Finalised my schedule for now. It's not final, but it is what it is for now.
Day 1: Upper Body – Chest press, overhead tricep extensions, lateral raises, lateral pull down, vertical rows, and bicep curl
Day 2: Lower Body – leg curl, inner thigh/outer thigh, Bulgarian split squats, calf raises.
Day 3: Cardio – Boxing fitness on Wednesdays and a treadmill/rowing machine/elliptical combo on Saturday, both coming to ~500 calories burnt.
Am currently around 72.5kg (started around 76kg), and am looking to run this for 1-2 months before shifting to a Push-Pull Legs routine after I've hit my target weight (below 70kg). Am maintaining a daily calorie deficit as I'm on a cut till then.
Gym – did a 10 minute treadmill warmup followed by bicep curl, lat pull down, vertical rows, and tricep extensions. Remind me to never go to the gym past 6pm, the crowd is insane. Ended up triple-alternating for a lot of these, thus slowing down the pace entirely. Took at least 1 hour 45 minutes for a workout that shouldve been done in 1 hour 15. DIdn't track weights closely (TERRIBLE, I KNOW) but everything was comfortable only around 5. Am using level 5 as the benchmark from here on in. In 2 machines (I think tricep extensions and another one) was better around 4. Had a frustrating time researching today, but have settled on this current schedule for AT LEAST till the end of the week. There is a massive urge to move to free weights, but I'm super wary of bad form – it's hard enough getting it right with assistance on a machine.
Sports – India vs England – we are jinxed. We are jinxed and will never proceed to an ICC trophy. We are the Spurs of the footballing world. Here's to more bilateral and Asia cup wins. Seriously though, we need to desperately better pace bowling in this country. Can't be relying on one Jasprit Bumrah.
Video editing – made eh progress. Got together a concrete plan for the intro and started to get clips together.
Driving – practiced shifting the gear between 2 and 3. Also tried out a new route momentarily.
Gym – did cardio today, hit a personal milestone – hitting 500 calories burnt. Did treadmill – 25 minutes – 214 calories + elliptical – 15 minutes – 137 calories + rowing machine – 17 minutes – 122 calories. But I mean I could've gone for 30 more and I walked for another 30 minutes after that so like I'M COUNTING IT as a win.
Media – finished Rocket Boys Season 1. Thoughts from the first entry stand
Video editing – have a clear idea of the video I want to make. Must remind myself to not get too caught up in the storytelling and the content and remain focused on the video editing itself. Nonetheless, have thoroughly loved falling back into the rabbit hole that is the Before trilogy.
Sports – Nottingham Forest vs Spurs – well it isn't a Spurs season without an unceremonious crash out of a cup competition for no foreseeable reason. We move. Thankful it didn't get this bad in the Champions League.
Driving practice for one hour – getting more comfortable with putting the gear on 2 and using the break to decelerate.
Gym – did the treadmill for 20 minutes, followed by push day. That included four reps of: bicep curls, lateral pull downs, and vertical rows. Was told by the gym trainer to not attempt wrist curls, because they could potentially damage my wrists. Was also recommended to shift from a push/pull/legs schedule to a upper body/lower body/cardio schedule, and to move into PPL a month later. Will require more research to decide the optimal route here –> and will also be looking to do my own research into which exercises can be grouped together.
Video editing – made progression with ideation and storyboarding the video. Will be making a sort of reactions/thoughts video on the Before Trilogy. Will be targeting a more quiet/artsy vibe with softer piano-style music, and will bring out some of the more overlooked aspects of the movie-> this is quite adjacent to my previous video editing attempts. The other idea (for after this) is to attempt to do a more high-paced adrenaline pumpy type Spurs season review video. Will try to speedrun the editing process in two days, simply because I'm not currently engaged in another big project and would like to keep this going.
Started watching Rocket Boys, and was quite impressed. Agreed with most of the online criticism that the show lends itself heavily to dramatisation, but I still think it's a massive step forward when it comes to Indian TV. Loved Jim Sarbh as always, and I definitely excited for the next generation of Indian indie-webserie-ish content and hope it makes into the mainstream (AND MAYBE raises the bar for Bolywood)
Main media consumption of the day was the Ben Shapiro interview on the Lex Fridman show. I'm still a large believer in taking in information from all perspectives and will maintain that Ben seems like one of the most decent and measured right-wing commentators out there.
While Conte is a relatively big manager and people know a lot about him, I thought it would still be relevant to study our new manager in greater detail!
“He needed only one speech, with many simple words, to conquer both me and Juventus. He had fire running through his veins and he moved like a viper,” – Andrea Pirlo
Hope this helps someone save time and learn about Conte! There seems to finally be an air of ambition and positivity around the club, and we can only hope it translates into results in the pitch.
P.S. : if you have any more resources, do put them in the chat, and I'll keep adding them in.
Franceso Totti- “I’m very happy with the team and with the fact that Paulo Fonseca has understood what it means to be at Roma. The coach has managed to transmit a positive spirit and energy to a team that had various shortcomings.”
Just wanted to collect some of the links so that it would be easier for fans to understand Fonseca. Regardless of how underwhelmed we feel in general, he is (most likely) our new manager and deserves our full support.
Cheers!
Edit: updated with interviews/press match conferences + more match analysis
The Mixer by Michael Cox (who currently runs the excellent Zonal Marking podcast on the Athletic) was a book that I thought would get boring really quickly. Coming into this book cold, with only an elementary knowledge of footballing tactics, I was not let down.
The Mixer takes you from the early days of the Premier League, and documents the changes that took place on the pitch and off the pitch: for example, how the back-passing rule change impacted teams significantly, or how Arsene Wenger was the first one to bring a complete fitness overhaul to the Premier League. It goes through phenomena like the rise and fall of tiki-taka football, or how false-nines and foreign number tens began to gain prominence in the Premier League.
It strikes a balance between the jargon and the overall narrative, and masterfully explains a complicated tale of tactical evolution through a mix of insightful anecdotes, a deep understanding of footballing history, and an overflowing love for the game.
The Mixer is the perfect book for a passionate fan looking to dig a little deeper into the game that they love and cherish. It will most likely change how you view the current state of the Premier League, and will definitely transform how you view a football match.
My Tottenham Hotspur Story: From this great Reddit thread
“What a beautiful thread.. let me add my story. I'm 16 and from India – started following Spurs halfway through last year. Was born (and still am) a cricket fan, and found myself with a lot more time + freedom during the pandemic, and turned to football.
I've always loved the Lilywhites but started to find myself relating to them a lot more this year. Always “outsiders”, always “with the potential”, inherently capable but rarely achieving glory, my immature teenage mind latched on to the team. I loved the ambition the club was showing and could not help but be optimistic about the entire Mourinho project. The Amazon doc definitely helped too...
It's been a wild ride. I read up the history of the club and learnt the fan chants. Two days ago, I got my Spurs jersey delivered. Now I'm staying up till 1:45am to watch a little bit of the FA Cup game.”
P.S. What happened to our form over the last two months nobody knows
Other notes: I'm capping off this entire experiment with Day 50: so it's #50DaysToOffload now, not the original #100DaysToOffload.
