title: Staples Inc.

text: These concept stores are mainly based in New Hampshire, with stores in Nashua, Seabrook, West Lebanon, Dover and Concord. Some stores with this new concept also opened in Massachusetts, including the Auburn store. Other existing stores have been renovated to include Best Tech's services, including the Newington, Connecticut, and Natick store.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the Heineken Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) is an annual rugby union tournament organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the top-tier competition for clubs who compete in a predominantly European league. Clubs qualify for the Champions Cup via their final positions in their respective national/regional leagues (English Premiership, French Top 14, and United Rugby Championship) or via winning the second-tier Challenge Cup; those that do not qualify are instead eligible to compete in the second-tier Challenge Cup.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Between 1995 and 2014, the equivalent competition was known as the Heineken Cup and was run by European Rugby Cup. Following disagreements between its shareholders over the structure and governance of the competition, it was taken over by EPCR and its name was changed to the European Rugby Champions Cup, without title sponsorship. Heineken returned as sponsor for the 2018–19 season, resulting in the competition being known as the Heineken Champions Cup. although technically two separate competitions, run by two separate organisations, the European Rugby Cup, and the European Rugby Champions Cup are recognised as one title chain of elite club championships in Europe, with teams that have won multiple titles ranked, for example, by the aggregate of their wins in both versions.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Stade Rochelais are the current holders having won the 2022 final 24–21 against Leinster in Marseille.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The Heineken Cup was launched in the summer of 1995 on the initiative of the then Five Nations Committee to provide a new level of professional cross border competition. Twelve sides representing Ireland, Wales, Italy, Romania and France competed in four pools of three with the group winners going directly into the semi-finals. English and Scottish teams did not take part in the inaugural competition. From an inauspicious beginning in Romania, where Toulouse defeated Farul Constanţa 54–10 in front of a small crowd, the competition gathered momentum and crowds grew. Toulouse went on to become the first European cup winners, eventually beating Cardiff in extra time in front of a crowd of 21,800 at Cardiff Arms Park.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Clubs from England and Scotland joined the competition in 1996–97. European rugby was further expanded with the advent of the European Challenge Cup for teams that did not qualify for the Heineken Cup. The Heineken Cup now had 20 teams divided into four pools of five. Only Leicester and Brive reached the knock-out stages with 100 per cent records and ultimately made it to the final, Cardiff and Toulouse falling in the semi-finals. After 46 matches, Brive beat Leicester 28–9 in front of a crowd of 41,664 at Cardiff Arms Park, the match watched by an estimated television audience of 35 million in 86 countries.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The season 1997–98 saw the introduction of a home and away format in the pool games. The five pools of four teams, which guaranteed each team a minimum of six games, and the three quarter-final play-off matches all added up to a 70-match tournament. Brive reached the final again but were beaten late in the game by Bath with a penalty kick. Ironically, English clubs had decided to withdraw from the competition in a dispute over the way it was run.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Without English clubs, the 1998–99 tournament revolved around France, Italy and the Celtic nations. Sixteen teams took part in four pools of four. French clubs filled the top positions in three of the groups and for the fourth consecutive year a French club, in the shape of Colomiers from the Toulouse suburbs, reached the final. Despite this it was to be Ulster's year as they beat Toulouse (twice) and reigning French champions Stade Français on their way to the final at Lansdowne Road, Dublin. Ulster then carried home the trophy after a 21–6 win over Colomiers in front of a capacity 49,000 crowd.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: English clubs returned in 1999–00. The pool stages were spread over three months to allow the competition to develop alongside the nations' own domestic competitions, and the knockout stages were scheduled to take the tournament into the early spring. For the first time clubs from four nations – England, Ireland, France and Wales – made it through to the semi-finals. Munster's defeat of Toulouse in Bordeaux ended France's record of having contested every final and Northampton Saints' victory over Llanelli made them the third English club to make it to the final. The competition was decided with a final between Munster and Northampton, with Northampton coming out on top by a single point to claim their first major honour.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: England supplied two of the 2000–01 semi-finalists – Leicester Tigers and Gloucester – with Munster and French champions Stade Français also reaching the last four. Both semi-finals were close, Munster going down by a point 16–15 to Stade Français in Lille and the Tigers beating Gloucester 19–15 at Vicarage Road, Watford. The final, at Parc des Princes, Paris, attracted a crowd of 44,000 and the result was in the balance right up until the final whistle, but Leicester walked off 34–30 winners.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Munster reached the 2001–02 final with quarter-final and semi-final victories on French soil against Stade Français and Castres. Leicester pipped Llanelli in the last four, after the Scarlets had halted Leicester's 11-match Heineken Cup winning streak in the pool stages. A record crowd saw Leicester become the first side to successfully defend their title.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: From 2002, the European Challenge Cup winner now automatically qualified for the Heineken Cup. Toulouse's victory over French rivals Perpignan in 2003 meant that they joined Leicester as the only teams to win the title twice. Toulouse saw a 19-point half-time lead whittled away as the Catalans staged a dramatic comeback in a match in which the strong wind and showers played a major role, but Toulouse survived to win.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: In 2003–04 the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) voted to create regions to play in the Celtic League and represent Wales in European competition. Henceforth, Wales entered regional sides rather than the club sides that had previously competed. English side London Wasps had earned their first final appearance by beating Munster 37–32 in a Dublin semi-final while Toulouse triumphed 19–11 in an all-French contest with Biarritz in a packed Stade Chaban-Delmas in Bordeaux. The 2004 final saw Wasps defeat defending champions Toulouse 27–20 at Twickenham to win the Heineken Cup for the first time. The match was widely hailed as one of the best finals. With extra time looming at 20–20, a late opportunist try by scrum half Rob Howley settled the contest.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The tenth Heineken Cup final saw the inaugural champions Toulouse battle with rising stars Stade Français when Murrayfield was the first Scottish venue to host the final. Fabien Galthié's Paris side led until two minutes from the end of normal time before Frédéric Michalak levelled the contest for Toulouse with his first penalty strike. He repeated this in the initial stages of extra time and then sealed his side's success with a superb opportunist drop-goal. Toulouse became the first team to win three Heineken Cup titles.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: In 2006, Munster defeated Biarritz in the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, 23–19. It was third time lucky for the Irish provincial side, who had previously been denied the ultimate prize twice by Northampton and Leicester.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The 2006–07 Heineken Cup would be distributed to over 100 countries following Pitch International's securing of the rights. That season was the first time in the history of the competition that two teams went unbeaten in pool play, with both Llanelli Scarlets and Biarritz doing so. Biarritz went into their final match at Northampton Saints with a chance to become the first team ever to score bonus-point wins in all their pool matches, but were only able to score two of the four tries needed. Leicester defeated Llanelli Scarlets to move into the final at Twickenham, with the possibility of winning a Treble of championships on the cards, having already won the Anglo-Welsh Cup and the English Premiership. However, Wasps won the final 25 points to 9 in front of a tournament record 81,076 fans.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: During competition there was uncertainty over the future of the tournament after the 2006–07 season as French clubs had announced that they would not take part because of fixture congestion following the Rugby World Cup and an ongoing dispute between English clubs and the RFU. It was speculated that league two teams might compete the next season, the RFU saying "If this situation is not resolved, the RFU owes it to the sport to keep this competition going...We have spoken to our FDR clubs, and if they want to compete we will support them.". A subsequent meeting led to the announcement that the tournament would be played in 2007–08, with clubs from all the six nations. On 20 May it was announced that both French and English top-tier teams would be competing


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: In the 2008 final, Munster won the cup for their second time ever by beating Toulouse at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Leinster won the title in 2009 in their first ever final after beating Munster in the semi-final in front of a then world record Rugby Union club match attendance in Croke Park. They beat the Leicester Tigers in the final at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh. They also beat Harlequins 6–5 in the quarter-finals at Twickenham Stoop, in the famous Bloodgate scandal.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: In the 2010 final, Toulouse defeated Biarritz Olympique in the Stade de France to claim their fourth title, a Heineken Cup record.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The 16th Heineken Cup tournament in 2011 resulted in an Irish province lifting the title for the fourth time in six years as Leinster recorded their second triumph in the competition. They defeated former multiple Heineken Cup winners Leicester and Toulouse in the quarter- and semi-finals. At the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, in front of 72,000 spectators, Leinster fought back from a 22–6 half-time deficit in the final against Northampton Saints, scoring 27 unanswered points in 26 second-half minutes, winning 33–22 in one of the tournament's greatest comebacks. Johnny Sexton won the man-of-the-match award, having scored 28 of Leinster's points total, which included two tries, three conversions, and four penalties.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Leinster successfully defended their crown in 2012 at Twickenham, eclipsing fellow Irish province and former champions Ulster 42–14 to establish the highest Heineken Cup final winning margin. The performance broke a number of Heineken Cup Final records. Leinster became only the second team to win back-to-back titles, and the only team ever to win three championships in four years. In addition, the game had the highest attendance at a final (81,774), the highest number of tries (5) and points (42) scored by one team and the highest points difference (28).


