Population control- The way forward.

In medieval ages, countries needed armies and man-power to do all kinds of things. But today, we don't. A huge number of people are in the service industry, which is big only because it has to serve a lot of people. If towns A and B have populations of 1,000 and 100,000 each, then town A may have just 1 bank with 3-4 employees, while town B may have 10 banks with 10 employees each. And what are these extra bank employees doing in town B? Serving the people of town B.

There are hardly any labor-intensive tasks these days. Machines are everywhere. The need to have a lot of people in order to develop a country is gone. Another country is invading you? Launch a missile. Send drones. Use tanks. No country is going to send out an army of 100,000 soldiers into a war front. Machines have been invented for this and a lot of other stuff.

I have just read that China, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are the world's 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 8th respectively with respect to population, making up a little over 40% of the world's population. Now, do these countries need so many people? Definitely no. Life would be a whole lot easier if the populations were lower.

Suppose that the population of South Asia is suddenly reduced to half of what it is now. The state of agriculture more or less remain the same, since it is quite industrialized now and there are already too many people farming too little land. Industries won't suffer either, since almost all the work is done by machines. The number of banks and Tech support companies and other service companies will reduce, but that's not a big deal since the loss in jobs is compensated by the reduced population. The unemployment rates will definitely go down. The quality of education will go up.

The social structure may not change and there may be social and economic class divide. But, the quality of life will definitely improve. All we have to do is to reduce the population. So, how can this be done?

The most obvious thing to do is to kill a lot of people. Killing people to give them a more comfortable life is something that crazy dictators and politicians will say, not me.
Next solution? Reduce quality of health care- If someone's going to die, let him die. Again, same as above, not a useful idea.
Ship people to other countries (or planets?)? Nope, the other countries are not stupid (science not that advanced yet).

So, we can't kill people, we can't let diseased people die, and we can't export people. What's the one other option that's left?
Don't let more people be born.

Pretty obvious, isn't it? I had thought of this before, but thought that it's not an easy thing to do. You have to explain it to people, but you can't really reach out to everyone- lots of logistic issues. Or so I thought. Then I saw the demographics of India, and apparently the urban population is now 31%. And in this age of the internet, it's not really that hard to reach out to the urban population. The internet has penetrated into the rural areas too, but even if we focus only on urban areas, and reduce the population by 50% in the next 50 years, that should be a great improvement.

If we just reduce the birth rate, population will go down by itself since people keep dying. Family planning stuff is good, but I have a better idea.

Don't have kids till you are at least 32.

Get married if you have to, but just don't have kids.
Why is this better? Because a lot of people die between the ages of 20 and 32 (I'm assuming that on average, people have kids when the wife is about 20, may not be accurate, but the argument still holds). First, this itself reduces the birth rate. Secondly, If a man or a woman is to be widowed, isn't it better to be widowed before having any kids? Or if the marriage is not working out, and they think a divorce is better, isn't it better for both the couple and the kid if it happened before the couple has a kid? At 32, the parents have matured enough, and are probably more financially secure, to raise a kid.
Also, the next generation will be replenished slower than it is now. This will also reduce the birth rate for a few decades, before it saturates.

In addition to telling people to postpone having kids, what else must be done? Most importantly, contraceptives must get a lot of publicity. But every now and then, there will be accidental pregnancies. In that case, abortion is the only option. I guess parents get too attached to the fetus, but hey, it's a lot better to live with that little pain than to screw up your life, and the kid's. So, abortions- not totally legal in India (unless the pregnancy poses harm to either the mother or the child, or if its the case of a failed contraceptive). This makes absolutely no sense. When it is so clear that population is a problem in the country, how can abortions be illegal? Do people value the life of an unborn baby more than the life of people who are alive?

As always, I just think of stuff, I'm too lazy to act on it. I can only hope that some one who reads my blog gets inspired to actually do something.

Make love, not babies.

From Hyderabad to Southampton

Quite a bit has happened since my previous post on the blog. The last one was a workout update published on August 29th. The following week, I had received my offer letter for a fully PhD position in the Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics group at University of Southampton. The first thing I had to do after getting my offer letter was to apply for an ATAS clearance. This was a scheme that the UK government had, its job was to make sure that people coming to the UK from outside do not use the knowledge that they have gained in UK to make Weapons of Mass Destruction. And it took me 53 calendar days, or about 37 working days. They are supposed to process an application in 20 working days. I can understand the delay if I was studying nuclear physics or microbiology or something like that. But my research was about fluid flows in pipes (its actually about characterizing skin friction on rough surfaces using lower-order models, but I know that only mechanical engineers can appreciate this stuff, so there I'm working on flows in pipes).

