Personal Trainer Singapore – Coach Jonathan Wong

I recently took a week “off” training as a deload before a basketball tournament (I love training but I had to take my own advice about how to deload for competition!). That means a week of light training and some conditioning work.

5 days from the basketball tournament I tried out a crossfit workout just for fun. It was what was posted on the crossfit website for that day. Also known as the “crossfit workout of the day”

It was called “DT” and it consists of

12 deadlifts at 70kg, 9 power cleans at 70kg and 6 push press/push jerk at 70kg.

Done for 5 rounds, with the fastest possible timing you can achieve.

I did this for 2 rounds and the time was about 4 minutes. But I stopped. Was I tired… yes… this was a tiring workout. But it was not the tiredness that stopped me.

It was the danger.

I am by no means an expert olympic lifter, but I’m decent and have a 120kg power clean, 125kg push press, and a 80kg clean (narrow) grip power snatch.

But by the second round, fatigue makes my technique really dangerous and bad. So I stopped.

In general, if you are doing conditioning work, don’t use olympic lifts for high reps because they are very techincally demanding. Use more simple movements like jump squats or Kettlebell swings to get the same benefits with much less risk of injury.

Some crossfit workouts are alright for conditioning and you can get fit doing them, but not this one.

There is always a risk to benefit ratio for every exercise and every exercise program. As a personal trainer or strength and conditioning coach, we need to weigh these risks to develop the best possible program for our clients.

There is a school of thought that says you should train to maximize difficulty without regard for techinque (let technique deprove as the workout progresses because it’s not as important as making things “hard”).

I don’t believe this is optimal. Here is the logical and wise train of thought…

1. The purpose of training in the end, is to improve, and be injury free. That means you need to lift heavy loads with perfect technique.
2. Imperfect technique leads to more injury which sets you back (and is PAINFUL!)
3. Imperfect technique means you have no clue if you are progressing because you will be able to use heavier weight with bad technique WITHOUT getting stronger.
4. There is no way to improve your technique if you are always doing things with poor form!
5. Finally and most importantly for you (assuming you are interested in progress and greatness rather than entertainment and stagnation) progress is MUCH faster to get to high levels of strength + technique by using perfect technique ALL THE TIME and slowly progressing your strength. Rather than using heavy loads with poor technique and slowly trying to improve your technique.

So the next time somebdoy asks you to “cheat” a rep, or to not use a tempo, or to continue a set even though your technique is breaking down. Tell them you care about your health and your progress and ask them to leave you alone!

Just a story, my friend who is a national level athlete was asked to try a high rep, technique optional workout using the Olympic lifts. This guy is strong, fit, lean and has great technique. But by the 8th rep he wisely stopped his set because his technique was breaking down. The “workout” actually wanted him to do 21 reps using whatever method necessary to get the weight up!

Imagine if one of the strongest people in Singapore stops his sets because of poor technique, you should too! And anyway NOBODY should be doing high rep olympic lifts above 6 reps…

Strength Training PREVENTS Injury Like This... But Only If You Do It Properly

Why do you exercise? Of course people tell me that they do it to look good, to stay healthy, to feel better, to fit into their clothes again, to show off to their old schoolmates at a reunion, to look good on their wedding day… true.

But when it comes down to it, each time you do a piece of exercise, it has to have a purpose.

Any exercise is better than watching TV all day… but you and I are both busy and don’t have time for sub-optimal training.

Each weight that you lift, each set of sprints that you do, each time you change workouts MUST HAVE A PURPOSE. I strongly discourage “random or buffet training” because if you train like that, you have NO CLUE if you are on your way to reaching your goals.

• Are olympic lifts like the snatch and the clean good? Yes!
• How about lifts like the squat, deadlift and presses? Yes!
• Chinups? Yes!
• Kettlebells… well sometimes:)
• Sprints? Yes!

Alot of things are “good” but its like food… if you wanted to have a nice dessert you might choose ice cream, cakes, red bean soup, bananna pancakes, pies, or any number of yummy foods.

Each nice on its own… but when mixed together and put into a blender, you get a messy slop that is yucky.