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The final edition of the tournament as constituted as the Heineken Cup was won for a second time by Toulon at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff in May 2014.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The tournament began on 17 October 2014, with Harlequins playing Castres Olympique in the first ever Champions Cup game. Toulon retained their title, beating Clermont 24–18 in a repeat of the 2013 Heineken Cup Final, thereby becoming the first club to win three European titles in a row.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, all Round 1 games due to take place in France that weekend were called off, along with the Round 2 fixture between Stade Français and Munster. Rescheduling of some matches was difficult, partly caused by fixture congestion due to the 2015 Rugby World Cup.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Saracens won their first title defeating Racing 92 in Lyon 21–9 in 2016 final and followed it up with their second in 2017, beating Clermont 28–17 in Edinburgh.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: In 2017–18 season, Leinster overcame the "pool of death" consisting of Glasgow Warriors (who finished the 2017–18 season top of the Pro14), Montpellier (who finished the 2017–18 season top of the TOP 14) and Exeter (who finished the 2017–18 season top of the English Premiership), beating all three teams both home and away. Leinster went on to face the back to back Champions Saracens, dispatching a defeat at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, to set up a semi-final against reigning Pro12 champions Scarlets. Leinster defeated Scarlets to face Racing 92 in Champions Cup Final in Bilbao. Leinster defeated Racing 92 by a scoreline of 15–12, becoming only the second team in history to earn four European titles. Leinster also won the Pro14 title to become the first Pro14 side to win such a double of trophies.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Saracens won the 2018–19 competition, defeating defending champions Leinster 20–10 in the final. Saracens were in breach of the Premiership salary cap during this edition and the previous year, in which they qualified for the 2018–19 cup. However, the EPCR have confirmed that Premiership ruling will not affect the results of the Heineken Champions Cup for 2018–19 or previous years, stating: "The Saracens decision is based on Gallagher Premiership Rugby regulations and does not affect the club's European record or current status in the Heineken Champions Cup." There were no Saracens representatives at the launch of the 2019–20 competition, held in Cardiff on 6 November 2019. EPCR released a statement saying they were "disappointed to learn of Saracens' decision to make their club representatives unavailable for today's official 2019–20 season launch".


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic the 2020–21 competition took on a revised format. A similar but revised 24 team format will remain for 2021–22.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Typically, a total of 24 teams qualify for the competition, the same number as used to qualify for the Heineken Cup. At least 23 of the 24 teams qualify automatically based on position in their respective leagues. The winner of the Challenge Cup will earn a place regardless of league position.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Until 2018–19, the final team each season qualified through a play-off competition between the best placed unqualified teams.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: For the pool stage teams are placed into pools via a draw. The teams are ranked based on domestic league performance the previous season, and arranged into four tiers. Teams are then drawn from the tiers into pools at random, with the restriction that no team will be drawn in the same pool as another team from the same league and tier.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Teams will play two other teams in their pool from a different league twice, at home and away, and match points will be awarded depending on the result of each game, with teams receiving four points for a win, and two for a draw. Teams can also earn bonus points for scoring four or more tries and/or for losing a match by seven points or fewer.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Following the completion of the pool stage, 16 teams qualify for the knock-out stage of the Champions Cup with a further 6 of the remaining 8 dropping into the Challenge Cup.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The sixteen remaining teams are seeded from 1–16 based on performance in their respective pool. The round of 16 is played over two legs with each team playing both home and away. The quarter-finals are unbracketed, and follow the standard 1v8, 2v7, 3v6, 4v5 format, as found in the Heineken Cup.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The winners of the quarter-finals will contest the two semi-finals, Up to and including the 2014–15 season, matches and home country advantage were determined by a draw by EPCR.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: In 2015–16, EPCR decided to put a new procedure in place. In lieu of the draw that used to determine the semi-final pairing, EPCR announced that the fixed semi-final bracket would be set in advance, and that the home team would be designated based on ""performances by clubs during the pool stages as well as the achievement of a winning a quarter-final match away from home"". Semi-final matches must have been played at a neutral ground in the designated home team's country.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Since 2018–19, the higher-seeded team will have home country/venue advantage for each semi-final regardless of whether they won their quarter-final at home or on the road. The EPCR may now also use its discretion to allow semi-finals to be played at a qualified club's home venue.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe the 2020–21 competition took on a revised format. In this edition, the teams were split up into two separate pools of 12, in which they would play four games against opponents from their pool, before the top four teams from each of the two pools advanced to the knockout stage, made up of two-legged quarterfinals, and a single legged semi-finals and final. However, due to the increasing spread of the virus, only two rounds were played before the competition was suspended, and instead the top eight teams from each of the two pools advanced to the knockout stage, with all matches being single-legged affairs.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: A similar format remained for 2021–22, with the top eight teams from each of the two pools advancing to the knockout stage, which featured a two-legged Round of 16 before a single-legged quarterfinals, semi-finals and final. The 2022-23 campaign will retain the same pool format, but, like 2020-21, all knockout stage games will be single-legged.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The competition has been dominated by the clubs of three nations, England, France and Ireland. No team from the other nations represented have ever won the trophy, and Cardiff RFC is the only team from outside the 'Big Three' to reach the final, losing in the inaugural final. Eight of the finals have been competed by teams from a single country; six all-French finals (four of these won by Toulouse), one all-England and one all-Ireland final.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: English and French rugby union clubs had long held concerns over the format and structure of the Heineken Cup organised by European Rugby Cup (ERC), predominantly in relation to the distribution of funds and an imbalance in the qualification process. Some proposals had been made that, in future, rather than Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Italy each sending their top-placed teams in the Pro14 to the Heineken Cup, the top teams from the league as a whole should be sent, regardless of nationality. This founding principle was eventually conceded however, when it was agreed that the top-placed teams from the four should participate in the new European competition.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: In June 2012, following that year's final, Premiership Rugby and the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR), on behalf of the English and French clubs respectively, gave ERC two years' notice of withdrawing from the Heineken Cup and also the second-tier Challenge Cup competitions from the start of the 2014–15 season. Soon after, in September, Premiership Rugby announced a new four-year TV deal worth £152 million with BT Sport including rights for English clubs' European games - which had previously been the sole responsibility of ERC. ERC responded with claims that Premiership Rugby did not have the rights to a European tournament and announced a four-year deal with Sky Sports. The actions of Premiership Rugby were said to have "thrown northern hemisphere rugby into disarray".


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Subsequently, in September 2013, the English and French clubs announced their intention to organise their own tournament, to be named the Rugby Champions Cup, from 2014 to 2015 season onwards, and invited other European clubs, provinces, and regions to join them. The IRB (now World Rugby) stepped into the debate at the same time to announce its opposition to the creation of a breakaway tournament. In October 2013, Regional Rugby Wales, on behalf of the four Welsh regions, confirmed its full support for the proposed new Rugby Champions Cup. Negotiations for both a new Heineken Cup and Rugby Champions Cup were then ongoing.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: On 10 April 2014, following almost two years of negotiations, a statement was released under the aegis of European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) announcing that the nine stakeholders to the new competition, the six unions, and three umbrella club organisations (Premiership Rugby, LNR, and Regional Rugby Wales), had signed Heads of Agreement for the formation of the European Rugby Champions Cup, the European Rugby Challenge Cup and a new, third tournament, initially called the Qualifying Competition and now known as the European Rugby Continental Shield. On the same day, BT and Sky announced an agreement that divided coverage of the new European competitions. Both will split the pool matches, quarter-finals, and semi-finals equally, and both will broadcast the final. BT will get first choice of English Premiership club matches in the Champions Cup, with Sky receiving the same privilege for the Challenge Cup.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Premiership Rugby and LNR were described as having employed "bully-boy tactics" by "The Irish Times".


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Shortly after the establishment of European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) to administer the new competition from a new base in Neuchatel, Switzerland, the running of the inaugural 2014–15 tournament was subcontracted to the organisation it had been meant to replace, Dublin-based European Rugby Cup (ERC). This was despite the latter having been described by chairman of Premiership Rugby, Quentin Smith, as "no longer fit for purpose". This was described as "something of an about-turn" by "The Daily Telegraph".


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: EPCR were still looking to hire a permanent chairman and director-general more than a year after their establishment.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The inaugural Champions Cup final was brought forward by three weeks due to a French desire not to interrupt their domestic playoffs. This was said to have "devalued" and "diminished the status of the occasion as the pinnacle of European club rugby".


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: While the 2015 Heineken Cup final had been due to take place at the San Siro in Milan, the first European final to take place in Italy, the new organisers decided to move it to Twickenham Stadium in London in order to "guarantee the best possible financial return to clubs". However, with less than two weeks to go before the final took place, it was reported that fewer than half of the stadium's 82,000 seats had been sold, with just 8,000 French supporters travelling to London to watch Toulon face Clermont. The organisers subsequently made "free" tickets available on Ticketmaster (with only a £2 booking fee applicable), before admitting to this being a mistake – the offer supposed to have been linked to a purchase of a Premiership final ticket. This was described as an "embarrassing fiasco" by the "Western Mail" in Wales. 56,622 fans subsequently attended the game. EPCR were said to have "failed on many levels" by "The Irish Times", with the attendance figure for the final "a fitting postscript to the hastily-convened decider to what was, after all the brinkmanship, a hastily-convened tournament".


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: During the creation of the Champions Cup, former organisers ERC had been criticised for "failing to maximise the commercial potential" of the Heineken Cup. New organisers EPCR pledged to move from a single title sponsor format to a Champions League-style partner system, with 2–3 primary partners projected for the inaugural tournament and 5 being the ultimate target. However, only Heineken agreed to sign up for the 2014–15 season, at a much reduced price from that which they had been paying previously.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Note that in the case of career statistics, only those clubs for which each player appeared in European Cup fixtures (i.e. Heineken Cup or Champions Cup) are listed.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The European Player of the Year award was introduced by ERC in 2010. Ronan O'Gara received the inaugural award, being recognised as the best player over the first 15 years of ERC tournaments. Following the creation of the European Rugby Champions Cup, the new organisers, EPCR, continued to award a Player of the Year accolade, with the first going to Nick Abendanon of Clermont Auvergne.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Crafted by Thomas Lyte, the trophy is made of mixed metals including sterling silver and 18ct gold plating. The cup is designed around the idea of the star representing European rugby, including the previous 19 seasons of European rugby, as the Heineken Cup.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The 13.5 kg, five-handled trophy, creates a star shape when viewed from the top, while when viewed from the side, the top of the trophy has a coronet effect, which designers said was to reflect the crowning of the Kings of Europe. The base of the trophy contains the crests of the 10 clubs that won the Heineken Cup, to further reinforce the link between the old and new European competitions


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: Between 2014–15 and 2017–18 EPCR was criticised for forcing fans in the United Kingdom and Ireland to subscribe to two pay-TV companies, Sky Sports and BT Sport, if they wanted to follow their teams in the Champions Cup from 2015. Coverage was split between the two in order to raise revenues, but this was said to have "diluted the focus and reduced the buzz around the event".


