I was in Sweden over the last week on a private internship with coach Poliquin for personal trainers and fat loss specialists. We learned alot about the customization of nutrition and training for rapid fat burning. One of the main things that I learned that has already helped me customize my own supplementation methods, is the use of supplements to improve neuro-transmitter balance. Different people have different dominant brain functions and when we realize this, we use different nutrients to help each person perform better.

Better brain function, better sleep, better motivation, better growth hormone output, better training focus, better results.

Results is what all our training programs aim to deliver!

Take this test called the “braverman” test. Print it out and do it honestly – after all, its for your own improvement. And tell me what your scores are in the comments below:)

Learning is a continuous process and it is necessary for excellence. After all, it has been estimated that in most fields, knowledge doubles every few years. Those who don’t learn get left behind. This is especially true in the fitness, and health arena.

This week I will be off again to the Eleiko Barbell factory in Sweden for a seminar on advanced methods of burning fat. The knowledge will be applied immediately once I get back so that our Singapore personal training clients, our Singapore fitness bootcamp clients (and myself!) will have even better fat burning workouts.

This is a practical course and we will be training 2x/day. I will bring along Amino acids, whey and carnitine to improve recovery. While recovering we will be doing some theory lessons.

Stay tuned for updates as the week goes along.

As many of you know I am a big fan of traveling light. This trip is no exception. No check in bags. No laptop. Just my Ipad. I have added incentive to do so as well because I plan to buy some “friction plates” and bring them back and I will need the extra weight allowance.

These are cool rubber weight plates that are “sticky” to the bar. They are the smaller sizes like 0.5kg to 2kg plates and when we use these plates, we don’t need to use bar collars any more! If you think about how expensive precisely made collars are… these plates are a pretty good deal. Here is coach Poliquin demonstrating them.

As you know from my previous posts about how training program design and sticking to tempo are important, our staff who run both the group training fitness bootcamp programs, and the personal training programs at our personal training and health center are very picky about not just exercising for the sake of exercising, but focusing on training that is precise and that will help to get you your weight loss or muscle building results.

I really want to thank our clients for noticing! One of them, Khim, just bought me a hammer as a symbol of how we “hammer” good habits into our clients:) – Hey tough love is part of coaching! I’m touched!

As for the new hair cut, it was a charity event raising money for kids with cancer – I might just keep this look for a while:)

We all know that people come in all shapes and sizes. And the differences can be very large. On one of my trips to attend a seminar, I met a guy who played professional American Football. He could bench press 140kg on an incline bench for 8 reps as a warmup. His shoulders were almost as wide as the bench press station, just about everything about him was big, even his fingers, and head.

No matter how much I train, I am physically incapable of achieving that sort of size.

So whats the point of this article?

I am often asked why we don’t count calories when we teach nutrition, or why we need to eat a certain amount of protein, fats, or carbohydrates to have success. Can’t we just eat a “balanced” meal of rice, some vegetables and a few pieces of meat and get great results.

Of course we can.

But only if our genetics allowed us to.

We have a client who weights 75kg, has sub 6% bodyfat (veins in thighs and calves and a nice 6-pack of abs) is strong and has a very nice looking physique.

He eats only 2 meals per day – or sometimes one, he trains with average consistency, and he sleeps only 4-5 hours per night. I am trying to get him to have better habits – imagine how awesome his strength and physique will be then!

That sounds easy! Why can’t we all do that?

Simple… genetically, we are less gifted.

He can – We cannot. Myself included.

He has an excellent metabolism, high levels of muscle building and fat burning hormones, strong detoxification ability and very good ability to tolerate carbohydrates of all kinds.

The rest of us have to follow our customized personal training programs, nutrition and lifestyle plans, detoxification plans and sleep plans closely to even get close to the physique that such a gifted individual has.

It can be done but it just takes more love – love of being healthy, strong and fit.

World record sprinter Usain Bolt’s meal before he broke the 100m world record at the 2008 Olympics was chicken McNuggets. That is by no means ideal nutrition. But he broke (totally smashed) the world record.

He Can – We Cannot.

Michael Phelps eats a high carb, high starch, 12000 calorie per day diet and wins multiple medals in Olympic swimming. (He also has long arms and flipper-like double jointed, big feet).

