Bak Kwa, yummy but no, not a great idea for a meat replacement

As many of you know, most of our personal training and Singapore fitness boot camp clients at Genesis Gym are usually asked to increase their protein intake with healthy meat sources.

Meat has a good amino acid profile, and it also digests slowly. Improving blood sugar management, and feelings of fullness (so you don’t eat so much bad food).

Since Chinese New Year is coming, one of the common chats in our Singapore gym, goes like this:

Client: “Hey coach, you say we should eat meat right?”

Genesis Coach: “Yes”

Client: “So Bak Kwa is good right? CNY is coming and I love bak kwa!”

Genesis Coach: “Did a caveman have Bak Kwa?”

Client: “No”

Genesis Coach: “So there you have your answer”

Now for the more in depth explanation.

This comes from one of our coaches Chris, who actually wrote this nice article on the Genesis Gym coaches blog last week.

One of his relatives owns a business specializing in selling bak kwa.

The key thing to take note of, is the ratio of meat (which is minced and you can’t be sure of its quality), to sugar.

It’s roughly 2:1 ratio. That means that for each kg of meat, there is half a kilo of sugar.

This makes bak kwa pretty much meat flavored sugar!

I love bak kwa too but turns out its not a great CNY food…

However, a more reasonable recipe is to put a small pieces of bak kwa on your egg omelet. This reduces the total amount of bak kwa and makes a very tasty omelet dish.

Faith only gets strong when tested

Faith is like a muscle, it needs to be put under stress before it can be strong!

As the team at Genesis Gym help more clients, we get approached more to promote other people’s products because we have a (hopefully!) loyal client base who will buy stuff from us.

There are two conditions under which I will gladly promote a product to my personal training and fitness boot camp clients. So those of you who want me do to so, read this first.

1. It must solve a problem with the best possible solution available in the world today
2. It must be a good deal for Genesis clients.

If I promoted every product that came along (on average I get approached about 2-3 times per month by different suppliers) we could probably make a few thousand extra dollars each month.

But would this “easy” be worth it? I don’t believe so.

Most of these products are health based but they do not meet the requirements I have listed above.

This is important to me because this is being faithful to what Genesis Gym is.

Genesis Gym is a place where only the best methods and products in the world are allowed to be used.

Try to ask me to promote a Multi Level Marketing product – Flat “No” from me.

Some MLM’s have decent products, but they are overpriced and are a BAD deal for our clients. Simply because of the commission structure where the end user pays a large percentage of the product price into the many levels of commissions to sales people. (Yes MLM people are sales people, not business people so don’t be fooled when they offer your a business opprtunity).

Try to ask me to promote a non-world class product – Flat “No” again!

I have been asked to promote supplement brands, fitness bands (and other bits of fitness equipment) as well as some herbal health stuff.

Again, some of it may be good, but its not the best that you can get, and so you won’t find it in our products for sale corner.

Why so serious?

In the history of Genesis Gym, I have made mistakes in purchasing equipment and services before. These “less than best” products have ALWAYS had to be replaced eventually. These mistakes have cost us thousands of dollars in wasted money.

My learning point is to always get the best stuff. You will never feel like replacing or upgrading it.

What I think about constantly is: “If I had 100 times the money, could I get something better?”

And I want to have “No” as the answer.

This is also the way I hope our personal training and fitness bootcamp clients think of Genesis Gym.

In Singapore, even if they had 100 times the money, could they get coaching or information that is better? Equipment that is better? A training environment that is better?

My team and I work all the time to make sure that answer is “NO”.

After all, clients are trusting us with their bodies and their health that is also a kind of faith!

They should be provided with the best available care that can possibly be offered.

Difficult to do - Yes, Useful - probably No (unless balancing on a board while lifting is your sport!)

The British poet Alexander Pope is credited with coining the phase:

“a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.

It was true when he said it in the 1700s, and its true today, and certainly true in the fitness and health industry.

There is a school of thought that we should always use exercises that are as close to real life activity as possible. In addition, these exercises should be made as challenging as possible by doing them on one leg, or even better still, on a wobble board or bosu ball (it’s like half a swiss ball with a flat, but unstable surface).