During the time I was waiting for my ATAS clearance, my gym subscription had expired. I was already getting bored at that gym. There were no good training partners, the gym was too cramped to do any olympic lifts, doing deadlifts with the barbells was not possible, my knee was still hurting, and I couldn't count on anyone to spot me for bench presses. So, I didn't renew my subscription. I decided to learn tennis. There was this tennis academy about 4 km away from my home and I went there every morning. It was nice, there were three good coaches and they had enough courts for all members to play. I went there for about 8 weeks, but I couldn't play for 2 of those 8 weeks due to rain.

I finally got my ATAS clearance in the last week of October, and booked a visa slot for the next day. When I had gotten to the visa office with all my documents, they said I needed to get a mandatory Tuberculosis test done, which was frustrating since it was not mentioned in the website or on the document checklist. So that delayed my visa application for 4 more days. I finally applied on 28th October, I think. And the next 3 weeks were spent having farewell parties with friends. I've heard of people getting their visas in just 5-6 days. Considering that I was going from a reputed Indian college to a reputed UK university, to take a fully funded position, and with a clean passport and complete documents, I thought mine would be done in just a week. So every day I told myself that I may get my visa the next day, and every weekend I went and partied with my friends.

Finally, I'd gotten my visa on 21st, I booked flight tickets for 23rd. My friends had come to see me off at the airport, but turns out people without a ticket aren't allowed in (I didn't know that). I had to transfer in New Delhi, met with more friends over there, then took my flight to London. It was a long one (8 hours or so), but it landed ahead of schedule and the flight itself was good- clean airplane, good service, movies and games on a personal screen- pretty good for a cheap ticket (32k INR for the two flights-Hyd to Delhi and Delhi to London, including food and drinks).

The first thing I'd noticed when the flight was landing was that it was quite dark at just 4 30 PM. Back in Hyderabad, it would still be pretty hot at 4 30 PM, but here, the sun sets at around 4 PM and by 6 PM it gets totally dark. From London Heathrow airport, I'd taken a local train to Greenway and then to Waterloo. I had to carry about 22kg of luggage in those busy train stations at peak hour, but I somehow managed it. The train wasn't very different from the Metro in Delhi, it wasn't faster either. From Waterloo, I'd taken a train to Southampton airport, and this train was quite expensive (35 pounds, about 3,500 INR, for a 200km ride). It wasn't a first class ticket or a superfast train either. I'd met an IIT Kanpur alumnus in the train, this dude graduated around 2000 and works at IBM. He got off a few stations before mine, and I finally got to Southampton at around 9 45 PM.

I took a taxi, and we went looking for an inexpensive hotel. There weren't as many hotels in Southampton as I'd expected (considering that there are a lot of international students arriving here). I took a room in a good hotel, it cost about 60 pound a day, breakfast included. That was where I first found that the tap water in UK is drinkable-everyone drinks tap water. I'd seen this in a sitcom from the 80s, but thought it would have changed now. It was a very comfy stay, I was there for 2 days and then I moved into a shared house. There are a lot of shared houses here owned by landlords. Sometimes the landlords, sometimes letting agencies, rent out either individual rooms or the entire house to students. All houses have a kitchen, a few bathrooms, a lounge, and maybe a garden and garage, which are shared by the residents of the house. I was introduced to a really nice landlord by one of his tenants, and I'm quite comfy with the house.

The second thing I have noticed about UK (first thing being the sunset), especially Southampton, is that people are very nice and cheerful. Anytime a guy (or a girl) in a car sees me waiting to cross the road, he stops so that I can cross. Imagine that. That never happened in Hyderabad, and never will. And there is good reason for that. Life here is very peaceful. There are too many cars and very few bikes, and signals at most intersections. Cars don't overtake each other, they just keep moving in a line. There are footpaths everywhere, and pedestrians just need to press a button on a signal to stop the traffic and cross. No one every honks. Most stores close at 5 PM. Even PhD students and professors are not allowed to work in the University after 11 PM. If someone's working after 11 PM, security chucks them out.

