This Blog is Written By :-

Arun Purohit

CEO, at Simplibuy Technologies (P), Ltd.

www.wic.co.in

( Arun Purohit, the author of this post is an Entrepreneur and cofounder of Simplibuy. He is struggling with his fitness state ever since he started up )

I had been among the fittest military officers till I served.  The measure of fitness in IAF was pretty simple. If you have put on your summer uniform and the 4th button is outand visible you are NOT FIT. We often used to joke that the officer has started ‘showing’ ( Euphemism for having gone pregnant).

Please see this picture of Sachin Tendulkar when he was bestowed honorary IAF rank. His 5th button is showing up just above his belt . As per military customs he was not fit enough to don uniform (Fitness deficiency of level 2)  ;). Also notice the belly of  the officer who is putting the rank braids.

Tendulkar commissioning

This  obsession with being and looking fit and  trim continued.  I was able to do job and take time out for my fitness regime by running, playing squash, working out. Well. jobs are jobs  .  All was well till the startup bug hit me.  Startups, as opined by many veterans, is akin to  being pregnant. Sameer Guglani in his famous essay explains how startups are a labor and you need to be ready to lose your fitness fetish if you really wanna do it . This is how he mocks starting up pangs :

Startup pangs

Well, I took it as a ground reality till I accidentally watched a portion of Aap ki Adalat ( Your court ) hosted by Rajat Sharma. The guest on that day was Good Bad boy of Indian Cinema i.e Salman Khan.  One of the question put up impromptu by the host was : How does Salman keep fit ?

In his characteristic style , he came out of the suspect box, asked the host to come forward a little, get down on the floor and do push ups with him. Salman and the host got up after 10 pushups and its then, the star chuckled,  “This is exactly what I do to keep fit“. The entire audience broke into a huge laughter.

Salman ,true badass of Indian cinema

This got me into thinking of our Air Force training days.  For :

1. Every mistake we did, we were asked to do 50 pushups
2.  Every letter from GFs we wanted to receive and read, we did 50 pushups
3. For every mistake done by any of our course mates we did 50 pushups and so on….

This was like punishing ourselves for mistakes and  cravings and becoming fitter in the process. It worked wonders.

Now coming back to fitness in startups, I realize that working out in Gyms will not be possible regularly.  Considering different timezones of investors, the calls we have to do, the meetings we attend, the games of squash cannot be played. Lack of regular sleep ensures that I get up only when the sun is already blazing hot and I cannot hit the road for a jog.  Evenings will always be packed with some work.

So how do we keep fit?

Now , for every little accomplishment or mistake, reward or punish yourself with 30 pushups. It will always work and save you the money you cant afford to pay health clubs as an entrepreneur.

Pushups – they just work

For knowing more about the benefits of push ups and right way to do them, check this out

Please let us know of other hacks for being fit in a startup . It will be great spreading the great ideas 

Credits : ( A lot of thanks to Rajeshwari and Kavita Joshi for doing a review and valuable edits on this blog post)