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: This lists the average attendances for each season's European Cup competition, as well as the total attendance and highest attendance for that season. The final is typically the most-attended match, as it is generally held in a larger stadium than any club's home venue.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The highest attended match of the 2002–03 competition was a quarter-final between Leinster and Biarritz before 46,000 fans at Lansdowne Road in Dublin.


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: The 2009 final held at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh was only the third most-attended match that season. The most-attended match was a semi-final between Irish rivals Leinster and Munster played in Croke Park in Dublin. The attendance of 82,208 set what was then a world record for a club match in the sport's history. Second on that season's list was a pool match between Stade Français and Harlequins that drew 76,569 to Stade de France in Paris (a venue that Stade Français has used for select home matches since 2005).


title: European Rugby Champions Cup

text: While the 2010–11 tournament's highest attended match was unsurprisingly the final, the second-highest attended match was notable in that it was held in Spain. Perpignan hosted Toulon in a quarter-final before a sellout crowd of 55,000 at the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, Spain.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Ilocos Norte, officially the Province of Ilocos Norte (; ), is a province of the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region. Its capital is Laoag City, located in the northwest corner of Luzon Island, bordering Cagayan and Apayao to the east, and Abra to the southeast, and Ilocos Sur to the southwest. Ilocos Norte faces the West Philippine Sea to the west and the Luzon Strait to the north.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Ilocos Norte is noted for its distinctive geography and culture. This includes numerous examples of well-preserved Spanish colonial era architecture, particularly Saint William's Cathedral in Laoag with its sinking bell tower done in the Earthquake Baroque style, the St. Augustine Church in Paoay which is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites in the Philippines and the Cape Bojeador Lighthouse. Famous geographical features include the La Paz Sand Dunes, the beaches of Pagudpud, and the eroded calcarenite Kapurpurawan rock formation in Burgos. It is the birthplace of several notable Philippine leaders including former President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Philippine Revolutionary War general Artemio Ricarte and Iglesia Filipina Independiente founder Gregorio Aglipay. Three wind farms are located in Ilocos Norte. They are located in Burgos, Pagudpud and Bangui with the latter being the first wind power generation plant in the Philippines.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Long before the arrival of the Spaniards there existed an extensive region consisting of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Abra and La Union. Merchants from Japan and China would often visit the area to trade gold for beads, ceramics and silk. The Austronesian inhabitants of the region called their place "samtoy", from "sao mi toy", which literally meant "our language".


title: Ilocos Norte

text: In 1571, the Spanish conquistadors had Manila under their control and they began looking for new sites to conquer. Miguel Lopez de Legazpi's grandson Juan de Salcedo volunteered to lead one of these expeditions. Together with 8 armed boats and 45 men the 22-year-old voyager headed north. On June 13, 1572, Salcedo and his men landed in present-day Vigan then proceeded to Laoag, Currimao and Badoc. As they sailed along the coast they were surprised to see numerous sheltered coves ("looc") where the locals lived in harmony. They named the region "Ylocos" and its people "Ylocanos".


title: Ilocos Norte

text: As the Christianization of the region grew so did the landscape of the area. Vast tracts of land were utilized for churches and bell towers in line with the Spanish mission of "bajo las campanas". In the town plaza it was not uncommon to see garrisons under the church bells. Indigenous peoples living in the Ilocos Region, such as the Yapayao and Isneg, were slowly pushed into living in the sparsely populated but resource-rich mountains, which would expose them to conflicts with developers in later eras, such as during Martial Law under Ferdinand Marcos.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Spanish colonization of the region was not completely successful. Owing to the abusive practices of many Augustinian friars a number of Ilocanos revolted. Noteworthy of these were the Dingras uprising (1589) and the Pedro Almasan revolt (San Nicolas, 1660). In 1762 Diego Silang led a series of battles aimed at freeing the Ilocano. When he died from his friendly fire his widow Gabriela continued his cause. She too was captured and executed.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: In 1807 the sugar cane ("basi") brewers of Piddig rose up in arms to protest the government's monopoly of the wine industry. In 1898 the church excommunicated Gregorio Aglipay for refusing to cut off ties with the revolutionary forces of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo. Unperturbed, he established the "Iglesia Filipina Independiente".


title: Ilocos Norte

text: In an effort to gain political control and because of the increasing population of the region, a Royal Decree was signed on February 2, 1818, splitting Ilocos into two provinces: Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur. Soon thereafter La Union and Abra became independent provinces.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: After the fall of Corregidor and the subsequent occupation of the Philippines by the Empire of Japan, a number of small guerilla groups formed in the area of Ilocos Norte, some of which resorted to banditry. Governor Roque Ablan Sr., with the help of Philippine Army Lt. Feliciano Madamba, was able to put together a guerilla unit to engage the Japanese forces and to rally the other guerilla groups into a common force. The leaders were assigned specific sectors using a system for distributing news and orders.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Ilocos Norte gained additional prominence in December 1965 when Ferdinand Marcos became president, and again when he won a second term in 1969, boosted by debt-driven infrastructure spending that created economic crises and massive social unrest at the beginning of the 1970s. Facing the end of his constitutionally allowed presidential terms, he declared martial law in 1972 and became dictator under a system of constitutional authoritarianism for fourteen more years. His family and cronies were accused of stealing an estimated US$5 billion to US$10 billion during the 1980s, when the Philippine economy went into a nosedive until Marcos was deposed by the civilian-led People Power Revolution of February 1986.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Various human rights violations were documented in the Ilocos Norte region during the Marcos martial law era, despite public perception that the region was supportive of Marcos' administration. Various farmers from the towns of Vintar, Dumalneg, Solsona, Marcos, and Piddig were documented to have been tortured, and eight farmers in Bangui and three indigenous community members in Vintar were "salvaged" in 1984.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: There were also various protests against the Marcos administration at the time, with Aurora Park in the Laoag Plaza being one of the favored places to stage protests. One of the prominent victims of the Martial Law era who came from Laoag was Catholic layperson and social worker Purificacion Pedro, who volunteered in organizations protesting the Chico River Dam Project in the nearby Cordillera Central mountains. Wounded while visiting activist friends in Bataan, she was later killed by Marcos administration soldiers while recuperating in the hospital. Another prominent opponent of the martial law regime was human rights advocate and Bombo Radyo Laoag program host David Bueno, who worked with the Free Legal Assistance Group in Ilocos Norte during the later part of the Marcos administration and the early part of the succeeding Aquino administration. He would later be assassinated by motorcycle-riding men in fatigue uniforms on October 22, 1987 – part of a wave of assassinations that coincided with the 1986-87 coup d'état that tried to unseat the democratic government set up after the 1986 People Power Revolution. Both Bueno and Pedro were later honored among the first 65 people to have their names inscribed on the Wall of Remembrance of the Philippines' Bantayog ng mga Bayani, which honors the martyrs and heroes who fought the dictatorship, and Pedro was listed among Filipino Catholics nominated to be named Servant of God.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: In 2005, NorthWind Power Development Corp. began commercial operation of the Bangui Wind Farm in the Municipality of Bangui, having initiated and developed the project in response to a 1996 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) which identified Bangui as one of the viable sites for wind energy sites in the Philippines. Connected to the Luzon Grid, the project was


title: Ilocos Norte

text: the first wind farm in Southeast Asia, supplying 40% of Ilocos Norte's electricity needs, and becoming a major tourist site for Bangui. AC Energy, the listed energy platform of the Ayala Group, acquired the controlling shares of Northwind and of the Bangui Wind Farm in 2017.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Ilocos Norte was among the provinces affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines, reporting its first three cases of COVID-19 on March 31, 2020, including a male patient each from Batac and Paoay, and former senator Bongbong Marcos, who had arrived from travel to Spain. Ilocos Norte experienced surges in cases in 2021, with the spike reported in August 2021 being attributed to the Delta variant of the virus.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Ilocos Norte covers a total area of occupying the northern tip of the Ilocos Region in Luzon. The province is bordered by Cagayan to the extreme northeast, Apayao to the east, and Abra to the southeast, Ilocos Sur to the southwest, the South China Sea to the west, and the Luzon Strait to the north.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Ilocos Norte comprises 21 municipalities and 2 component cities, further subdivided into 559 barangays. There are two legislative districts in the province. Updated classification of municipalities in Ilocos Norte. Updated Income Class of Ilocos Norte Municipalities