The university is not bound within walls, its not even a single campus. There are a lot of buildings, randomly numbered. There are rules and regulations for everything, these people take safety extremely seriously (it is not just a matter of being safe, but it's actually required by law). There are lots of students and researchers around, a lot of them are Chinese. Apparently there has been some university policy that has opened the door to a lot of students from China. And each floor in my building has a kitchen, sometimes two kitchens. There are microwaves, fridges, coffee machines, and even cups and spoons in the kitchen. There are vending machines for soft drinks, candy bars, and crisps and stuff. People are not allowed to smoke inside the building but just outside is fine. There are some cafes, and also a couple of bars, in the campus itself. I have two supervisors for my PhD work. I was worried about ending up with not-so-good supervisors when I had applied for the position. I'm still not used to the life of a PhD student, or to interacting with supervisors, but my supervisors here are like cool nerdy dudes. I have just started working, but I already know I'm gonna love my work. But then, research is always exciting.

I've been to the gym in the university, seen one guy bench 140kg for 3 reps, and he must weigh about 90kg or so, which is qutie impressive. They have good equipment at the gym, including 6-7 Olympic sets, and there is another gym coming up with new equipment for Crossfit and Olympic lifting. I've joined the volleyball and table tennis clubs, looking to join the tennis and rugby clubs too. They have clubs for everything here, and students need to pay to become members. This is one of the few things (like the boring traffic rules- I prefer riding a bike like a boss to stopping at each signal) that I don't like. There was never any membership fee for any sport back at IIT Madras, and it should be that way. The volleyball court is indoors, on wooden floor, and compared to the outdoor courts at IITM, these courts are great to play on.

I haven't done a lot of stuff here yet, I haven't even been to the city centre,but I'm already loving the place. The university closes down for 10 days from 20th December or so, for Christmas (which is a very big thing here). I'll probably get around the city then. And it is already quite cold here, the minimum is about 5 degrees and the maximum is only 10 degrees . And "Winter is coming". It doesn't snow every year, but it did last year, and apparently this time it's going to be colder. Hopefully it will snow, strange how life can change so fast- I got from a lazy dude partying every weekend in a warm, vibrant city, to an excited researcher working everyday in a cold, relaxed city in just a few weeks. This was a much needed break from my habit. Other than the horrible Chennai climate and the crazy admin, this was one of the biggest reasons for wanting to go to a new place- I had just gotten used to the way of life at IITM, and going to a different insti in India would not have made much difference either. I had to start new if I wanted to get off my ass and do something. Only time will decide if I've made the right call. I now sign-off and go to sleep. I have installed Debian Linux on my system today, and tomorrow, I'm going to learn Python and write my first code as a PhD student, and read very good journal papers. Tomorrow's going to be an exciting day.

Workout update

My earlier plan was to attempt my max bench press and push press in the second week of September. But around August 15, I had gotten a couple of days of rest after two days of light workouts. So I had decided to test my maxes during that weekend.
On 17th August, I had attempted my max bench. My previous max was 98kg (or 99kg, used a barbell whose weight I didn't know exactly) done in April 2013. This time, I did 100kg, then 105kg, and then failed at 110kg. I wanted to go for 107kg after 105kg, but the gym didn't have plates smaller than 2.5kg.
On 19th August, I had attempted my max push press. My previous max was 87kg, done in November 2012. This time, I hit 90kg, and then 95kg. The 95kg itself was a critical lift, so I hadn't attempted 100kg. Two days back, on 28th August, I had hit 95kg again.

In addition to the presses, yesterday I had squatted 110kg for 5 singles, Powerlifting style, without belt or spotters. Although it is in no way an impressive lift, this is the first time I have squatted 100+ without any knee pain. And I have also started feeling more confident with my Powerlifting style squat (I have switched from Olympic squats to Powerlifting squats in March). I am not rushing to load more weight on the squats yet, I'm allowing for my knee to heal sufficiently before I start to hit new maxes. Though PL squats are going fine, it hurts when I attempt a deep front squat. Classical cleans and snatches are still a strict NO for me. And in addition to squatting, I'm now hitting heavy deadlifts - 65kg or 70kg for 2 or 3 reps.