Many personal trainers in singapore and elsewhere, call this “functional training”.

I call this “nonsense”.

Some examples…

• Doing squats on an unstable surface or vibration plate (or pretty much anything on a vibration / power plate)
• Connecting a golf club or tennis racquet to a cable machine to “try” to improve your sports technique
• Combining two good (or more!) exercises to make one bad one. E.g. split squats while doing alternate arm shoulder presses, or lunges while doing biceps curls with a barbell connected to resistance bands

While my stand is rather harsh, I will explain.

The true meaning of “functional training” is none of the above.

What it means to a client is: “training that will help me achieve my goal”

Story time!

I have actually had a client decide NOT to join Genesis Gym because he thought it was not functional enough.

While my team and I don’t hard sell any of our training programs, and he was free to find another place to train, I was sad for him because this was the “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” phase in action.

Like many of our members he was looking for a place to help him burn excess body fat, and he had seen some (misguided) books and online videos about functional training.

One of the training programs we use in a fat burning phase is the 100 rep method where you do only a few types of exercises, but perform 100 reps with a heavy weight, in as few sets, in as little time as possible. When you push yourself, this is an excellent fat burning workout and has proven effective with dozens of clients so far.

We also do these exercises with slow tempos for maximum fat burning effects at a hormonal level.

When he came for his fat burning fitness bootcamp trial class, he found this program, in his opinion “not functional” (who moves that slowly in real life!, we need a bigger variety of exercises to make things more random and unpredictable, like real life!).

However, for this group class, the main goal is fat burning, and for that purpose, the program, and the exercises are functional.

More examples:

Leg presses for athletes?

Not functional for a person who wants to jump higher, but very functional at the end of a workout for a person who wants to put on size on their legs.

Biceps curls? I thought only chinups are functional?

True, chinups do give you more benefits for your training time, but… if your biceps are too weak to allow you to do heavy chinups properly, then biceps curls are extremely functional for you. Also, your sport may require strong biceps e.g. a rugby player holding on to the ball when an opponent is trying to strip it away, for this person, biceps curls are functional as well.

So what are the benefits of those weirdo exercises that I mentioned earlier?

• Doing squats on an unstable surface or vibration plate – possible rehab uses, and good for learning to squat or play sports during an earthquake, but not functional to becoming stronger or leaner.
• Connecting a golf club or tennis racquet to a cable machine to “try” to improve your sports technique – great for looking goofy! but not functional to hitting the ball further/harder, that would require specialized strength training in the muscles that accelerate and decelerate your arms.
• Combining two good (or more!) exercises to make one bad one. E.g. split squats while doing alternate arm shoulder presses, or lunges while doing biceps curls with a barbell connected to resistance bands – In general a waste of your time, because doing one of those exercises at a time, will allow you to use a much heavier weight which will give you a better result.

Function is all about your goal. Not what your perception of exercise is.

We are here to help clients, and functional training is certainly the way to help them. It just may not look like the crazy videos you see on youtube! (thanks to one of the best coaches and stretch therapists in Australia, Keith Bearne for the link below!)

The Hyatt in Belevue, where the conference will be held

As you all probably know already, at Genesis Gym, my team and I don’t simply start by asking a personal training or boot camp fitness client to start exercising more, and eating less.

For some, this is a valid way to get healthier, however some people have under lying health conditions which can cause them problems in their weight loss or health improvement goals.

One of these problems that need to be tackled, is inflammation.

Many people have had minor injuries in their past and to them inflammation is what an ankle looks like when it gets a sprain. However there is more to it than that.

Inflammation can occur in your joints, digestive tract and even your arteries. There are many excellent, well researched and very safe (way safer than surgery and drugs) methods that can help a person with inflammation and I am going to Bellevue, near Seattle in the USA to learn more about these methods in Feb 2012.

It is going to be an excellent conference with the key speaker being Mark Schauss, whose book I highly recommend. (I have reviewed it before on my blog here)

There will also be other experts in the field of functional medicine and they will also be sharing their knowledge and experiences.