title: Ilocos Norte

text: The most populous barangay in the province is Barangay No. 1, San Lorenzo "(Poblacion)" in the City of Laoag with a population of 4,391 in the 2010 census. If cities are excluded, Davila in the municipality of Pasuquin has the highest population, at 3,900. The least populous is Sapat in the municipality of Pasuquin, with only 32.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Ilocos Norte is the home of the Aglipay Shrine (Aglipayan Church) where the church's first supreme leader was buried. There are also increasing members of Jehovah's Witnesses. There are also minor but steadily increasing members of Iglesia ni Cristo. Islam is also practiced by Mindanaoan traders and immigrants.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Aside from the national language and English, there are three indigenous languages in Ilocos Norte. There are the dominant "Ilokano language", the "Isnag language" of the east, and the "Faire Atta language" in Currimao.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: The "Faire Atta language" is listed as one of the 15 endangered languages of the Philippines according to the UNESCO "Atlas of the World's Endangered Languages". The Faire Atta language is listed as "Severely Endangered", with less than 300 speakers remaining. All remaining speakers of the language are part of the community's elders. Without a municipality-wide teaching mechanism of the Faire Atta language for the youth, the language may be extinct within 3-5 decades, making it a language in grave peril unless a teaching-mechanism is established by either the government or an educational institution in Currimao and nearby municipalities.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Ilocos Norte has given birth to numerous artists that have received national acclaim - perhaps the most notable being Philippine Revolution era activist and leader Juan Luna, who was born in Badoc. The province is also home to at least one National Artists of the Philippines - National Artist for Theater Severino Montano who was conferred the honor in 2001. Another influential artist was Ricarte Puruganan, one of the Philippines' influential "Thirteen Moderns," who broke away from the painting style of Conservatives, led by Fernando Amorsolo, during the first half of the 20th century.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: In the folk arts, the Philippines also recognizes Magdalena Gamayo of Pinili. Ilocos Norte as one of its National Living Treasures for textile weaving, preserving the Inabel weaving tradition of Northern Philippines.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: The town of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte is known for its Terra Cotta pottery, called Damili after the Ilocano language word for pottery. San Nicolas' pottery tradition has been declared part of the Philippine National Commission for Culture and the Arts' School of Living Traditions program


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Ilocos Norte is a center of the Inabel weaving tradition, whose cloths are well known for being soft but sturdy, with a wide range of pattern designs drawn from Ilocano culture and experience


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Preeminent Philippine culinary historian Doreen Fernandez notes that Bitterness as a flavor principle is a uniquely prominent in Ilocano culture, quoting fellow food critic Edilberto Alegre saying the bitter "Ilocos Norte mystique" is best represented in Papait, a meat variant of Filipino Kilawin characterized by its Bitter flavors.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Ilocos Norte is a tourist destination, being the location of Fort Ilocandia, hotel, resort and casino. Built between 1981 and 1983 by the Philippine Tourism Authority, the Spanish-Moroccan Villa was designed by Architect Jeorge Ramos. The golf course on Paoay Lake was built by Marcos in 1977 and was designed by Gary Player.


title: Ilocos Norte

text: Also of note are the La Paz Sand Dunes, Malacañang of the North, Cape Bojeador Lighthouse, Bangui Wind Farm, Saud Beach in Pagudpud and the Early Pliocene calcarenite Kapurpurawan Burgos Formation which was sculpted by wind and waves.


title: Weight training

text: Weight training is a common type of strength training for developing the strength, size of skeletal muscles and maintenance of strength. It uses the force of gravity in the form of weighted bars, dumbbells or weight stacks in order to oppose the force generated by muscle through concentric or eccentric contraction. Weight training uses a variety of specialized to target specific muscle groups and types of movement.


title: Weight training

text: Sports in which weight training is used include bodybuilding, weightlifting, powerlifting, strongman, highland games, hammer throw, shot put, discus throw, and javelin throw. Many other sports use strength training as part of their training regimen, notably: American football, baseball, basketball, canoeing, cricket, football, hockey, lacrosse, mixed martial arts, rowing, rugby league, rugby union, track and field, boxing, wrestling and judo.


title: Weight training

text: The genealogy of lifting can be traced back to the beginning of recorded history where humanity's fascination with physical abilities can be found among numerous ancient writings. In many prehistoric tribes, they would have a big rock they would try to lift, and the first one to lift it would inscribe their name into the stone. Such rocks have been found in Greek and Scottish castles. Progressive resistance training dates back at least to Ancient Greece, when legend has it that wrestler Milo of Croton trained by carrying a newborn calf on his back every day until it was fully grown. Another Greek, the physician Galen, described strength training exercises using the halteres (an early form of dumbbell) in the 2nd century.


title: Weight training

text: Ancient Greek sculptures also depict lifting feats. The weights were generally stones, but later gave way to dumbbells. The dumbbell was joined by the barbell in the later half of the 19th century. Early barbells had hollow globes that could be filled with sand or lead shot, but by the end of the century these were replaced by the plate-loading barbell commonly used today.


title: Weight training

text: Another early device was the Indian club, which came from ancient India, where it was called the "mugdar" or <nowiki>"gada"</nowiki>. It subsequently became popular during the 19th century, and has recently made a comeback in the form of the clubbell.


title: Weight training

text: Weightlifting was first introduced in the Olympics in the 1896 Athens Olympic Games as a part of track and field, and was officially recognized as its own event in 1914.


title: Weight training

text: The 1960s saw the gradual introduction of exercise machines into the still-rare strength training gyms of the time. Weight training became increasingly popular in the 1970s, following the release of the bodybuilding movie "Pumping Iron," and the subsequent popularity of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since the late 1990s, increasing numbers of women have taken up weight training; currently, nearly one in five U.S. women engage in weight training on a regular basis.


title: Weight training

text: The basic principles of weight training are essentially identical to those of strength training, and involve a manipulation of the number of repetitions (reps), sets, tempo, exercise types, and weight moved to cause desired increases in strength, endurance, and size. The specific combinations of reps, sets, exercises, and weights depends on the aims of the individual performing the exercise.


title: Weight training

text: In addition to the basic principles of "strength training", a further consideration added by weight training is the equipment used. Types of equipment include barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, pulleys and stacks in the form of weight machines, and the body's own weight in the case of chin-ups and push-ups. Different types of weights will give different types of resistance, and often the same absolute weight can have different relative weights depending on the type of equipment used. For example, lifting 10 kilograms using a dumbbell sometimes requires more force than moving 10 kilograms on a weight stack if certain pulley arrangements are used. In other cases, the weight stack may require more force than the equivalent dumbbell weight due to additional torque or resistance in the machine. Additionally, although they may display the same weight stack, different machines may be heavier or lighter depending on the number of pulleys and their arrangements.


title: Weight training

text: Weight training also requires the use of proper or 'good form', performing the movements with the appropriate muscle group, and not transferring the weight to different body parts in order to move greater weight (called 'cheating'). Failure to use good form during a training set can result in injury or a failure to meet training goals. If the desired muscle group is not challenged sufficiently, the threshold of overload is never reached and the muscle does not gain in strength. At a particularly advanced level; however, "cheating" can be used to break through strength plateaus and encourage neurological and muscular adaptation.


title: Weight training

text: Weight training is a safe form of exercise when the movements are controlled and carefully defined. However, as with any form of exercise, improper execution and the failure to take appropriate precautions can result in injury. If injured, full recovery is suggested before starting to weight train again or it may result in a bigger injury.


title: Weight training

text: Maintaining proper form is one of the many steps in order to perfectly perform a certain technique. Correct form in weight training improves strength, muscle tone, and maintaining a healthy weight. Proper form will prevent any strains or fractures. When the exercise becomes difficult towards the end of a set, there is a temptation to cheat, i.e., to use poor form to recruit other muscle groups to assist the effort. Avoid heavy weight and keep the number of repetitions to a minimum. This may shift the effort to weaker muscles that cannot handle the weight. For example, the "squat" and the "deadlift" are used to exercise the largest muscles in the body—the leg and buttock muscles—so they require substantial weight. Beginners are tempted to round their back while performing these exercises. The relaxation of the spinal erectors which allows the lower back to round can cause shearing in the vertebrae of the lumbar spine, potentially damaging the spinal discs.


title: Weight training

text: Weight trainers spend time warming up their muscles before starting a workout. It is common to stretch the entire body to increase overall flexibility; many people stretch just the area being worked that day. It has been observed that static stretching can increase the risk of injury due to its analgesic effect and cellular damage caused by it. A proper warm-up routine, however, has shown to be effective in minimizing the chances of injury, especially if they are done with the same movements performed in the weight lifting exercise. When properly warmed up the lifter will have more strength and stamina since the blood has begun to flow to the muscle groups.


title: Weight training

text: In weight training, as with most forms of exercise, there is a tendency for the breathing pattern to deepen. This helps to meet increased oxygen requirements. Holding the breath or breathing shallowly is avoided because it may lead to a lack of oxygen, passing out, or an increase in blood pressure. Generally, the recommended breathing technique is to inhale when lowering the weight (the eccentric portion) and exhale when lifting the weight (the concentric portion). However, the reverse, inhaling when lifting and exhaling when lowering, may also be recommended. Some researchers state that there is little difference between the two techniques in terms of their influence on heart rate and blood pressure. It may also be recommended that a weight lifter simply breathes in a manner which feels appropriate.


title: Weight training

text: Deep breathing may be specifically recommended for the lifting of heavy weights because it helps to generate intra-abdominal pressure which can help to strengthen the posture of the lifter, and especially their core.


title: Weight training

text: In particular situations, a coach may advise performing the valsalva maneuver during exercises which place a load on the spine. The Valsalva maneuver consists of closing the windpipe and clenching the abdominal muscles as if exhaling, and is performed naturally and unconsciously by most people when applying great force. It serves to stiffen the abdomen and torso and assist the back muscles and spine in supporting the heavy weight. Although it briefly increases blood pressure, it is still recommended by weightlifting experts such as Rippetoe since the risk of a stroke by aneurysm is far lower than the risk of an orthopedic injury caused by inadequate rigidity of the torso. Some medical experts warn that the mechanism of building "high levels of intra-abdominal pressure (IAP)...produced by breath holding using the Valsalva maneuver", to "ensure spine stiffness and stability during these extraordinary demands", "should be considered only for extreme weight-lifting challenges — not for rehabilitation exercise".