My gym subscription expires in two weeks. I'm hoping to push my maxes a little further in this short period- 100kg push press and 110kg bench press are what I have in mind for the second week of September.

Nausea and Acidity during and/or after workout

A lot of people might have had this problem at some point or the other. I have been having a problem with acidity in the last 1 year or so, but I mostly neglected it. In the last 6 weeks it really started to affect my training. I had to cut short several training sessions when I started feeling nauseated. So, as always, I did a little bit of research on google and tried a few things. And after a couple weeks of trying different stuff, I am now totally fine. And now I share my wisdom.

One of the biggest reasons for nausea is excessive caffeine consumption, in whatever form you take it- coke, coffee, energy drinks, whatever it is, too much caffeine is bad for you. Earlier, I used to drink tea for 3-4 times a day and it was okay. I slowly switched to coffee and recently I have been drinking coffee for 3-4 times a day and I'm guessing that is when I started getting nauseated. It is also possible that this acidity and nausea are because of my change in lifestyle (I've gotten really fat in the last 15 months, and my physical activity has also gone down). Whatever it is, coffee is bad for you. Stopping coffee suddenly is not good since there are some problems associated with caffeine withdrawal. If you can't cut down on coffee, at least stop drinking it a few hours before workouts. Chocolates also cause acidity.

Another reason for nausea during workout is lack of endurance. If you have not been doing a lot of cardio and endurance training, chances are that you are getting tired too easily. People often get tired during their workout and start feeling light headed. Whenever this happens, nausea follows. I have found a simple way to work around this.
Usually, if you push for too many reps in a set, you start feeling light headed. Instead of that, split the reps into more sets. For example, if you have to do 3 sets of 12 reps with 90 seconds rest between sets, split it into 6 sets of 6 reps each (with a rest period of 45 seconds) instead. When you do this, you will still be training with about the same volume, the muscle will still be fatigued sufficiently since you are not allowing enough rest between sets, and your cardiovascular system gets sufficient time to recover from one set and start producing blood glucose again (This is all my theory. What matters is, splitting high-rep sets into low-rep sets with reduced rest period has worked for me, and I expect it to work for someone else too).

The final and the most effective suggestion is- start eating bananas and drinking curd. Even at times when I feel like I'm definitely gonna puke, I drink a couple of glasses of banana lassi and it goes away in a couple of minutes. Last month, I used to take antacid tablets to get rid of this problem, but the relief was extremely short-termed. A glass of banana lassi (put a banana, about 200 mL of curd, 50 mL of milk, sugar, and some flavor if you want) a couple of times in the morning and a couple of times in the evening, especially before workout, totally relieves you from acidity and nausea.

Randomly answering Multiple choice questions

Most exams these days have multiple choice questions. When I was preparing for one such exam- EAMCET, one of our math lecturer had strongly recommended one technique- to verify if the equation/expression is satisfied by the options, instead of solving the equations. Though it is not in the best interest of the students, at least that involved a little bit of solving. But what if a student just randomly answers all questions?
Considering that these exams typically have more than a hundred questions, and that tens of thousands of students take these exams, it is safe to assume that when a typical student randomly answers a question having 'n' options, the probability that the answer will be correct is 1/n. In questions with 4 options, if a student randomly marks an option, the probability that it will be correct is 25%.

Now, consider the case where each correct answer is awarded 4 marks, and each wrong answer is awarded -1 marks. If a student randomly marks 1 out of the 4 options, the score he will gain is (4)x (1/4) + (-1) x (3/4). 1/4 is the probability that he is correct, 3/4 is the probability that he is wrong. So, this student will, on average, score 1/4 marks out of a maximum possible 4 marks. i.e, he scores 1/16 of the maximum.
Suppose the student puts in a little effort and somehow confidently eliminates 1 out of the 4 options, and then randomly marks 1 out of the remaining 3.  Now, the probability of him being right is 1/3, and being wrong is 2/3. In this case, he scores 4x1/3 + (-1) x 2/3 = 2/3, out of a maximum of 4. So, he scores 1/6 of the total marks (in the previous case, he scored only 1/16).
If he confidently eliminates 2 out of the 4 options, he scores 4x1/2 + (-1) x1/2 = 1.5 out of 4, or 3/8 of the total marks.
If he confidently eliminates 3 out of the 4 options, he scores 4 out of 4 marks.

