Personal Trainer Singapore – Coach Jonathan Wong

Do you think you would get a better workout in a park? Or at the best gym in Singapore?

Although the quality of the coach who designs your personal training or weight loss fitness program is the top priority, I would admit that the quality of your fitness program design is influenced by the tools available to the coach.

Imagine…If you only gave me a 5 kg dumbbell, I would run out of useful exercises faster than if you gave me a complete gym set up with the right mix of different dumbbells, varieties of barbells, lifting platforms, power racks, machines and accessories like gym balls, bands, lifting pins, grip training equipment, etc (oops that just describes my Gym in Singapore).

In my experience, it is almost impossible for a in home personal trainer or a fitness instructor who trains out of a condo gym or a hotel gym, or a community center gym, to match the results we get at the Genesis Performance Center.

Just think for a moment why this would be so?…They would need to match both my program design ability, knowledge of health, understanding of anatomy, thousands of hours of study and seminars, as well as have the right gym equipment to do the job! This is a problem because these gyms were not designed by a person with 16 years of drug-free training study and experience.

It is also hard for any outdoor boot camp in a park to match the results we get at our indoor fitness boot camp which fully utilizes all the equipment available to us. In fact one bootcamp member recently commented “I’ve tried all the other bootcamps in Singapore and yours is way more value” … well of course:) We only design good programs and will ALWAYS get the equipment needed to support it.

This year 2010 alone, I plan to spend much of our business budget on upgrading our equipment to continue to lead Singapore Gyms as the best equipped (with the most useful stuff!) so that I have the greatest variety of gym equipment, so that I can design the greatest variety of personal training fitness programs, so that I can help the greatest amount of people get the weight loss, mass gaining or sports performance goals they deserve.

When choosing a gym, like in the rest of life, there are three groups of people.

Those who read and make the right choice (check out the remainder of my Singapore fitness blog to read more!)

Those who observe others and make the right choice (check out our success stories on the Singapore fitness homepage, or the success stories page)

And those who “piss on the electric fence to learn for themselves” – unfortunately some people try other methods and places to try and get results but are disappointed, frustrated and upset. In the end, after some pain and unfortunate experiences, they end up at Singapore’s best Gym, The Genesis Performance Center.

Don’t be in the third group. Join our Singapore based personal training or fitness boot camp program today.

I have been away from home for 11 days! Every day is 10 hours of lectures and training. Specialized training for stressed people, ladies, children and how to heal back injuries. Coming up over the next 7 days – nutrition and detox, anatomy and power training

Am doing my best every night in the hotel with revising and reviewing my (so far) 25000 words of notes. Coming back soon with better knowledge and ability to help clients. I look forward to it!

Learning From Coach Poliquin How To Treat A Forearm And Elbow Problem

I will be away for more than 2 weeks starting tomorrow. I will be another set of 25-30 hour trips to the Rhode Island where the temperature is currently -2 to -8 deg C… I’m not even sure I have the right clothes for this! But its ok:) all for the love of knowledge.

There will be a series of seminars about various topics.

• Training of special warfare guys like body guards and commandos (and learning the best methods for handling shift work!)
• Special considerations for training females
• Special considerations for training kids
• Developing power for sports
• Healing back injuries FAST (80% of people will have back pain some time in their life)
• Training Busy Executives (lots of these in Singapore!)
• Anatomy
• How to do better nutrition consultations.

Do I think I’m currently BAD at these things… probably not… but these courses are taught by various instructors who are at the top of their field in the world! So I know I have much to learn. Braving the cold will be a small price to pay.

This is why the clients in our fitness training, performance training and Singapore fitness bootcamps get such great results (check out the mens and womens testimonial page or the video on my Singapore personal trainer homepage).

Study, experience and practice.Put them together and you get results!

Unfortunately most personal trainers in Singapore work with only a few clients at a time. But at my center, my staff and I work with over 160 clients at one time. We have their nutrition information, their flexibility and body fat measurements, their health indicators and their training program logs. This means we know with great certainty what works and what does not.

Have you heard about these glyconutrients being sold in Singapore? Apparently they are great for your health and are so recent that few people even know about them! (The biblical saying “there is nothing new under the sun” comes to mind…”)

The idea is that there are “essential sugars” that we all need for optimal health. And these glyconutrients are it!