title: Weight training

text: As with other sports, weight trainers should avoid dehydration throughout the workout by drinking sufficient water. This is particularly true in hot environments, or for those older than 65.


title: Weight training

text: Some athletic trainers advise athletes to drink about every 15 minutes while exercising, and about throughout the day.


title: Weight training

text: However, a much more accurate determination of how much fluid is necessary can be made by performing appropriate weight measurements before and after a typical exercise session, to determine how much fluid is lost during the workout. The greatest source of fluid loss during exercise is through perspiration, but as long as fluid intake is roughly equivalent to the rate of perspiration, hydration levels will be maintained.


title: Weight training

text: Under most circumstances, sports drinks do not offer a physiological benefit over water during weight training. However, high-intensity exercise for a continuous duration of at least one hour may require the replenishment of electrolytes which a sports drink may provide.


title: Weight training

text: Insufficient hydration may cause lethargy, soreness or muscle cramps. The urine of well-hydrated persons should be nearly colorless, while an intense yellow color is normally a sign of insufficient hydration.


title: Weight training

text: An exercise should be halted if marked or sudden pain is felt, to prevent further injury. However, not all discomfort indicates injury. Weight training exercises are brief but very intense, and many people are unaccustomed to this level of effort. The expression "no pain, no gain" refers to working through the discomfort expected from such vigorous effort, rather than to willfully ignore extreme pain, which may indicate serious soft tissue injuries. The focus must be proper form, not the amount of weight lifted.


title: Weight training

text: Discomfort can arise from other factors. Individuals who perform large numbers of repetitions, sets, and exercises for each muscle group may experience a burning sensation in their muscles. These individuals may also experience a swelling sensation in their muscles from increased blood flow also known as edema (the "pump"). True muscle fatigue is experienced as loss of power in muscles due to a lack of ATP, the energy used by our body, or a marked and uncontrollable loss of strength in a muscle, arising from the nervous system (motor unit) rather than from the muscle fibers themselves. Extreme neural fatigue can be experienced as temporary muscle failure. Some weight training programs, such as Metabolic Resistance Training, actively seek temporary muscle failure; evidence to support this type of training is mixed at best. Irrespective of their program, however, most athletes engaged in high-intensity weight training will experience muscle failure during their regimens.


title: Weight training

text: Beginners are advised to build up slowly to a weight training program. Untrained individuals may have some muscles that are comparatively stronger than others; nevertheless, an injury can result if (in a particular exercise) the primary muscle is stronger than its stabilizing muscles. Building up slowly allows muscles time to develop appropriate strengths relative to each other. This can also help to minimize delayed onset muscle soreness. A sudden start to an intense program can cause significant muscular soreness. Unexercised muscles contain cross-linkages that are torn during intense exercise. A regimen of flexibility exercises should be implemented before and after workouts. Since weight training puts great strain on the muscles, it is necessary to warm-up properly. Kinetic stretching before a workout and static stretching after are a key part of flexibility and injury prevention.


title: Weight training

text: Anyone beginning an intensive physical training program is typically advised to consult a physician, because of possible undetected heart or other conditions for which such activity is contraindicated.


title: Weight training

text: Exercises like the bench press or the squat in which a failed lift can potentially result in the lifter becoming trapped under the weight are normally performed inside a power rack or in the presence of one or more spotters, who can safely re-rack the barbell if the weight trainer is unable to do so. In addition to spotters, knowledge of proper form and the use of safety bars can go a long way to keep a lifter from suffering injury due to a failed repetition.


title: Weight training

text: Weight training usually requires different types of equipment, but most commonly dumbbells, barbells, and weight machines. Various combinations of specific exercises, weights, and machines allow trainees to exercise the body in numerous ways.


title: Weight training

text: Free weights include dumbbells, barbells, medicine balls, sandbells, and kettlebells. Unlike weight machines, they do not constrain users to specific, fixed movements, and therefore require more effort from the individual's stabilizer muscles. It is often argued that free weight exercises are superior for precisely this reason. For example, they are recommended for golf players, since golf is a unilateral exercise that can break body balances, requiring exercises to keep the balance in muscles.


title: Weight training

text: There are a number of weight machines that are commonly found in neighborhood gyms. The Smith machine is a barbell that is constrained to vertical movement. The cable machine consists of two weight stacks separated by 2.5 metres, with cables running through adjustable pulleys (that can be fixed at any height so as to select different amounts of weight) to various types of handles. There are also exercise-specific weight machines such as the leg press. A multigym includes a variety of exercise-specific mechanisms in one apparatus.


title: Weight training

text: One limitation of many free weight exercises and exercise machines is that the muscle is working maximally against gravity during only a small portion of the lift. Some exercise-specific machines feature an oval cam (first introduced by Nautilus) which varies the resistance, so that the resistance, and the muscle force required, remains constant throughout the full range of motion of the exercise.


title: Weight training

text: Weight training is usually isotonic in nature. This means that there is a specific muscle being used and contracting due to a weight, leading to muscle contractions in that area of the body. This can be contrasted with isometric exercise where the joint angles remain constant i.e. the exercise is static in nature and involves holding a posture. A weight training exercise may involve both isotonic and isometric elements i.e. squatting with weight usually involves bending and straightening the legs (an isotonic action) while holding the weight steady (an isometric action).


title: Weight training

text: Compound exercises work several muscle groups at once, and include movement around two or more joints. For example, in the "leg press", movement occurs around the hip, knee and ankle joints. This exercise is primarily used to develop the quadriceps, but it also involves the hamstrings, glutes and calves. Compound exercises are generally similar to the ways that people naturally push, pull and lift objects, whereas isolation exercises often feel a little unnatural.


title: Weight training

text: Each type of exercise has its uses. Compound exercises build the basic strength that is needed to perform everyday pushing, pulling and lifting activities. Isolation exercises are useful for "rounding out" a routine, by directly exercising muscle groups that cannot be fully exercised in the compound exercises. A good example of an isolation exercise would be a dumbbell curl, as its primary function is to strengthen the bicep.


title: Weight training

text: The type of exercise performed also depends on the individual's goals. Those who seek to increase their performance in sports would focus mostly on compound exercises, using isolation exercises to strengthen just those muscles that are holding the athlete back. Similarly, a powerlifter would focus on the specific compound exercises that are performed at powerlifting competitions. However, those who seek to improve the look of their body without necessarily maximizing their strength gains (including bodybuilders) would put more of an emphasis on isolation exercises. Both types of athletes, however, generally make use of both compound and isolation exercises.


title: Weight training

text: An isolation exercise is one where the movement is restricted to one joint only. The goal of the exercise is to target a certain muscle group. For example, the "leg extension" is an isolation exercise for the quadriceps. Specialized types of equipment are used to ensure that other muscle groups are only minimally involved—they just help the individual maintain a stable posture—and movement occurs only around the knee joint. Isolation exercises involve machines, dumbbells, barbells (free weights), and pulley machines. Pulley machines and free weights can be used when combined with special/proper positions and joint bracing. Isolation exercises are important to help improve muscles that could be lacking from compound movements.


title: Weight training

text: The following exercises can be performed with a barbell or dumbbells. For each of them, there exist numerous variations. Most weight training exercises can improve grip strength due to the gripping of the weights.


title: Weight training

text: A deadlift usually involves lifting a barbell from the floor up to thigh height. It is very effective at strengthening the legs, core and back. Along with squats, a person will usually be able to lift the greatest amount of weight with this lift. A special kind of hexagonal-shaped barbell called a trap bar (or hex bar) can be used to lift heavier weight and to maximize safety.


title: Weight training

text: The squat involves holding a barbell across the shoulders and upper back and squatting down and standing up again. It is very effective at building leg and core strength. Ordinarily, the bar is lifted out of a rack at just below shoulder height, to begin with. It is frequently mentioned as being the most effective single weight training exercise for building all-around physical strength. A front squat is a variation that involves holding the barbell in front of the torso and resting it on the tops of the shoulders and the upper chest.


title: Weight training

text: For the bench press a person lies with their back on a bench. They hold a barbell over their chest and lower and lift it. It is an exercise designed to strengthen the arms and upper body, especially the shoulders and chest.


title: Weight training

text: Bicep curls are usually performed with dumbbells and involve holding them at hip height before lifting them up to just over shoulder height with a bending action of the arm. They are used to strengthen the arms and especially the biceps.


title: Weight training

text: The overhead press involves holding dumbbells at just over shoulder height and pressing them upwards and lowering them again. This exercise is used to strengthen the arms, shoulders and upper body.


title: Weight training

text: A push–pull workout is a method of arranging a weight training routine so that exercises alternate between push motions and pull motions. A push–pull superset is two complementary segments (one pull/one push) done back-to-back. An example is bench press (push) / bent-over row (pull). Another push–pull technique is to arrange workout routines so that one day involves only push (usually chest, shoulders and triceps) exercises, and an alternate day only pull (usually back and biceps) exercises so the body can get adequate rest.