Comparing different other cases, like no penalty for wrong answers,  6 options, etc:

	4 options +4, -0	4 options +4,-1	4 options +4,-2	4 options +4,-3	6 options +4,-1	8 options +4,-1
Random	25%	7%	-12.5%	-31%	-4.2%	-9.4%
Eliminate 1	33%	17%	0%	-66%	0%	-7.1%
Eliminate 2	50%	38%	25%	12.5%	6.25%	-4.2%
Eliminate 3	100%	100%	100%	100%	17%	0%

 
I suppose that most exams have either no penalty, or a +4,-1 system with 4 options. Having no penalty is a huge incentive for those who can't solve all the problems to randomly mark answers. They have nothing to lose. Considering that even the best of students often fail to score a 100% owing to various reasons such as time constraints or exam pressure, and that the cut-off scores (especially for reserved seats) are usually quite low, the current system is really not fair. If the boards decide to go for 6 options instead of 4 options, the equation drastically changes. If they move to 8 options and also impose penalty for wrong answers, no one will ever try to randomly mark answers. Also, students will be discouraged to verify the options by substituting into equations- simply because there are too many options to try and check.
It really surprises me that the IITs are really not considering something like this. Increasing the number of options is not a difficult thing. It takes a little bit of extra effort, but it would definitely limit the role of luck in the exams.

Workout update: Cluster sets, singles and dynamic sets

Most importantly, I'm have started to squat again. I did 90kg back squat for 4 sets of 5 reps yesterday. Although it wasn't hard, I'm taking it slow. I have switched from deep Olympic squats to Powerlifting squats. I'm hoping to get to 110kg or 120kg in the next 5-6 workouts and work at that weight for the next 1 month.

A month ago, I was cribbing about my knee injury and about how the gym near my home is not good enough. But thanks to that, I am trying new workouts. All my earlier workouts were built around squats. Now, I can't squat as much as I used to (due to the injury), and can't deadlift heavy (the barbell isn't good, no proper plates). So I am focusing on improving my upper body strength and a little bit of conditioning. Although it is still a bit early to vouch for the routine, I am going to do it anyway.

My earlier routines usually contained several compound exercises- squat, deadlift, bench press, military press, push press, barbell rows and pullups/pulldowns. I used to go for 3-5 sets of 2-5 reps for those exercises and call it a day. But now I am doing it in a totally different way. I have included cluster sets, singles, dynamic sets and complexes.

Cluster sets: For proper muscle growth, both weight and reps are important. But its hard to hit more reps with heavy weights. In a cluster set, you break down a set into 2-4 mini-sets with a little break between these mini-sets. I usually do it this way- In each set, I do 2 reps, rest for 20 sec, do 3 more, rest for 20 sec, and then 2 final reps. Between sets, I usually rest for about 2 or 2.5 minutes (I decide on a rest period stick to it). The set I just described is a 2-3-2 set, a total of 7 reps. I sometimes hit 2-3-2 sets, sometimes 2-2-1 sets. Two days back, I benched 90kg for 4 sets of 2-1-1. I am training without a spotter, so I have to limit my sets to only those with which I'm completely confident.

Singles: They are just that- single reps. Each set has only 1 rep. Between each set, I usually take about 45-60 seconds rest.

Dynamic sets: These sets are to build speed. The idea is to push a light weight (~50% of max) as fast as possible. I usually go for 3 reps in these sets.

Complex: Complexes are for conditioning. I take a barbell- either 30kg or 40kg loaded, and do a series of exercises. The exercises I am currently using are - Power clean, Jerk, Back squat, Military press, Good mornings, Barbell rows, Deadlifts. A typical complex will be 30kg x5 reps. In that set, I do 5 cleans, then 5 jerks, then 10 back squats, then 5 presses, then 5 good mornings, then 5 rows and finally 10 deadlifts (I do twice the number of reps for squats and deadlifts). I use complexes for fat loss, conditioning, endurance and cardio.

