Personal Trainer Singapore – Coach Jonathan Wong

Many personal trainers and strength and conditioning coaches miss out on the key to grip training. As I mentioned in my previous grip training post, the key is variety, in the tempo, the exercises, the angles, the weights, the isometric holds, the finger positions, WHICH finger is used, and which type of wrist or hand strength you are trying to develop.
At Singapore’s best gym, our personal training and sports performance programs allow for a great variety of grip training and thus grip is not a limiting factor in out athlete and personal training clients. Here are some of our grip tools shown below, these are made by what I consider the best hand strength training company, Ironmind. They sponsor the world’s strongest man contest so their stuff is tough! Not cheap for sure (but hey I’m learning to buy once and never worry again) but it should last many lifetimes, and help our many personal trainers at Genesis get the clients strong! You have, from left to right… A lifting pin (we have a couple of these and they are the best way to load grip training as well as chin-ups and dips), hand opening training, mini grippers for individual finger training, bands to train hand opening as well, finger loops to train finger closing strength, hub cap grip, box grip, grippers, finger loops so you can train finger strength, wrist roller which can attach to a power rack or squat rack so that the wrist gets the training while the shoulders are supported, and a wrist roller to train an often underdeveloped part of grip strength, moving the wrist “sideways” for anatomy nerds like me, this is called radial and ulnar deviation. Strong hands here we come!

All kinds of grip training tools!

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.

Anybody who excels in their profession has somebody to give credit to, somebody to thank, somebody to appreciate for their success. While there is lots of studying that you can do on your own (after all, I have a book and education material collection worth a small car….) it is the moments of inspiration that come from being around the industry leaders who are the best in the world at what they do that truly allow my mind to expand by allowing me to see just how much I DO NOT KNOW! And how much more there is to learn. Just like Stephen Hawking wrote, we really are standing on the shoulders of Giants.

I’m honored to count these guys as my teachers and mentors. After attending their courses and seminars, I can truly say that all our Singapore personal training clients and boot camp members benefit alot in their health, weight loss, fat burning  and strength building goals. Unfortunately, in Singapore, these guys are not very well known to the general public, but only to those who are serious about getting the best information in the world!

Coach Charles Poliquin – Olympic strength and conditioning coach. This guy knows a lot about almost any training or health topic out there. And his certifications are the hardest to obtain in the fitness industry. In fact to reach level 5 (the highest level) you need to produce a medalist (verified by the sport council) in either the world championships or the Olympic games. I am currently the only level 3 coach in Asia, that means that we have coached people to national teams. Am going for level 4 later in 2010.

Dr. Mark Houston – Cardiovascular health specialist. This guy literally “wrote the book” about how to use nutrients and lifestyle to combat high blood pressure, cholesterol issues, and all heart/cardiovascular health conditions.

Dr. Robert Rakowski – Functional Medicine Doctor. This guy is a former US marine, but has applied the discipline to study of how the human body works. I saw him treat a person for a shoulder problem… and found out that it was his LIVER that was too toxic and causing the pain…this doctor taught me alot of what I know about detoxification and cancer as well.

Coach Pierre Roy – Pierre has been coaching the Canadian Olympic weightlifting team for 35 years and has the sharpest eye for the details of training. He corrects high speed lifts to the accuracy of 0.5 cm! and the next time the lifter does it, the weight goes up effortlessly. His methods of coaching that I learned save clients HUNDREDS of hours of learning technique. Things that used to take weeks to learn, now take minutes. That’s value for money everyone!

I am constantly looking for great mentors to learn from. It really helps clients get results faster and better! And it helps keep the Genesis Performance Center Singapore best health & fitness center and personal training Gym.

There have been several articles lately on fitness coaching and personal trainers in Singapore. They question the knowledge and ability of personal trainers and they question the lack of standardization in the education of trainers.

And so do I!

After all, your personal trainer is going to help you take care of your body just like a medical doctor would. So it makes sense that a personal trainer needs to know enough about your body to help you get the results that you want from your fitness program.

Education is vital to me. I spend an average of 10 hours per week learning better ways to help out fitness bootcamp and personal training clients get great results.

In fact I just came back from 16 continuous days of seminars with the best coaches, doctors and physiotherapists in the world. We discussed the latest improvements in helping back pain, osteoporosis, PMS, kids training, nutrition, detoxification from plastics, heavy metals and excess estrogen, strength and speed training for sports, stress management, and many more things. The pictures on this post are from this trip.