title: Weight training

text: Variable resistance training involves varying the resistance for different phases of a range of movement. This may be achieved by adding heavy chains or thick elastic bands to an exercise. For example, chains may be attached to the ends of a barbell during a bench press exercise. When the bar is lowered more of the chain rests on the floor resulting in less weight being lifted, and vice versa when the bar is raised. The elastic nature of bands can serve a similar function of increasing resistance. Another form of variable resistance training involves combining partial repetitions with a heavier weight with full repetitions with a lighter weight. The advantage of variable resistance training is that it more effectively strengthens the different phases of a persons strength curve for that movement. Strength curve is a graphical term which refers to the phases of strength which a person moves through when performing an exercise. For example, when a person is performing a back squat they are strongest at the top of the movement and weakest at the bottom. If they do a full squat at 1RM then this 1RM is based upon the lower weaker phase of the movement. As they have to move through this phase to complete a full rep, they cannot ordinarily lift a weight heavier than they can manage here. This is even though the weight they are lifting is only about 66% of their 1RM for the stronger phase. Variable resistance training provides a solution to this problem. By adding resistance during a repetition, or by combining heavier partial reps with lighter full reps, the same percentage of 1RM for both the stronger and weaker phase respectively can be lifted. A person following this training method may become stronger and more explosive as a result.


title: Weight training

text: Benefits of weight training include increased strength, muscle mass, endurance, bone and bone mineral density, insulin sensitivity, GLUT 4 density, HDL cholesterol, improved cardiovascular health and appearance, and decreased body fat, blood pressure, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.


title: Weight training

text: The body's basal metabolic rate increases with increases in muscle mass, which promotes long-term fat loss and helps dieters avoid yo-yo dieting. Moreover, intense workouts elevate metabolism for several hours following the workout, which also promotes fat loss.


title: Weight training

text: Weight training also provides functional benefits. Stronger muscles improve posture, provide better support for joints, and reduce the risk of injury from everyday activities. Older people who take up weight training can prevent some of the loss of muscle tissue that normally accompanies aging—and even regain some functional strength—and by doing so, become less frail. They may be able to avoid some types of physical disability. Weight-bearing exercise also helps to increase bone density to prevent osteoporosis. The benefits of weight training for older people have been confirmed by studies of people who began engaging in it even in their eighties and nineties.


title: Weight training

text: For many people in rehabilitation or with an acquired disability, such as following stroke or orthopedic surgery, strength training for weak muscles is a key factor to optimize recovery. For people with such a health condition, their strength training is likely to need to be designed by an appropriate health professional, such as a physiotherapist.


title: Weight training

text: Stronger muscles improve performance in a variety of sports. Sport-specific training routines are used by many competitors. These often specify that the speed of muscle contraction during weight training should be the same as that of the particular sport. Sport-specific training routines also often include variations to both free weight and machine movements that may not be common for traditional weightlifting.


title: Weight training

text: Though weight training can stimulate the cardiovascular system, many exercise physiologists, based on their observation of optimal oxygen uptake, argue that aerobics training is a better cardiovascular stimulus. Central catheter monitoring during resistance training reveals increased cardiac output, suggesting that strength training shows potential for cardiovascular exercise. However, a 2007 meta-analysis found that, though aerobic training is an effective therapy for heart failure patients, combined aerobic and strength training is ineffective; "the favorable antiremodeling role of aerobic exercise was not confirmed when this mode of exercise was combined with strength training".


title: Weight training

text: One side-effect of any intense exercise is increased levels of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine, which can help to improve mood and counter feelings of depression.


title: Weight training

text: Weight training has also been shown to benefit dieters as it inhibits lean body mass loss (as opposed to fat loss) when under a caloric deficit. Weight training also strengthens bones, helping to prevent bone loss and osteoporosis. By increasing muscular strength and improving balance, weight training can also reduce falls by elderly persons. Weight training is also attracting attention for the benefits it can have on the brain, and in older adults, a 2017 meta analysis found that it was effective in improving cognitive performance.


title: Weight training

text: Weight training is a key component to maintain strength and size. To maintain size, the level of intensity of workouts will go down and number of calories can decrease due to less activity. Time spent in the gym can decrease to give the body more time to rest.


title: Weight training

text: Studies also show that weight training has significant benefits for an individual's mental health. Strength training has shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and insomnia.


title: Weight training

text: The benefits of weight training overall are comparable to most other types of strength training: increased muscle, tendon and ligament strength, bone density, flexibility, tone, metabolic rate, and postural support. This type of training will also help prevent injury for athletes. There are benefits and limitations to weight training as compared to other types of strength training. Contrary to popular belief, weight training can be beneficial for both men and women.


title: Weight training

text: Although weight training is similar to bodybuilding, they have different objectives. Bodybuilders use weight training to develop their muscles for size, shape, and symmetry regardless of any increase in strength for competition in bodybuilding contests; they train to maximize their muscular size and develop extremely low levels of body fat. In contrast, many weight trainers train to improve their strength and anaerobic endurance while not giving special attention to reducing body fat far below normal.


title: Weight training

text: In complex training, weight training is typically combined with plyometric exercises in an alternating sequence. Ideally, the weight lifting exercise and the plyometric exercise should move through similar ranges of movement i.e. a back squat at 85-95% 1RM followed by a vertical jump. An advantage of this form of training is that it allows the intense activation of the nervous system and increased muscle fiber recruitment from the weight lifting exercise to be utilized in the subsequent plyometric exercise; thereby improving the power with which it can be performed. Over a period of training, this may enhance the athlete's ability to apply power. The plyometric exercise may be replaced with a sports specific action. The intention being to utilize the neural and muscular activation from the heavy lift in the sports specific action, in order to be able to perform it more powerfully. Over a period of training this may enhance the athlete's ability to perform that sports specific action more powerfully, without a precursory heavy lift being required.


title: Weight training

text: Ballistic training involves throwing a weight such as a medicine ball or slam ball. The ball may be thrown as far as possible, or thrown into a wall and caught on the rebound etc. Whilst the term ballistic strictly refers to throwing, in its modern usage as a categorical term it is sometimes construed more broadly. In such cases ballistic training can be said to focus on maximizing the acceleration phase of a movement and minimizing the deceleration phase. This is done in order to increase the power of the movement overall. For example, throwing a weight, jumping whilst holding a weight, or swinging a weight. These actions can be contrasted with standard weight lifting exercises where there is a distinct deceleration phase at the end of the repetition which stops the weight from moving.


title: Weight training

text: Weighted jumps, also known as loaded plyometrics, involve jumping whilst holding a weight, such as a trap bar or dumbbells, or jumping while wearing a weight such as a weighted vest or ankle weights. Weighted jumps are commonly used in a training regime to increase explosive power. Many sports such as rugby, gridiron, and others recommend their players do plyometric training to train explosive power.


title: Weight training

text: Contrast loading is the alternation of heavy and light loads. Considered as sets, the heavy load is performed at about 85-95% 1 repetition max; the light load should be considerably lighter at about 30-60% 1RM. Both sets should be performed fast with the lighter set being performed as fast as possible. The joints should not be locked as this inhibits muscle fiber recruitment and reduces the speed at which the exercise can be performed. The lighter set may be a loaded plyometric exercise such as loaded squat jumps or jumps with a trap bar.


title: Weight training

text: Similarly to complex training, contrast loading relies upon the enhanced activation of the nervous system and increased muscle fiber recruitment from the heavy set, to allow the lighter set to be performed more powerfully. A physiological effect is commonly referred to as post-activation potentiation, or the PAP effect. Contrast loading can effectively demonstrate the PAP effect: if a light weight is lifted, and then a heavy weight is lifted, and then the same light weight is lifted again, then the light weight will feel lighter the second time it has been lifted. This is due to the enhanced PAP effect which occurs as a result of the heavy lift being utilized in the subsequent lighter lift; thus making the weight feel lighter and allowing the lift to be performed more powerfully.


title: Weight training

text: Isometric exercise provides a maximum amount of resistance based on the force output of the muscle, or muscles pitted against one another. This maximum force maximally strengthens the muscles over all of the joint angles at which the isometric exercise occurs. By comparison, weight training also strengthens the muscle throughout the range of motion the joint is trained in, but only maximally at one angle, causing a lesser increase in physical strength at other angles from the initial through terminating joint angle as compared with isometric exercise. In addition, the risk of injury from weights used in weight training is greater than with isometric exercise (no weights), and the risk of asymmetric training is also greater than with isometric exercise of identical opposing muscles.


title: Autoregressive integrated moving average

text: In statistics and econometrics, and in particular in time series analysis, an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model is a generalization of an autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model. Both of these models are fitted to time series data either to better understand the data or to predict future points in the series (forecasting). ARIMA models are applied in some cases where data show evidence of non-stationarity in the sense of mean (but not variance/autocovariance), where an initial differencing step (corresponding to the "integrated" part of the model) can be applied one or more times to eliminate the non-stationarity of the mean function (i.e., the trend). When the seasonality shows in a time series, the seasonal-differencing could be applied to eliminate the seasonal component. Since the ARMA model, according to the Wold's decomposition theorem, is theoretically sufficient to describe a regular (a.k.a. purely nondeterministic) wide-sense stationary time series, we are motivated to make stationary a non-stationary time series, e.g., by using differencing, before we can use the ARMA model. Note that if the time series contains a predictable sub-process (a.k.a. pure sine or complex-valued exponential process), the predictable component is treated as a non-zero-mean but periodic (i.e., seasonal) component in the ARIMA framework so that it is eliminated by the seasonal differencing.


text: The part of ARIMA indicates that the evolving variable of interest is regressed on its own lagged (i.e., prior) values. The part indicates that the regression error is actually a linear combination of error terms whose values occurred contemporaneously and at various times in the past. The (for "integrated") indicates that the data values have been replaced with the difference between their values and the previous values (and this differencing process may have been performed more than once). The purpose of each of these features is to make the model fit the data as well as possible.


