Abhishikth Veng.

For most of my twenties, I wanted to get fit and could not bring myself to start. The rooms didn’t feel like they were for someone shaped like me. The people in them didn’t make space. The Indian fitness scene looked, from the outside, like a club where you needed to already be lean to be welcomed.

Then I got a coach who believed in me before I believed in myself. He gave me a walking plan, a lifting plan, and a way of eating that was specific enough to follow on a bad day. I lost 35 kilos in a year. The body changed. What changed more was the realisation that none of this was complicated — it was just unavailable to most people who needed it.

AltCrew is the layer I wish had existed when I started. A way to find a crew to lift, run, stretch, ride, or swim with — in your neighbourhood, at your pace, with people who know what showing up for the first time feels like. We tell members who they can train with. We give organizers the tools to run their clubs without spreadsheets. And we keep both sides free forever, except for a small commission on paid event ticket sales.

I write about social fitness, community design, discovery products, and what it actually takes to keep showing up. Most pieces are short. All of them are written from doing it, not from observing it.