Be smart. There are essential amino acids and essential fatty acids. These are things that ARE good for us and help us with everything from immune system function, detoxification, cell membrane function, and reducing fat storage (and a huge list more!).

No need for more of this is our diets!

But there is NO SUCH THING as essential sugars. In fact there isn’t supposed to be much sugar in us at all. If you drained the blood of a person and dried it up. How much sugar do you think there would be in that dried up powder?

Answer – Just a couple of grams! About the amount in one teaspoon.

Blood sugar needs to be kept in a very small range for optimal health, and we can manufacture any sugar we need from proteins. (it doesn’t take much!)

The idea of essential sugars is bogus.

If there are proper, double blind, peer reviewed studies that come out proving these glyconutrients work, I may change my tune (possibly)… but i doubt it will happen. But till then, stay away from stuff that costs alot and does nothing (and with these glyconutrients being simple sugars, they are probably bad for you!)

Here is what I would buy if I had a limited supplement budget:
1. A digestive aid
2. A good fish oil. (I would only use Poliquin’s, Metagenics, Thorne, or Biotest)
3. A good multivitamin/veggie extract supplements (same brands)
4. Magnesium and zinc
Hey if you are in Singapore – get them from me, I sell only the best stuff!:)
drop us an email at support @ genesis performance center. com (remove spaces)

This stuff is proven, and has worked in both clinical and real life settings.

I was very troubled to read this news report about the trend among young people in Singapore. They love to be thin, not just “not fat” but really really thin. There are problems with this.

To get that thin you need to starve yourself. And the “method” of slimming these guys/gals use is not safe. They eat about 1-2 meals per day and they eat food that is not nutritious.In addition they usually eat highly refined foods like instant noodles and bread.

That is a problem because it is not possible to get enough nutrients for health with that amount of food in your diet. You will lack protein, vitamins and minerals.

Because of this lack of nutrients, your liver will be weak, and you will not be able to detoxify the problems in our rather toxic environment – even that smell from the new leather chair in your home is a poison. You need amino acids and other nutrients to help your liver.

You will also have suppressed immune system function. The more lean muscle mass you have the better your immune system will be. You often see underweight people getting sick, but this is not common among people with correct amounts of muscle mass.

There is a problem in society as well because of the use of BMI as a gague of health. These “skinny” fans are actually “healthy” when we use BMI. But are they really? This fact is made worse now that there is an “asian” BMI which encourages even lower bodyweights!

What’s the solution?

If I were the Singapore minister of health here is what I would do…

• No more BMI. Use body fat as a gauge of health. Men should aim for 10% and women for 16%.
• Encourage nutritious food. No calorie counting. Can your body count calories? Your body can only recognize nutrients. Give it enough nutritious food and it will say “I’m full, thanks!”. Give it large amounts of no-ntrition food and it says “I need more!” Even though you just ate 3000 calories of potato chips.
• No calorie counting
• Tell people who teach nutrition teachers to take off their shirts. Nutritionists are very influential, but there are way too many out of shape nutritionists. No we don’t expect them to look like an Olympic gymnast, but they shouldn’t be obese or sickly thin right?

To people who teach nutrition: No need to be Olympic level, but at least keep that tummy flat

Let me give a simple example of how calorie counting is not a good way of deciding how much to eat.

An average person needs (according to the calorie counting gang) about 2000 calories per day to maintain weight. lets multiply that by 365 to get the number of calories needed per year. Thats 730000.

Lets say I want to stay within 1kg of my current weight because I’m happy with my health and how I look. The calorie counting gang also believe that eating 3500 calories excess would lead to 1lb fat gain. so to gain 1kg I would need about 8000 calories.

That means that to stay within 1kg of my current weight I would, over the course of the 1 year, need to be accurate in my “calorie counting” to the accuracy of 8000/730000 that is an accuracy of… 1.1%.

That means each day I have to be accurate with my calorie counting to within about 22 calories. That is about 2grams of fat or 5 grams of carbohydrates/protein.

That is a ridiculous accuracy to expect to adhere to. And it gets even more rediculous as we extend the 1 year period to 3 or even 10 years. What if I kept my weight constant for 10 years! I would have to be accurate to 2 calories per day!

No. Calorie counting is not important for general health. Because there are so man ymore things going on.

I always tell my clients that our body can adapt to more or less food. But it cannot adapt to crappy, refined foods.

