limitation to sandbags. I wouldn’t give sandbags the top price for everything. Then everybody would be using it. So there’s limitations.

Rob
OK.

Mukund
So that there is still a lot of value to be derived out of bars and plates, but me personally I’ve not had the need. Too, though occasionally I’ve felt maybe I maybe I could have used a bar and plates, but that’s on the, you know, very few days. You know, I can count with my hats how many days I had that need. But other than that, it’s just been, you know, my sandbags. And they’re also bigger sandbags than what I just mentioned. They’re like 304 hundred pound sandbags I use as an Olympic stone. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, seen the strongman competition. They use a big Olympic stone. It’s kind of resembles that. You need to, like, lift it to your knees and up to your chest and kind of that. So I have one of that. So that’s my.

Rob
Right. Oh yeah. Yeah, I used to.

Mukund
That’s the ultimate swing today, so I need to be really warmed up for that if if if you know if if that makes sense, yeah.

Rob
I used to watch the strongman competitions as a kid and you had like guys like Magnus Magnusson, who was one. Of the big.

Mukund
Oh yeah, yeah.

Rob
Guys in the the late 80s, early 90s who would lift those giant concrete balls.

Mukund
You know the you know the person in Game of Thrones Mountain. He is so a strongman. He was a strongman.

Rob
Wow, do you? Know that.

Mukund
Yeah, he was a strongman for so many years running. And then there was a a British gentleman. I forget his name Hall. Eddie Hall. He was also a strongman.

Rob
Oh, oh, Eddie. Lol. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mukund
So a lot of cool people have been strong men and a couple of Shaw. Messing up with these names, these an American. I think Shaw’s last name. He was a strong mentor in the past so many years running recently a Canadian took over the title. I think it was early this year. I saw the competition a couple of weeks. So yeah, very interesting. So if if anybody has seen the strongman waits that they lift the the concluding competition event is the Olympic ball. And they have to lift like 7 balls or a certain height and then put it on top of a ledge or something like that. So. So that’s the last event. What does the fastest is the winner? So I mean, I’m not saying I’m a strong man, but I have some bag that resembles the round shape of it, which makes it a little more challenging just filled with sand.

Rob
Well, you’re not a strong man right now, but. In the future you could get there.

Mukund
No, I’m too old now. These guys are like they got the champion in there in the 20s now, now, maybe I maybe I can encourage my son to do that. But but that’s a different topic altogether.

Rob
Well, there you go. Father and son strong man competitions. That’s that’s it. That’s it.

Mukund
Yeah, hopefully, yeah. But he’s interested in swimming and you know, tennis and those things. But I’m. I’m creating him. What he’s interested in. But but but you bring up a good point. So I have been. At this stage I’ve been forcing him to workout just because he doesn’t get the importance of physical fitness yet.

Mukund
He has improved his swimming times. From what I heard this past summer from his coaches and the coaches do stress the importance of supplementary workouts to strengthen your swimming. You know your swim. He doesn’t get that yet. So I have to slowly kind of, you know, ask him to do rowing, which kind of resembles the I think the the butterfly stroke. Pull-ups for your for your shoulder stroke. You know squats for your legs for to kick the legs. So and lower back deadlifts because core is the most important thing in swimming from what I hear. So I’ve been trying to push him through, you know. Keeping fit in the offseason so that you know he can go back stronger. And actually is working out. Has also helped me cycle because I mean cycling is mostly leg workouts and you know I like squats. So it kind of helps me because I like something that’s going to help me cycle as well and I find I found myself gone gotten faster on the bike. So and I kind of target what the my workouts to make sure that you know what do I do.

Rob
Yeah, you get.

Mukund
Kind of helps me on the bike so that adds a fun layer to workouts as well.