text: Non-seasonal ARIMA models are generally denoted ARIMA("p","d","q") where parameters "p", "d", and "q" are non-negative integers, "p" is the order (number of time lags) of the autoregressive model, "d" is the degree of differencing (the number of times the data have had past values subtracted), and "q" is the order of the moving-average model. Seasonal ARIMA models are usually denoted ARIMA("p","d","q")("P","D","Q"), where "m" refers to the number of periods in each season, and the uppercase "P","D","Q" refer to the autoregressive, differencing, and moving average terms for the seasonal part of the ARIMA model.


text: When two out of the three terms are zeros, the model may be referred to based on the non-zero parameter, dropping "", "" or "" from the acronym describing the model. For example, is , is , and is .


text: Given time series data "X" where "t" is an integer index and the "X" are real numbers, an formula_1 model is given by


text: where formula_4 is the lag operator, the formula_5 are the parameters of the autoregressive part of the model, the formula_6 are the parameters of the moving average part and the formula_7 are error terms. The error terms formula_7 are generally assumed to be independent, identically distributed variables sampled from a normal distribution with zero mean.


text: Assume now that the polynomial formula_9 has a unit root (a factor formula_10) of multiplicity "d". Then it can be rewritten as:


text: An ARIMA("p","d","q") process expresses this polynomial factorisation property with "p"="p'−d", and is given by:


text: and thus can be thought as a particular case of an ARMA("p+d","q") process having the autoregressive polynomial with "d" unit roots. (For this reason, no process that is accurately described by an ARIMA model with "d" > 0 is wide-sense stationary.)


text: The explicit identification of the factorisation of the autoregression polynomial into factors as above, can be extended to other cases, firstly to apply to the moving average polynomial and secondly to include other special factors. For example, having a factor formula_15 in a model is one way of including a non-stationary seasonality of period "s" into the model; this factor has the effect of re-expressing the data as changes from "s" periods ago. Another example is the factor formula_16, which includes a (non-stationary) seasonality of period 2. The effect of the first type of factor is to allow each season's value to drift separately over time, whereas with the second type values for adjacent seasons move together.


text: Identification and specification of appropriate factors in an ARIMA model can be an important step in modelling as it can allow a reduction in the overall number of parameters to be estimated, while allowing the imposition on the model of types of behaviour that logic and experience suggest should be there.


text: A stationary time series's properties do not depend on the time at which the series is observed. Specifically, for a wide-sense stationary time series, the mean and the variance/autocovariance keep constant over time. Differencing in statistics is a transformation applied to a non-stationary time-series in order to make it stationary "in the mean sense" (viz., to remove the non-constant trend), but having nothing to do with the non-stationarity of the variance or autocovariance. Likewise, the seasonal differencing is applied to a seasonal time-series to remove the seasonal component. From the perspective of signal processing, especially the Fourier spectral analysis theory, the trend is the low-frequency part in the spectrum of a non-stationary time series, while the season is the periodic-frequency part in the spectrum of it. Therefore, the differencing works as a high-pass (i.e., low-stop) filter and the seasonal-differencing as a comb filter to suppress the low-frequency trend and the periodic-frequency season in the spectrum domain (rather than directly in the time domain), respectively.


text: To difference the data, the difference between consecutive observations is computed. Mathematically, this is shown as


text: Differencing removes the changes in the level of a time series, eliminating trend and seasonality and consequently stabilizing the mean of the time series.


text: Sometimes it may be necessary to difference the data a second time to obtain a stationary time series, which is referred to as second-order differencing:


text: Another method of differencing data is seasonal differencing, which involves computing the difference between an observation and the corresponding observation in the previous season e.g a year. This is shown as:


text: Some well-known special cases arise naturally or are mathematically equivalent to other popular forecasting models. For example:


text: The order p and q can be determined using the sample autocorrelation function (ACF), partial autocorrelation function (PACF), and/or extended autocorrelation function (EACF) method.


text: Other alternative methods include AIC, BIC, etc. To determine the order of a non-seasonal ARIMA model, a useful criterion is the Akaike information criterion (AIC). It is written as


text: where "L "is the likelihood of the data, "p "is the order of the autoregressive part and "q "is the order of the moving average part. The "k" represents the intercept of the ARIMA model. For AIC, if "k" = 1 then there is an intercept in the ARIMA model ("c "≠ 0) and if "k "= 0 then there is no intercept in the ARIMA model ("c "= 0).


text: The objective is to minimize the AIC, AICc or BIC values for a good model. The lower the value of one of these criteria for a range of models being investigated, the better the model will suit the data. The AIC and the BIC are used for two completely different purposes. While the AIC tries to approximate models towards the reality of the situation, the BIC attempts to find the perfect fit. The BIC approach is often criticized as there never is a perfect fit to real-life complex data; however, it is still a useful method for selection as it penalizes models more heavily for having more parameters than the AIC would.


text: AICc can only be used to compare ARIMA models with the same orders of differencing. For ARIMAs with different orders of differencing, RMSE can be used for model comparison.


text: Now forecasts can be made for the process formula_28, using a generalization of the method of autoregressive forecasting.


text: The forecast intervals (confidence intervals for forecasts) for ARIMA models are based on assumptions that the residuals are uncorrelated and normally distributed. If either of these assumptions does not hold, then the forecast intervals may be incorrect. For this reason, researchers plot the ACF and histogram of the residuals to check the assumptions before producing forecast intervals.


text: A number of variations on the ARIMA model are commonly employed. If multiple time series are used then the formula_36 can be thought of as vectors and a VARIMA model may be appropriate. Sometimes a seasonal effect is suspected in the model; in that case, it is generally considered better to use a SARIMA (seasonal ARIMA) model than to increase the order of the AR or MA parts of the model. If the time-series is suspected to exhibit long-range dependence, then the "d" parameter may be allowed to have non-integer values in an autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average model, which is also called a Fractional ARIMA (FARIMA or ARFIMA) model.


text: Various packages that apply methodology like Box–Jenkins parameter optimization are available to find the right parameters for the ARIMA model.


title: Hindi Medium

text: Hindi Medium is a 2017 Indian Hindi-language comedy-drama film written and directed by Saket Chaudhary, and produced by Dinesh Vijan and Bhushan Kumar under their respective banners Maddock Films and T-Series. It stars Irrfan Khan, Saba Qamar, Dishita Sehgal, Deepak Dobriyal and Amrita Singh. Set in Delhi, the plot centres on a couple's struggle to get their daughter admitted to a prestigious English-medium school in order to rise in society.


title: Hindi Medium

text: The idea for the film was created by Chaudhary and his co-writer Zeenat Lakhani during the development of his previous film "Shaadi Ke Side Effects" (2014). It was shot in Chandni Chowk, Anand Lok, Karol Bagh, and Sangam Vihar. The film's soundtrack album was composed by the duo Sachin–Jigar, with lyrics by Priya Saraiya and Kumaar. The score was composed by Amar Mohile. Cinematography was handled by Laxman Utekar, and A. Sreekar Prasad edited the film.


title: Hindi Medium

text: Made on a production budget of crore, "Hindi Medium" released on 19 May 2017, and received a generally positive reception from the critics, with particular praise for the cast performances. The film grossed at the worldwide box office (mostly from China), making it the 38th highest-grossing Indian film of all time. At the 63rd Filmfare Awards, it won Best Film, and Best Actor for Khan. A spiritual successor, "Angrezi Medium" was released theatrically on 13 March 2020.


title: Hindi Medium

text: Raj Batra is a successful boutique owner who lives in the old delhi neighbourhood of Chandni Chowk with his wife Meeta Batra and his 5-year-old daughter, Pia Batra. The couple wants Pia to be admitted to a prestigious English-medium school in Delhi as they feel that this will enable her to become a part of the elite of society. They decide on Delhi Grammar School, which ranked the best in the city, but it requires that students must stay within a 3-km radius of the school. They move to a posh villa in Delhi's upscale Vasant Vihar neighbourhood and try to become more refined in their manner. A consultant, Saumya, despite her misgivings about them, tutors them in the answers to be given in the admission interview, but their limited knowledge of English means Pia's application is rejected.


title: Hindi Medium

text: Raj and Meeta learn from an employee that his daughter has been admitted through the RTE quota, a scheme that helps children from poor families to be admitted to prestigious schools. After a scam reveals that rich parents are gaming the quota to admit their children, they move to Bharat Nagar, a slum area, for a month and pretend to be poor. They strike a friendship with Shyam Prakash and Tulsi Prakash, who are hopeful that their son Mohan Prakash gets to study at Delhi Grammar School through the RTE quota. Shyam and Tulsi teach them to live like truly poor people, and Raj joins Shyam at work. However, while Pia eventually gets admission, Mohan's application is rejected.


title: Hindi Medium

text: Raj, Meeta & Pia return to Vasant Vihar. Raj and Meeta make a donation to the Bharat Nagar Government School, where Mohan studies, to renovate it and get new books. After watching their son become fluent in English, Shyam and Tulsi search for the identity of the anonymous donor to thank them. However, when he visits the donor's address in Vasant Vihar, Shyam finds out the truth about Raj pretending to be poor to enable Piaa's admission and leaves to tell Delhi Grammar School's principal Lodha Singhania of Raj's deceit.


title: Hindi Medium

text: Raj and Meeta rush to Delhi Grammar School to get there before Shyam but fail. Shyam, reaching there first, tries to find the principal's office but meets Pia instead, where Shyam endures an emotional moment with her and decides not to tell the principal, but Raaj reacts with guilt for what he has done. Finally, Raj goes to the principal and asks for Piaa's admission to be revoked, while telling the truth, but the principal rejects him. Raj gatecrashes the Annual Day function, gives a speech about English in India and education rights, and leaves, with no one clapping for him, except Meeta. On their way out, Raj & Meeta tell the principal of the Bharat Nagar Government School that they plan to admit Pia to his school to study with Mohan.


