170 kg

While my training is obviously more about endurance than building muscle mass, I am sometimes surprised by how much strength that I have indirectly gained from all the running. The most extreme example must be the “torso rotation” machine that Eddie introduced me to the other week. Without any practice, I was able to do 3 sets with 10 repetitions at the maximum weight of 170 kg! Unfortunately, I am still not able to lift more than 30 kg when doing biceps curls so you can really tell what parts of the body that are activated by the running and what parts that are not.

After this brief #humblebrag, I am back to commenting on student papers, trying to help them identify suitable research puzzles. In my experience, this is one of the things that students struggle the most with, as it requires both deep knowledge of the existing literature and scientific creativity. As Karl Gustafsson, who was once my fellow student in Örebro but is now a full professor in Stockholm, wrote in an excellent article a few years back:

“One of the key challenges graduate students face is how to come up with a good rationale for their theses. Unfortunately, the methods literature in and beyond political science does not provide much advice on this important issue. While focusing on how to conduct research, this literature has largely neglected the question of why a study should be undertaken.”