In a typical workout, I use 1 main compound movement, and 1 or 2 assistance movements for that muscle. Till last week, I used to load up on both the main and assistances. But now, I'm going heavy on the main movement, and going for light fast reps with the assistances. I am not posting any pics yet, but the cluster sets have really been a revelation. They are great for both strength and building muscle. As for warm up, stretching and warm down, I have totally abandoned stretching and warming down after workout. My warm up consists only of performing 2-3 sets of benchpress or push press for 20-30 reps with empty barbell.
If my work sets in bench press are of 85kg, I do something like
20kg: 3 sets of 20-30 fast reps (warm up)
40kg: 8-12 reps
55kg: 5 reps
70kg: 2-3 reps
75kg: 1 rep
80kg: 1 rep
85kg- Good to go.
The weights between 20kg and 85kg are usually decided by what plates are lying around.


My workouts go something like this:

I train on all weekdays, and take off on the weekends- that's 5 days of training per week.

Day 1
Flat bench press -  Complex sets: 80% for 5 sets of 2-2-2
Inclined dumbbell press  (Chest -Assistance 1)  2-3 sets of 5-8 reps
Dumbbell pullovers   (Chest -Assistance 2)  2-3 sets of 6-10 reps

Close grip bench press - 3 sets of 5 reps
Back squat- 4-5 sets of 5 reps
Skull crushers (Triceps -Assistance) 2 sets of 5-8 reps


Day 2
Push press -  Singles : 5-10 sets
Dumbbell/Military press (Dynamic, superset with push press) : 5-10 sets of 3 reps
Dumbbell upright rows (Deltoid- Assistance 1): 3 sets of 4-8 reps
Dumbbell lateral raise (Deltoid- Assistance 2): 2-3 sets of 10-15 reps
Lat pulldowns: 4-5 sets of 4-8 reps
Kroc rows: 2-3 sets of 15-20 reps
Forearm, biceps curls: 3-5 sets of 5-10 reps
Clean complex - 3-5 sets of 4-5 reps for each exercise

Day 3 same as Day1
Day 4 same as Day 2

Day 5
Power clean and Jerk - Upto 60kg
Power snatch - Upto 40kg
Bench press/ Push press - Dynamic sets: 10-12 sets of 3 reps each
Dynamic assistance work
Squat- Light weight

For Day1 and Day2, I use heavy weights on the main movements. For Day3 and Day4, I reduce the weight slightly (by 5% to 10%) and increase volume slightly.

In the first 2 days of this week, I have done bench press for cluster sets of 2-1-1, and Push press for 5 singles of 85kg (supersets with 5 dynamic sets of 45kg for 3 reps). I hope to hit new PRs in about 3 weeks- 110kg in bench press and 95kg in push press.

Back to the gym

My training in the last 7 months has been extremely inconsistent. I have always loved Olympic lifts and squats, and since I injured my knee, I couldn't train with routines I like. Since mid-March, I had not gotten more than maybe 10 workouts. I'm done with IITM and am back home now. I didn't find a good gym here, just a regular fitness centre. But luckily, they have a decent barbell, though its very hard to get a good grip on it. These gyms don't have chalk powder either. I tried several times to deadlift beyond 120kg, but had to abandon each of the attempts halfway when the barbell started to slip off my palms.
Currently I'm not using any of the famous routines. I'm just working till a few heavy sets (for 1 or 3 reps) and then dropping back for a few more sets of 5-8 reps. I'm training for 4 days a week. Owing to the knee injury and the give up barbell, I can't squat or pull or deadlift. But I'm steadily getting my strength back on the upper body stuff. In the last 10 days, these are the lifts I've gotten to:

Bench press: 95kg single
Military press: 70kg single (The smallest plate in the gym is a 2.5kg plate.No 1.25kg or 1kg plates)
Push press: 85kg single
Barbell rows: 75kg for 3 sets of 5 reps
Back squat (PL style): 100kg for 3 sets of 3 reps
Deadlifts: Several missed and completed attempts at 120kg

I start each workout with power cleans from the hang, working up to 70kg for 3 sets of 3 reps. Power snatching more than 40kg is also pretty difficult because of the barbell. Since squats and deadlifts are now out of the question for me right now, I'm going for split squats and good mornings instead. Just got to 50kg on both exercises, and I'm going to push both of them upto 75kg soon.

This is how it has been till now. For the next 10-15 days, I'm going to use my stock routine and a few high rep sets in the end of the workout (hoping for a little fat loss). Once I feel like I'm back in form, I'll start up on either of Westside conjugate method or Wendler's 5/3/1 routine. I've signed up for the gym for 3 months. Hopefully I'll stick to my schedule and make some decent gains in this period.