title: Hindi Medium

text: Made on a production budget of crore, "Hindi Medium" was produced by Vijan of Maddock Films and Bhushan Kumar of T-Series. The film was directed by Chaudhary, his third after romantic comedy films "Pyaar Ke Side Effects" (2006) and "Shaadi Ke Side Effects" (2014). He came up with the idea of making a film about India's education system with his co-writer Zeenat Lakhani during the development of the latter film. They found the idea too extensive to include in "Shaadi Ke Side Effects", so after its release, they decided to incorporate the idea into a separate film. Stating the reason to make "Hindi Medium", Chaudhary said, "The subject is so relevant. We realised that today irrespective of the background of the parent, they still want to have the best education for the children."


title: Hindi Medium

text: Pre-production work began after the release of "Shaadi Ke Side Effects". Chaudhary began working on the story at that time, and he chose Delhi as the film's key location. The production crew consisted primarily of people Chaudhary had worked with on "Pyaar Ke Side Effects" and "Shaadi Ke Side Effects", with the exception of production designer Mustafa Stationwala—they are editor A. Sreekar Prasad; dialogue writer Amitosh Nagpal; and cinematographer Laxman Utekar. The score was composed by Amar Mohile.


title: Hindi Medium

text: On 29 May 2016, News18 reported the casting of Saba Qamar in the film, which marked her Bollywood debut. Khan had recommended the casting of Qamar to the makers of the film. He said, "When I saw her YouTube videos, I recommended her to the director and producer and they really liked her". Speaking about her role, Qamar said, "I play a person who didn't get an opportunity to fulfil her dreams so she comes up with a scheme about giving the daughter a life that she didn't have".


title: Hindi Medium

text: Khan commented that he had accepted the role as it tackled the realistic subject of the challenges of obtaining a good education in India.


title: Hindi Medium

text: Qamar arrived in Mumbai from Pakistan in July 2016, and the film's principal photography began in the same month. The film was shot in Chandni Chowk, Anand Lok, Karol Bagh, and Sangam Vihar. The shooting was completed in October 2016. A song sequence was also filmed in Georgia. Qamar commented that she enjoyed working with Khan, and felt safe while shooting in Delhi. In the same interview with Pakistani newspaper "Dawn", she commented that her experience wasn't affected by the nationalist far-right political party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena's hostility towards Pakistan at the time.


title: Hindi Medium

text: "Hindi Medium"'s soundtrack consists of two original compositions: "Hoor" and "Ek Jindari", which were produced by Sachin–Jigar. The songs were written by Priya Saraiya and Kumaar, whereas Atif Aslam and Taniskaa Sanghvi, rendered the vocals. In addition to the original tracks, the makers recreated two songs: "Suit Suit", written and sung by Guru Randhawa and Arjun and composed by Randhawa and Rajat Nagpal, and "Oh Ho Ho Ho", composed by Sukhbir and Abhijit Vaghani, sung by Sukhbir, rapped by Ikka Singh and written by Kumaar. The album rights of the film were acquired by T-Series, and it was released on 21 April 2017.


title: Hindi Medium

text: Joginder Tuteja of "Bollywood Hungama", rated the album a 3 out of 5 stars. He said that "the music of "Hindi Medium" turns out to be better than expected", and praised the inclusion of recreations of "Suit Suit" and "Oh Ho Ho Ho" as they were previously popular Punjabi songs. V. Lakshmi of "The Times of India" in a positive review of the album said that, "by the time the album ends, the listeners are left humming the tunes!". Suanshu Khurana of "The Indian Express" highlighted the song "Hoor" as the best song on the album. The track "Ek Jindari" was remade as "Ek Zindagi" for the spiritual successor "Angrezi Medium" (2020), thereby retaining the original composition and vocals from the track.


title: Hindi Medium

text: The film was initially scheduled to release on 12 May 2017, but was pushed by a week back, thereby clashing with "Half Girlfriend", scheduled for release on the same date. "Hindi Medium" was declared 'tax-free' in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.


title: Hindi Medium

text: In February 2018, following the success of "Dangal" (2016) and "Secret Superstar" (2017) in China, it was announced that "Hindi Medium" was to be released in China. "Hindi Medium" released in China on 4 April 2018 to coincide with the Qingming Festival. The film's Chinese title is 起跑线 ("Qi Pao Xian"), which means "The Starting Line".


title: Hindi Medium

text: The makers of the Bengali film "Ramdhanu" (2014), directed by the duo Nandita Roy and Shiboprosad Mukherjee, had launched a copyright case against "Hindi Medium", claiming that the storyline was similar to their film. In response to this, Chaudhary said "We have researched our script over a year and it is based on original material. I would request everyone involved to not rush to a judgement without ascertaining the facts. And the facts can easily be confirmed by watching the film." Roy and Mukherjee later withdrew their case.


title: Hindi Medium

text: "Hindi Medium" received a generally positive reception from critics, with particular praise for Khan's and Qamar's performances.


title: Hindi Medium

text: Rohit Bhatnagar of "Deccan Chronicle" called the film a "masterpiece" and praised Khan's and Qamar's acting. Rachit Gupta of "Filmfare" rated the film 4.5 out of 5 stars and said that it was a "refreshingly funny and brilliantly insightful film on parenting and education." Madhureeta Mukherjee of "The Times of India" highlighted the script, and the comedic elements of the film as its strengths. Rohit Vats of "Hindustan Times" giving 3.5 stars out of 5 stars, commented that "Khan asks the viewers to take a stand against faulty Indian education system". Samrudhi Ghosh of "India Today" gave 3 out of 5 stars, praising Khan's and Qamar's performances, said ""Hindi Medium" may use over-dramatised events to make its message hit home, but in spite of its hiccups, the film is not bogged down because of the performances and the humour". Smrity Sharma of "India.com" rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, and wrote: "Decent story, humour, a few heart tugging moments and effortless performances by Irrfan Khan, Saba Qamar and Deepak Dobriyal make the movie watchable." Shubhra Gupta of "The Indian Express" giving 2 out of 5 stars, praised Khan's acting however felt that the writing was "flat", and that some of the supporting characters were "more caricature than real".


title: Hindi Medium

text: "Hindi Medium" received a generally positive reception from critics outside of India. A reviewer for "Time Out" gave it 4 (out of 5) stars: "With all its merits, though, the film stumbles near the end with its overly sentimental conclusion." The reviewer concluded that "the film is one of the best Bollywood films". James Marsh of "South China Morning Post" rated it 3.5 stars out of 5 stars, calling it "a classical comedy of manners full of humour and playful performances". Sadaf Siddique of "Dawn" observed: "Chaudhary gets full marks for novelty, he fails to adequately flesh his ideas out".


title: Hindi Medium

text: Rajeev Masand of "CNN-IBN" gave 2.5 stars out of 5, commenting "Despite its shortcomings, the film is never unwatchable and benefits enormously from a winning performance by Irrfan Khan who makes his every moment on screen count. From his hilarious wooing of a mother-daughter pair of potential customers at his shop in the film's first half to his earnest amends on discovering his conscience late into the final act, he has you eating out of his palm. For Irrfan alone, Hindi Medium may be worth a watch."


title: Hindi Medium

text: The film emerged as a sleeper hit at the box office. Its worldwide gross was by July 2017. Within three days of its April 2018 release in China, "Hindi Medium" crossed at the Chinese box office, crossing the mark worldwide, becoming Khan's highest-grossing Hindi film, surpassing his 2013 release "The Lunchbox". By 16 April 2018, "Hindi Medium" had crossed the mark worldwide, becoming one of the top 20 highest-grossing Indian films at the time.


title: Hindi Medium

text: "Hindi Medium" collected on its opening day. It released on the same day as the much bigger budget film, "Half Girlfriend" (2017), which earned on the first day. Gradually, the film turned to be more successful than the former. After one week, the film grossed at the box office. The film grossed during its lifetime run in Indian theatres. It was one of 2017's top ten most commercially successful Hindi films in India.


title: Hindi Medium

text: The film grossed overseas in 2017. Following its April 2018 release in China, the film crossed overseas, becoming the seventh Indian film to cross the mark at the overseas box office. It also surpassed the overseas gross of 2018's highest-grossing Indian film "Padmaavat".


title: Hindi Medium

text: On its opening day in China, on 4 April 2018, the film grossed . "Hindi Medium" surpassed "Dangal" (2016) and "Bajrangi Bhaijaan" (2015) to have the second highest opening day for an Indian film in China, behind only "Secret Superstar" (2018). The film's opening three-day gross was .


title: Hindi Medium

text: The film's success is attributed to strong word-of-mouth, helped by a 9.1 rating at the Chinese ticketing website Maoyan, as well as Khan's recognition among Chinese audiences from international films such as "Jurassic World", "The Amazing Spider-Man", and "Life of Pi". The film grossed during its lifetime run at the Chinese box office. This made it the fourth highest-grossing Indian film in China (after "Dangal", "Secret Superstar" and "Bajrangi Bhaijaan"), until it was surpassed by the 2019 release of "Andhadhun" (2018) in China.


title: Hindi Medium

text: At the 63rd Filmfare Awards, the film garnered six nominations, winning for Best Film and Best Actor for Khan. Chaudhary won Best Director and Khan won for Best Actor at the 19th IIFA Awards. It received six nominations at the Zee Cine Awards.