Rob
Yeah, that that’s an interesting point too, is that? You find a lot of these these sort of add-on benefits to all these trends, training exercises that you wouldn’t necessarily think about while you’re actually doing them you, you know you improved the, your your general strength, you can lift heavier things, but you’ll you’ll also find that even when you you know you’re playing racquet sports like you say, your son plays tennis like, you’ll improve your power. Significantly, by doing strength training with weights or sandbags.

Mukund
Exactly. And. And I do tell him that, you know Michael Phelps, even though he swam like, what for six, 712 hours a day, he was also doing regular workouts in the gym. That’s not a lot of people talk about. Then we talk about him being in the pool. But those gym workouts helped him lose weight and put on muscles. That’s helped him be the world champion.

Rob
Yes, exactly.

Mukund
Right, all the the one of the greatest Olympic Olympian ever.

Rob
And I think. We’re sort of getting away from that idea of. Each person has the right. Each person has to follow a specific workout, and you know everyone has a diet or a workout plan. I think right now a lot of people are just tailoring these workout plans for themselves and their bodies and what works and what doesn’t, because everyone has a different schedule and a different fitness level, different goals. So. You know you’ve talked a little bit about how you start started to sort of see what works for you when you started after college with. Your strength training. Is there something that? Was there a? Goal that you had in mind when you started strength training or was it just I’m going to get in shape, I’m going to follow this. Program and I’m. Going to see where it takes me.

Mukund
I was a thin, scrawny guy in college. I was not kind of big. I was tall, but I was not big in any way and and I did not want to be big. But I just want to.

Mukund
Be strong, right? I mean, there’s nothing. There’s no shame in admitting this. But you know, I could not do deadlifts of my body weight, which is kind of the benchmark of, you know. How strong you are.

Mukund
At least your body weight at a minimum is, you know your body weight, deadlift. Right, I cannot do that and I cannot do pull-ups, honestly. So it’s kind of a kind of I don’t want to prove to anybody, but just to me, hey, I want to like, you know, take care of my own, take care of myself. Right. So I want to like, be able to lift myself up or something if needed. Or at least, you know, lift my body weight because that seems to be kind of the baseline. And that kind of got me deeper into the nuances of it. You know, complex movements like snatches, you know, cleans. You know with. Dumbbells, barbells. So so now I can. Do a lot of different movements. Because I’d been doing it ever since. So to answer your question, did I do it for a specific reason? No, but just for myself. In terms of, you know, trying to see how strong I can get and you know, just to take care of my own self at the end of.

Rob
Yes. Was there a?

Mukund
The day it doesn’t make me.

Rob
Yeah, absolutely. Makes sense. You know you you’ve got to sort of and this goes back to what I was saying about tailoring the the program for yourself is that you’ve got to also find that motivation within yourself and what works and what does and whether it’s, you know, I want to lift my own body weight or I want to lose weight for whatever reason, just to get in. Health everyone has. You have to find that internal motivation, otherwise you’re going to stop. Doing the training as soon as you. You’re going to give up and find something else like there’s, you know, you can’t you you can’t keep going if you don’t have an internal motivation to to, to build on your training and to and to follow whatever program that you’ve said to follow. So yeah, that makes sense. It’s it’s really about making sure that you’re. You have something that you want to you want to achieve and. And doing that over a period of time, clearly you’ve done it for 20 years or so now. So you know you’ve clearly found the internal motivation to keep doing it and improving on your form and you know was there, was there a moment where? You sort of go like. I’m really enjoying this, I I really enjoy strength training. This is what I want to do. Is there a moment like that for you or was it just you’ve just found yourself here now after doing it for so long?