• So each time you choose an exercise – choose it for the muscles it trains.
• Each time you choose a rep range – choose it for its training effect and total time under tension.
• Each time you choose a rest interval – choose it depending if you want to develop power (rest longer) or capacity (rest shorter).
• Each time you plan a series of workouts, they are designed to build on each other for maximum progress, not to be a “surprise” that varies so often that you have no chance to track and assess.
• Each time you perform a rep – do it precisely and correctly, or else you have no idea if you are progressing!

I have had clients who claim to be able to do huge numbers of kipping chinups but their actual max chinup was very unimpressive. That makes them actaully weak… even though their skill at kipping seems to imply that they are good at chinups. They train properly for a few weeks and their max chinup goes through the roof…

Guess what? So does their kipping chinup:) It does not work the other way around.

A Rep is NOT a Rep unless it's done properly and consistently

Don’t worry, all these factors are taken into account in the Singapore’s best personal training programs as well as our fitness bootcamps. Your results are guaranteed because your progress is tracked, assessed and measured. There is no luck involved. Just results. Period.

One thing that I try to do to the best of my abiltiy is client’s program designs. While it is true that an average program done with great effort is better than a great program done with a slack attitude, all things being equal if you are on the right program for YOU, your results will be alot quicker!

Training Program Design Is NOT like going to a buffet and picking bits from here and there

The general idea is that your body adapts best when it is adapting to only ONE or a FEW stressors at one time. For e.g. you can’t get really good at triathlons and really good at discus throwing at the same time.

If you do some of everything, you are going to end up with less than optimal results in everything.

Of course you will be better than an untrained person and any exercise is better than none at all but it would be kidding yourself to think that you can get as much benefits from an unfocused program as you can from a focused one.

Many programs try to do too much. And clients get sub optimal results.

There is a difference between a program that “makes me puke” and a program that “makes me better”.

I prefer to make clients better!

If I wanted to get more muscular AND better at a 2.4km run AND able to do more chinups AND lose some extra fat on my belly AND jump higher. I would do them ONE BY ONE while maintaining the qualities that I have alreay gained.

If my program has…

• Lots of chinups every day
• a few 2-5km runs
• fat loss burpee and kettlebell intervals
• some olympic lifts
• and plyometric jumps…
• All at the same time…

I will be… above average but disappointed.

But if I do specific phases of fat loss for 4 weeks, Olympic lifting and power training 4 weeks, muscle growth 4 weeks, Plyometrics 2-4 weeks, and then finally a few longer runs to boost my 2.4km run, these 4 months will be ALOT more useful than a mixture of random exercises trying to do everything at once.

This is the science of program design that is brought into all our personal training programs. Even our group class fitness bootcamps have these elements in their program design.

That’s why we can guarantee results while keeping you injury free!

Im my previous post about the crossfit exercise program called “fran” I took 4 mins. But just 4 days later, I tried it again and took only 3 mins 3seconds! Woohoo. Still tough though…

Crossfit is a pretty popular training system across the world. It’s not really so much a system in Singapore, but rather its done by individuals in their own training sessions. I tried the crossfit workout named “fran”. This workout is done as fast as possible:
1.    21 thrusters with 95lb weights (I used a 50kg bar + plates so thats 110lbs… yeah I’m tough hehe!)
2.    21 Chin-ups (some swinging allowed)
3.    15 thrusters
4.    15 chin-ups
5.    9 thrusters
6.    9 chin-ups
My time was exactly 4 mins… I believe the record I have seen on the net is 2mins 37 sec… but 4 mins is not bad for a first time:) I just finished it and my heart is still racing as I type.

Take note though: Crossfit “Workouts of the day” are not for beginners and I don’t agree with some of them and how they are structured.

Sometimes, exercises like cleans and deadlifts are put together in the same workout, very close to each other (or maybe even right next to each other in sequence or pairings). This is not such a good idea beacuse of the lowe back fatigue and technical mastery needed for these exercises.

“Fran” though is safe enough. The exercises use different muscle groups and challenge both the upper and lower body muscles separately.

Will I use a circuit like the crossfit “fran” in some of my client’s programs? Possibly, but remember why circuits work for fat loss/conditioning in the first place…

Time under tension and lactic acid buildup. You can do this with a circuit for sure, but there are other ways as well like slow eccentrics. I believe those would be a better choice for most of the personal training clients I see.