As a coach who is very focused on health, it is always great to know the latest information from people who are constantly learning and practicing in the healing arts. I always look forward to using new information to help current and future clients even more!

Here is a complete list of the speakers.

• Mark Schauss, MBA, DB
  Environmental Health Issues in Chronic Disease and Inflammation
  Reversing Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer’s and Senile Dementia
  Using Laboratory Testing in the Treatment & Prevention of Chronic Disease and Inflammation
• Andrew Cutler, PhD
  Mercury in Chronic and Inflammatory Disease
• Michael Levitz, PhD
  Family History versus Genetics Testing for Predicting the Development of Chronic Disease
• Sunil Pai, MD
  Utilizing Diet and Natural Anti-Inflammatories to Prevent and Treat Chronic Diseases
• Ann McCombs, DO
  Chronic Disease and Inflammation: A Homotoxicology Model
• Elizabeth Sheehan, DC
  Lyme’s Disease in Clinical Practice
• Joseph Quashnock, PhD
  Current Clinical Laboratory Tests for Inflammation
• John Young, MD
  Resetting the Pancreas in Type II Diabetes

In Oslo with Mark Scappitici one of the best therapists in the world, and inventor of the FAT tool

In Oslo with Peter Lundgren, accupunturist who does near magic with needles!

A month ago, I went to Oslo, Norway to learn dry needling from some of the top experts in the world. I have been practicing as often as I can. So far the results have been very good, especially considering how long it takes. Each needle is in for only about 2-3 minutes. And better still, the needles are tiny and almost pain free.

I have seen very quick results with pain reduction, and speed of healing. And combined with other treatment tools, it is a great way of helping get better results with all kinds of injuries and pain issues.

Dry Needling has been getting great results with clients and I will be using it more and more.

In the last 3 days alone, we have treated – Triceps scar tissue and trigger points, back facet joint pain, calf muscle dysfunction, increased range of motion after an ACL reconstruction, and Knee pain from popliteal tendinitis.

It makes a great combination with FAT tool, trigenics and soft tissue work!

Some needle positions to heal with knee and calf issues.

This is important because most people join the personal training or fitness bootcamp programs because they want to train hard for maximum results, but sometimes a past injury or a chronic pain problem gets in the way. Here is where treatment becomes a critical part of their success.

Here is what I bought for my family this Christmas. Staub brand cast iron pans. They have super good coatings, no chemicals on the pan, and a lifetime warranty. They are also SOLID iron and will improve my grip strength ( and my wife’s too!) I may just put a fat grip on it to increase the training effect.

There is a pan, and a grill, I also got the optional presser at the back to make great steaks!

I will use them for a few weeks and report if they are worth it. Not horribly expensive for a life long, safe, high quality cooking tool. Always pay for quality because its cheap in the long run.

I may even place a mass order for our personal training and fitness bootcamp clients.

When it comes to training, there are different tools to gain different physical attributes. Heavy lifts for low reps like squats and bench pressing build strength, fast lifts like snatches and plyometrics build speed and power and higher reps build size.

In treatment of injury and movement problems, we need to use the right tools for the job as well. For example…

• Trigenics for problems caused by a poor connection between the brain and the muscle
• Fascial stretching for long term flexibility gains
• Massage and soft tissue work for breaking up scar tissue

In the methods outlined above, if used to solve the right problem they are brutally effective. within one or two treatments there are usually huge increases in flexibility, and decreases in pain as you can see in out rehab testimonials.

But there was one kind of problem that I did not have a quick and efficient solution to.

Trigger points.

Currently we use massage, but that can take several weeks.

Thats too long! I want results ASAP. There is a method that has helped people get results within 2 treatments (depending on the overall health of the patient). It is called dry needling which is a modern, science based, systematic form of acupuncture. I am off to Oslo, Norway to learn it for the next few days.

The doctor teaching it will also be teaching some FAT tool usage as well which is a great method for releasing stuck fascia (connective tissues). (see below). I will be getting one of these for sure!