Mukund
Actually, I cut off with you. Bring up a good point. So in terms of plateauing, right, that’s what they call you, don’t you don’t see anymore gains from your from what you’re doing? So when I, so that’s part of the reason I joined CrossFit because I was just, I didn’t know about CrossFit before I joined the gym, I didn’t even know crossword. Listed so I was just looking up different forms of workouts, you know around 20/15/2016. And even though I’ve heard about CrossFit in passing, I never paid much attention to it. And they said how varied the the programs are. The workouts are. So I said, you know, why not give it a try? So the first day it it kicked my ***, right. In terms of the workout it gave me. This is how a workout is. Well, it’s it’s it’s 10 minutes long or 15 minutes. You know, it’s very short duration. So you have this is the sample workout, right? So you do 55 jumping jacks, for example, 10 push-ups, 15 pull-ups. You keep going through those 3 movements, those reps for 15 minutes. Right. And whoever’s not whoever the competition between the members is. Who scores the highest right highest number of total reps, right? So that that kind of, you know, that was new to me, I did not know. I have not trained in such high intensity, right? So that gave me a good, or rather a new perspective on weightlifting and training because CrossFit includes both strength and cardio at once, right? Cardio is doing something fast, right? You run fast. That’s cardio. But people ask, how do you do cardio with weights? Well, we live. We lift. Weights faster. Right. So that’s cardio and. Strength training together. So that’s what kind of got me interested in it. And that’s what was the not the aha moment, but kind of a new perspective on fitness itself. And that’s what I’ve been kind of I that’s what I continue to do. And you know when I go to a regular gym now, since it’s not a CrossFit type of gym, it’s not. Set up for across the type of an environment I you know I can’t go there for across the type workout, I can only go there to either do treadmills or rolling or shrink only one of these three, right? So if I if I keep, if I keep hogging machines, there’s going to be.

Rob
Right.

Mukund
A fight at the gym so. Yeah, so so.

Rob
And that’s where instance training comes in. And that’s where your strength training comes. In you can find.

Mukund
I’d rather I’d rather not fight to perform my strength training.

Rob
Yeah, fair enough.

Mukund
So yeah. So yeah, so that was not the aha moment, but. But that’s what kind of, you know, changed my perspective perspective and you know, started doing CrossFit style workouts ever since. Yeah. How about you, Jim? Jim, how about you, Rob? You know, I know, I know. We talked about training for cardio. I mean, train cardio training for soccer last week. Do you plan to incorporate any weights in it or?

Rob
So I do I lift dumbbells regularly? I have an office job, so you know, just sitting down at. A computer for. You know 8-9 hours, 10 hours a day, that’s, you know, a lot of people are probably familiar with that experience where you don’t get a lot of time to to, you know, get up and. Use your body and you know. Most of my time getting up is to get myself food and and get a glass of water and get coffee or whatever. So you know, I’ve got to find something else to to do in the meantime, what I have right now in my office is I have free weights. I have dumbbells in my office, so I. Lift the. I lift 2 repetitions of those for about. 5 or 10 minutes over a period of, yeah, probably about. I’ll probably do that three days a week. I try to do it Monday, Wednesday and. Friday. And then I’m also doing my as you said, my cardio in between that as well. I’m also doing quite a bit of running and getting outside. So most of my strength training such as it is is just lifting free weights and dumbbells. I haven’t really other than. Push-ups. I I don’t do a lot of strength training myself. I just find that. Mostly find myself leaning towards sports and running is sort of my what my. One of my favorite activities, so that’s what I do, but I know that you know, because of the the research that we’ve been doing and probably. Like all of the studies that have been coming out recently about how you know, people are saying sitting is the new cancer and sitting is going to, you know, shorten your lifespan by quite a bit. You’ve got to do different things during the day. So I’m trying to sort of adapt to the to the science of that and try to figure that out for myself and. Incorporating, you know, lifting weights and and and different things into my day-to-day life because we’ve got to do it in terms of improving our health. But for me it’s not. I don’t enjoy it as much, but I know it’s absolutely very important. So I’m trying to sort of gain an appreciation for it. Begrudgingly so to speak.