He Can – We Cannot.

People on the internet claim that weight loss is as easy as counting calories, eating less, and exercising more. This would work for a few gifted people (but still with less than optimal results)  but they are not the ones who will benefit from our personal training, nutrition coaching and Singapore fitness bootcamp services.

They Can – We Cannot.

It is those who have tried many methods but failed or who are frustrated with other kinds of fitness services who will benefit most.

I hope all this doesn’t discourage you! As an encouragement, I too am a former fat boy who is by no means a genetically gifted athlete. But being less gifted helps me to be diligent in searching the world for the best methods to help my clients and I get the best possible results from their training and lifestyle plans.

One of my fellow coaches from Texas, Luke Leaman pointed me to this article at consumerreports.org. While I don’t agree full with all the protein recommendations (I see better results with slightly higher protein content in food and less starches for most personal training fat loss or fitness bootcamp clients), this is a non-profit, unbiased lab test of some common protein brands.

Shocking levels of heavy metal toxicity and other toxins.

That is why I started a new website to sell only the best supplements in Singapore. I call it www.singaporesupplementstore.com. Check it out. As an extra service, my staff and I give customer support and QnA help to those who buy from this site through my distributor links.

Saving money is good. But not at the expense of your health. And with supplements, like many other things, cheaper is NOT better!

Yesterday I went for a massage and when you get deep tissue work done, your body will release toxins. Massage is a manual form of detoxification. After the massage, I also took supplements like a multi vitamin, antioxidant support and a green veggie and berry drink. However today I was still feeling the effects of the toxicity coming out, and my body still dealing with it.

I am doing “German Body Composition” program with short rest intervals, and the day after the massage I was doing that workout for the 2nd time. I managed to increase weight for all the exercises compared to the first time. In fact, there was much less discomfort from the lactate as well. (less burning feeling in the muscles)

However, after 2/3 of the workout, I had to stop. Light headed and with a headache. Power went up (as I used at least 5% more weight for every exercise and got extra reps too!) however work capacity went down (I only finished 2/3 of the workout).

This is a sign of possible overload on your body’s systems due to the cleaning up of toxins. So if this happens to you, just take it east for one workout so that you body gets detoxified and you have potential for even further gains in the future.

A clean body is a lean body.

Areas like the knowledge of understanding a less than optimal performance during workouts are things that only an experienced coach can help you with. That is what my staff and I do for our fitness boot camp, Singapore personal training and health consultation clients.

Of course there is nothing wrong with looking good! I too enjoy being fit and healthy and strong looking. I know it can be tougher for ladies. There are clothes, bags, shoes and accesories and they all have to match.

While I am no fashion expert, I do care about the health of the female clients at our fitness bootcamps, personal training and nutritional / health consultations. And here is a good website that can help all the readers and clients choose good cosmetics. So here it is.

There can be incredible amounts of heavy metals, and other toxins in cosmetics (and these can absorb through the skin!) so I hope you ladies can stay healthy while lookin good.

If you think that cosmetics or other conditions have caused you internal toxicity, no problem, we provide a complete detox program to help you out as well.

A recent discussion online asked which type of fat measuring calipers to buy. In my opinion there is only one that you should get. It is the only one I will use in my Singapore personal training private gym.

The brand is “Harpenden” (shown above). It is accurate to 0.1mm and you can actually “see” the measurement change even if the personal training or fitness bootcamp client is already very lean. One of my clients is under 5% bodyfat but he had a break from training for 2 weeks because of exams. I was able to see a 0.5% change in his bodyfat percentage… which works out to about a 0.4mm difference in most of his skin-fold sites.

You will NOT be able to see these changes (good OR bad) with a cheapo, plastic toy style $40 pair of calipers. These can miss by up to 4mm per site because they are simply not accurate or consistent enough. Because I take 12 body-fat measurements per client to get the most possible information to help my client, 4×12=48 and 48mm is a MASSIVE potential error. Might as well use the near-useless electric, hand help methods then!

The principle of “if its good, it isn’t cheap, and if its cheap, it is very unlikely to be good” holds true here just like it does for gym equipment or fitness instructors or nutrition coaches. The Harpenden fat measuring calipers cost more than $700 SGD. But once you get one or use one, you will neever need to “upgrade” and you will never use another fat measurement device again.