So in the next 4 days I will be adding 2 tools to the Genesis Gym rehab and injury prevention toolbox. More tools allows us to solve more problems and gives our Singapore personal training and fitness bootcamp clients an even better chance of getting fixed fast!

Stay tuned for updates over the next few days!

Thanks to Google and the internet, there is more information and knowledge out there than ever before. Assuming a person is wise enough to sort out the trash from the useful stuff, there comes another problem – Too much information and knowledge.

This is certainly true in the world of health and fitness. It does not take a PhD in anything to know that veggies and unprocessed meats are better for you than potato chips and roti-prata…

The thing that separates the successful from the unsuccessful in almost any field, is the application of knowledge, rather than the knowledge itself.

My staff and I constantly try to apply correct knowledge to the programs of our personal training and fitness boot-camp clients.

For example my latest major “input” of knowledge was a great method and system of strengthening and injury treatment called Trigenics which I studied in Toronto, Canada just 6 weeks ago. I believe I’m the first Singapore based coach to do so. It was hours and hours of study both before and after – Lots of knowledge.

But just as knowing that veggies are good, while eating chips will keep you fat, knowing a great method for keeping clients healthier and stronger doesn’t help anybody till it is put into practice.

That is what I have been trying to do. Thankfully the study has paid off and within just a few weeks, we have more than two dozen clients aided by the knowledge from that course. Elbows, shoulders, knees and backs all feel better now!

You can watch Some of their rehab testimonials on our new youtube channel.

In the field of fitness, sports performance and personal training, just like in any other industry, there is what is called a “lag time” in terms of what is the best solution, and what is commonly practiced.

For example, in the field of digital photography or computer chips, the lag time is several months to one year. If a company does not put a new product using the latest developments in that industry on the market within that time frame, it is going to be doomed.

In the field of cars and airplanes it may be 3 years.

In the field of education it may be 40 years before new concepts are taught.

What about the field of sports performance and health?

Unfortunately indicators seem to show that we tend towards the 40 year slow change, rather than the 6 month fast implementation of new and better ideas.

My mentor in strength training, olympic Coach Charles Poliquin puts his guess at somewhere around 6 olympic cycles between what the top coaches use and what is taught in exercise science in most schools.

6 Olympic cycles is 6*4 years = 24 years!

Such outdated methods as… ice baths after training for recovery, low fat diets for health, and using cardio as a main method for fat burning are still widely taught.

In the “Strengths Finder 2.0″ aptitude test, one of my top attributes is “Learner” i.e. I can’t stand not knowing something, and I believe that we can learn just about anything.

This learner attribute keeps me trying to keep the “lag” in cutting edge knowledge at the Genesis Performance Center to close as possible to Zero.

My course in trigenics a month ago was truly cutting edge and the results have been awesome. The instant pain relief, flexibility and strength gains are what I would consider world class. That is why the Dr Alan Austin who teaches the system is often found at the sidelines of his Country’s Olympic teams boosting their performance just before the athletes take the field.

Watch some videos of what trigenics does. Check out our facebook page videos for what it has done for our clients.

The results are better than 20 sessions of most physiotherapy. That is what I want to see as both a coach, and as a patient. And that is what I would consider zero lag quality of results.

As new and improved methods come out, my staff and I at Genesis will keep our personal training and fitness bootcamp clients up to date!

NOTE: New does not mean better. There are plenty of things that are new, yet useless. We keep clients up to date on these time-wasters as well:)

Usually, when we upgrade equipment for our personal training center its a big chunk of new machines or bars (just like this a few months ago!)

But today, we worked on a more routine upgrade.

Our floor.

I just installed carpet grass on our 30m indoor track. The track used to be rubber coated but we put the grass on top so that the gym has a more cheery and fun appearance to attract people who like nice interior designing more than serious training.

Uh… not really:)

I added the grass so that we can do stuff like sled and prowler work with a lower starting resistance.

The rubber floor we had below had a great deal of friction that made even an unweighted sled or prowler hard to push for new trainees. Now with the lower resistance, we can start “easier” and still use additional plates to increase resistance as our personal training and fitness bootcamp clients get stronger.

More fun and results for you!