Mukund
So it’s you bring up a good point in terms of it not being you know you don’t have fun doing it, but you do it for the health benefits. For me, I have to I cannot not workout right? I can go more than two days without a good workout or physical exercise of any. Kind. OK. It’s kind of a stress relief for me, so I drive my wife crazy. I drive my son crazy because I’m not bothering them. So it’s kind of an existential problem if I don’t workout. So this is something I learned along the way. So initially I was like, you know what? Even I found a difference in terms of you. Know something inside me that’s not working properly. So once after that you know the the euphoria you get after run or after for me after workout after it was workout.

Rob
OK.

Mukund
That’s what calms me down and and I thank God all my stress, you know, whatever the minute thing or the major things in life is on the weights because weight. Because the weights can’t hit you back, so you know I throw the sand back down. You know, I lift it up, you know, I just punch it, you know? I mean, I’m just. I’m just kind of joking. But, you know, throwing heavy weights around really kind of releases the stress that’s built in me.

Rob
Yeah. No, it’s absolutely right. Like it just that, that tension relief has got to. Be something that is beneficial along to even just mental health. To have that element to it, you, like you said, I think we talked last week. I don’t really feel the endorphins after a run, but what I feel is I feel better. Even a day or two later going ohh, I went for a run a couple of days ago I went for a run yesterday. Whatever it was, knowing that I’ve done that and sort of being proud of what I’ve achieved I think has some value. There is some merit to the idea that you should be proud of having the motivation to have worked out recently. And you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. If you’re not able. To do that, but it’s certainly something that you can benefit from when you know you are going through difficult things. You can go like, OK, what what next step can I take to get myself into a different mindset and oftentimes going for a run or strength training or. Playing your favorite sport? Often times, that’s what your body needs, and that’s what your brain needs to to get into that shift of minds.

Mukund
Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah. So I kind of set these many goals before each workout. Hey, can I do this in within a certain amount of time, or can I do so many reps off a certain weight? And and I mean, sometimes I do fail mean like, hey, I’m like over the minute or, you know, I can’t live this much. I’m like, fine, you know what? I’m getting old. That’s my first excuse. Well, something to aim for next time. So you know, I kind of take take that route. To like east. I I weasel out of responsibility like that so.

Rob
I usually getting all the excuses all the time.

Mukund
Yeah. Yeah. So, so you get what I’m saying.

Rob
100% it’s one of my favorite excuses. It’s, you know, oh, I can’t help you move. I’m getting old. I don’t know if I can do that. I’m. Getting old I. Can’t do that, but I I try to avoid making excuses, but that is such a good. One like it’s there are very few benefits of. Getting old but. Using that as an excuse, I think is definitely.

Mukund
One of them. So I keep bothering my son. Hey, can you can you get this? Can they say why am I you calling me? I said that. Well, I’m old. You’ll do the same thing your kids, so don’t worry about it.

Rob
Yeah, exactly, it’ll. It’ll come back to you in 20 years time.

Mukund
Exactly and. And my son keeps, I mean my father. My dad keeps supporting my son. He’s like, why can’t you do it, right? Why are you? You telling him to do it? I was like. Well, you told. Me to do it, you know exactly.

Rob
Yeah. Yeah, it’s a generational thing there.

Mukund
Yeah. Yeah. So that’s kind of my, I mean, I know we didn’t cover everything but kind of my workout life, if you can call it or. Workout mantra in what is it like 1/2 hour podcast?

Rob
Excellent. No, that that’s I think that’s it’s important for people to go that there’s a there’s a. Sort of a. There’s an arc to it, like where do you start and how do you get going? And I think you covered it really well and I think you know, like you said, even people for me at least, again, I don’t know too much about strength training, learning about sandbags and learning about. The idea that. Those functional movements and the benefits of sandbags is really interesting and I think. It’s something that a lot of people. Might not have considered it and may consider if if they listen to this and think about what what might benefit them in in the long term in terms of their their weight, weight lifting goals and their their strength training goals overall.