When it comes to fat burning, and fat loss, there is always this “no man’s land” between “I’m not fat” and “I’m really lean and beautiful!”. For most men this happens at about 12-19% body fat, and for women between 18-25% or so.

No doctor will complain that you are about to die of an obesity related disease, and your friends will still say what a nice figure you have. But you know that muffin top is just a little too big for your liking!

As your training age progresses, assuming you are good with your food choices, and stay lean all the time, your body will get “used” to a lower, more lean body fat percentage. I used to be a really fat boy, but with not too much effort and even eating lots of food, I stay at somewhere around 12% all year.

But the time has come for me to push the limits again. I have been as low as 5-6% before but I lost so much weight. (I was only 71kg then!) But as my own experience, knowledge and skill improves, I am going to try to reach 5% body fat at close to 80kg. This would be my best physique ever. That is the goal over then next 12 weeks or so.

However, goals must come with ACTIONS or else they are pretty much USELESS. It is like the clients who come to me and say they want great results, but they want to eat cereal for breakfast and instant noodles for lunch. It just isn’t going to happen.

Here are the actions that I will take over the next 12 weeks to achieve my goal. I like to write goals in present tense because they have the highest chance of adherence. Your brain lives in the present not the past/future.

• I eat 6 meals per day
• I eat meat and nuts at breakfast
• I eat only foods that are not allergic to me (no tomatoes, carrots or chilli)
• I eat 1.2-1.5kg of meat every day
• I eat these choices even when eating outside of home
• I eat outside of home only once per week
• I train 3 days out of 5 with some days 2x/day
• I do 1/3 fat burning workouts, and 2/3 strength and muscle maintaining workouts
• I use licorice cream on week days and off on weekends
• I use far infra red sauna 3/week for at least 20 mins
• I schedule my own training into my callender and nothing will get in the way of that.
• I use 40g of BCAA during each workout
• I eat whey, glutamine, glycine and greens post workout
• I use carnitine and R-ALA before workouts
• I sleep by 11pm every day

If I do all those things consistently, I don’t see how I can NOT be leaner while maintaining all my muscle mass. If you write down a list like this, I’m sure you can achieve your weight loss, fat loss, or mass building goals as well.

Of course there is room for adjustment along the way, but the fundamental habits shown above will stay the same. Stay tuned for updates!

Alot of personal training or fitness boot camp clients who want to gain muscle mass or burn body fat are concerned about whether carbohydrates are good for them post workout. There are also questions about “new” forms of “better” post workout carbs like waxy maize and so on. In general I don’t like buying carbs as supplements. They simply are not worth it because you can get them naturally, with more nutrients, for less cost. However if you do want to take carbohydrates (carbs) post workout, there are some things to consider.

The key for post workout carbs is critical – how fat you are. If you cant see abs, use a greens drink like primal greens or phyto Px + glycine + glutamine + whey (preferably organic whey it causes much less bowel irritation).

This pretty much works for everybody who is more than 10% (men) or 16% (women)… so far I haven’t found anything that works better. The green drink alkalizes your body ASAP (training stress is acidic) so you start recovery faster. The glycine calms down the nervous system, the glutamine fills glycogen without carbs (for fatties, no carbs is better).

Remember, when your central nervous system (CNS) is all fired up you cant relax, so you can’t recover as well.
Also, remember that this is POST WORKOUT if you do glycine pre-workout you will feel like sleeping, glycine is in fact a sleep aid.

But for lean boys, the variety of carbs post workout works well.

If you are not fat and want to get the most benefits out of carbs, there is no “super duper magic carb” the thing you look for is a VARIETY of carb sources so that they give a different time release of the carbs at different speeds. this leads to greater glycogen refilling than any 1 type of carb.

If one super “fast” carb is used, the muscles can’t take it all in that fast, if a super slow one is used, the muscles hunger for replenishment is not satisfied fast enough. That is why a variety of speeds is good. I personally like to use a mix of maltodextrin, dextrose, and fructose. This is found is a product called “Quadricarb” by Poliquin. It also has D-ribrose which is a great source of cell energy as well.