Some Of Our Ladies Working On Chinups

Many of the clients who sign up for our personal training programs or athlete performance programs, want to do better in a marathon or triathlon.

There is of course nothing wrong with that in itself. If you do these activities for personal satisfaction, or for a good cause. But really…long distance activity isn’t that hard to finish.

Even a “fast twitch” guy like myself has run up to 16km without difficulty – it only took a few weeks of training. (But with discomfort of coruse!).

I like to challenge all the clients in our personal training programs and even the fitness bootcamps to do something hard!

For men we as them eventually, to aim be below 10% bodyfat and to be able to deadlift 2x their bodyweight. For ladies the long term goal is 16% and be able to do AT LEAST 1 real chinup. These are well within the reach of everybody as long as you don’t have any serious injury.

One of the first things I tell anybody who comes in for a consultation is: “You are not joining the Genesis Performance Center to be average”… its easy to be “not fat” just stop eating horrible food  and do some light activity every day.

But if average was what you wanted, you would’nt need to invest time, finances or effort in our personal training, sports conditioning, or fitness bootcamp program.

And consider how may female friends you have who have finished a SHAPE run or a Standard Charted Half Marathon, or even participated in the Sundown marathon. Probably quite a few. But how many do you know who can do 8 or … 5 or even 1 real chinup?

Choose challenges that are challenging! That’s the way to be excellentat anything.

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

It doesn't hurt, but it sure gives alot of information about how progress is going

Many of my clients have been through other training locations, gyms and fitness centers here in Singapore. It is no secret that most clients are going to aim for some kind of fat loss, but how many of them have actually had their fat measured by a professional skilled in using a set of calipers to measure bodyfat (those hand held machines are useless and I will explain why in another post). The answer… ZERO.

You want fat loss to get rid of those jiggly body parts…

But you don’t accurately measure body fat? Sounds a bit insane to me!

There is a reason why all our programs are fail proof. The Singapore personal training program, athletes performance program and the curves and core Singapore fitness bootcamp all feature tracking of the goals that YOU want to reach.

Want to lose fat, well, you need to TRACK that along with your training and nutrition habits so we can see whats going well and what isn’t. If we don’t track, we are esimply guessing. But since we do track, our clients results are guaranteed!

It’s no point knowing. Knowledge is useless till it is applied. And that is where the art of coaching meets the science of training.

There are 4 general types of clients that we see, either as kids, children, youth or adults. And each type requires a slightly different coaching style to get the best possible response from them.

Type 1: Low Motivation + Low Skill
These clients may be shy, quiet, perhaps lacking confidence and ability (probably interrelated). Excitable coaching methods will probably not work with this kind of person. We need to be more quiet, personal and careful so that this person doesn’t feel targeted by our questions or coaching.

While these clients may take more patience to work with, and may not be the most “gifted”, there is great satisfaction is helping them achieve things they might have thought impossible for themselves. I believe the important coaching style for these clients is to “enable” so that they are encouraged that they can do it!

Type 2: Low Motivation + High Skill
These clients are technically or physically gifted, they are just good at all the things we ask of them. Things just come naturally for them. Sometimes they may not focus enough, or pay enough attention. Perhaps they and kids who were forced to come by their parents, perhaps they are just no longer interested in the current exercise.

The problem for many of these children and kids is that things are not hard enough! the coaching style I like to use is “inspire” or “challenge” for these kids.

Type 3 is High Motivation + Low skill
These kinds of clients are a great joy to work with. They have great attitudes, want to get better and try their best. They just need extra guidance on technical skills. We need to be energetic and eager as coaches to help them become technically proficient and boost their skill level. The key word for the coaching of these clients is “Guide”.

Type 4 is High Motivation + High skill
Of course this is the aim of all our programs, to get our clients, both children and adults, into this “high motivation + high skill” category. From a person lacking confidence and motivation, to one that is both intrinsically motivated, and high in skill.

One thing I try to be careful about is to overly shelter these clients. Instead, high motivation high skill clients need to be give more ownership, more discussion, more feedback, and more “empowerment” for their own development. That is not lazy coaching, that is teaching a man to fish!

There we have it, part of my learning as a (still learning) coach and personal trainer/fitness/sports performance professional. This is what works, and this is how we treat our different clients.

For the best coaching in sports performance programs or fat loss personal training programs contact us by filling in a consultation form at my website www.coachjon.com.

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.