Mukund
Right, right, definitely. Because Sandbag is considered one of the. You know, people generally ignore it, right? They don’t really take consider this as a good alternate cheaper alternate too, right? So like I said, the bars were like 500 bucks during high demand time. Sandbags. I got the bags and the sand. All three bags with the sand for less than $200. Which I’ve been using for the past three years, right? Maybe I got, like one bag last year since I got the new bag. One bag of sand for the new bag. But that’s about it, right? And I got, like, multiple workouts my son can use it. My wife can use it. The lighter ones they can. And the sandbags come with filler bags inside where you can adjust the weights so they can take out the bag here and there, put extra ones if needed so you can. Also adjust it so that’s kind of the advantage of a sandbag. It’s not only. One weight you can adjust the weights itself with different sand quantity.

Rob
Wow. OK, that’s great. That’s another thing I had no idea about. That’s really interesting.

Mukund
Yeah. So if you for example, if you get a 30 pound, one of the lighter bags on Amazon, it’s like 40-50 bucks and at a local Home Depot or your hardware stores like. 4 dollars, $5 at least. At least it’s not, if not more. And then you have a good workout equipment for what? 40-50 bucks. And that’s like a month of gym. And this is going to last you for years.

Rob
Yes, it’s it’s, it’s such a great budget strength training idea and I think. A lot of people. Are gonna have. To think at least, think about incorporating it into. Their workout because it’s a.

Mukund
And for functional fitness, right, like you said, even people who go to the gym lifting with the traditional weights like bar and everything, they were at the end of the day, they want to be able to lift their kids, right? They want to carry the grocery bags from the from the supermarket back home, you know, help with household chores, you know, is something wrong at home, lifting heavyweights. Like sheetrock for example, right or two by fours. They have to build something with it. This helps and I found sandbag to be the cheap alternative for a functional fitness and it has helped me. You know, I would recommend this to you to rob if if if you’re interested, just cheap sandbag. I also go for one of the other things is you go for runs, right?

Rob
I’m definitely going to check it out now, yeah.

Mukund
I go for runs with the sandbag, so I take a light sandbag. I mean, you can’t go for miles. I mean, you can if you’re strong enough. So maybe. I mean, you’ve talked about doing 5K and everything. Even if you do 2K with a light sandbag slung over your show.

Rob
Ohh wow.

Mukund
That would do. That will give you much more strength than just running because you came extra load with you, your legs, your back and everything is going to get stronger. At least I have. Felt that.

Rob
Yes, it’s a great idea.

Mukund
You know, that’s a quick point, or since you like running so much, if you start incorporating sandbags with. It you know, you might find. You know. You might find greater benefits and on the way back, if you don’t want it over your shoulder. It comes with different handles. You can also carry it like a suitcase or something, which is going to go and to improve your grip strength, your shoulders, your back. You know all those things.

Rob
You’re right. Kill two birds with one sandbag. That’s. A great idea.

Mukund
Exactly. And that’s what I do too. If I’m too lazy to work out, I just go for a quick run with the sandbag or call the sandbag carry, which I just carry like it’s called a farmer’s carry. And, you know, they carry heavyweight in one hand. Like like traditional farmers, they carry garden equipment and everything with their hands and walking around the field. It’s kind of designed to simulate that. So you just carry a light to medium, sandbag across your shoulders or or in your hands just go for a walk a mile walk, come back. You’ll have a total body work.

Rob
That’s a great idea. That’s a great idea.

Mukund
So Rob, it’s been great. Thanks for your interest in strength training and hope you incorporate the sandbags also in. Your runs.

Rob
Yeah. Thank you. Man. It’s really been good talking. To you about it, and I’ve learned a lot about. What I’ve got to do, and it sounds like I’ve gotta hit the sandbags, I’ve got to get them into my strength training and fitness routines, so I’ll be doing that. I appreciate all the the the guidance and I. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Mukund
Definitely no problem, Rob anytime. Great talking to you and it’s mid week but anyways you know you have a nice weekend.

Rob
Yeah, you too, buddy. You too. Bye for now.