Just the fact that it is a gathering of those who are the tops in the health industry helps because even the informal meals and training sessions are a chance to learn from each other.

The knowledge and information is worth the 30 (36 with delay!!) hour plane rides and the sub zero temperatures.

classroom lessons (this one is about shoulder health)

Canadian National Weightlifting Coach Pierre Roy

Our Demonstrators For Olympic Lifting. At the Left Olympian Marilou and Canadian champion Paul

Advanced Stretching Techniques

36 hours travel... including 6 hours waiting for this plane!

Learning about pain caused by internal organ dysfunction

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.

I just added some new success stories and pictures for out personal training center. Andrew, Jesper and Ben for the men and Lynn for the ladies!

Here are some pics of Andrew and Ben training hard.

Sweat in training, success in competition

National Service will be easier than this!

A client of mine asked me about fasting this week. Excellent question!

There are a few things to consider. First, one of the benefits of fasting is related to reduced calorie intake which is pretty well researched and results in longer life due to turning on of Sir-1 and Sir-2 genes. But this requires a fairly restricted diet and large amounts of fasting which is about a 40% caloric restriction i.e. you will be very hungry! But yes, chances are you will live longer…

But there is also the issue of quality of life. Too much caloric restriction means it’s hard to get the correct amount of nutrients in your food. This is quite a problem in today’s overpolluted world. You need more protein and micronutrients to help detoxify yourself through the 6 detox pathways in your liver. If you are on such restricted calories, you probably won’t be able to detox well. That means lower health.

Also, with such low calories, you don’t have enough energy for proper training and recovery. That means you will likely be skinny and weak! This is not acceptable to most people, especially our personal training and fitness boot camp clients at the Genesis Performance Center.

But… there is a solution. The compound called resveretrol, found in wine via grape skins (although you will need 2 liters of wine to get the right daily dose) has been shown to give the same anti-aging benefits as caloric restriction. It does so by protecting your telomeres (the protective caps of your DNA)… so just take some resveratrol (make sure you get the “trans” version, not the “cis” version – minor chemical structure difference, HUGE difference in effectiveness) and you get the benefits of caloric restriction… while eating as much healthy food as you want…

This way you become strong, healthy, well detoxed AND long living… a win-win-win situation!

We have the worlds best resveratrol formulation developed by the Hypertension Institute of Nashville and my cardiovascular health mentor, Dr Mark Houston. Pure and effective trans resveratrol. Contact us to get yourself the anti-aging supplement that really works. $85 for 1 month’s supply. Each capsule is 2 liters worth of top grade wine… 250mg/day the correct dose that the human body can metabolize (use).

Beside aging… It has other benefits like slowing weight gain, reducing cancer, cardiovascular problems and metabolic syndrome.

Finally, if you DO choose the fasting route, the current suggestion from health practitioners (although don’t really like to do this…) is to take several 12 hour fasts during the week from 6pm to 6am.

When the container arrived fresh from the port… and the shipping guys unloaded all the new equipment into our gym. Got to be honest… I didn’t really know what to do with the mountain of boxes. But we gotta start somewhere.

Thanks to my very helpful family and clients, we managed to get started and get finished so that the Genesis performance center is even better able to cope with the fat loss, strength training and performance needs of our clients.

Laying out the 35m indoor track was particularly hard! Rubber is insanely heavy and getting the big rolls into place was like doing strongman tire flips.

But in the end its all worth it, we now have more than 20 benches and 6 sets of dumbbells. Also we have 14 squat racks/power racks so that nobody has to wait for equipment. You will be surprised how effective workouts can be when you can stick to the required rest intervals.

So there we have it, the best private fitness center in Singapore just got better and it doesn’t stop here. I think and dream day and night of new things to learn and teach so that we can meet the needs of our clients better. Personal training for weight loss, fat burning and muscle building, as well as fitness boot camps are not the end of what we can help clients with. More and more coming soon.

We have been working hard over the past 2 weeks to get Singapore’s best gym, the Genesis Performance Center up and running! We are ready to go and are open for the business of helping Singapore residents burn fat, build muscles and perform to the best of their God given ability! Our personal training and fitness boot camps are going to be better than ever.

Building our olympic lifting platform - its beautiful!

Ready to roll at the Genesis Performance Center

Speed Training - What You do Near Tournament Time

Many of the clients at the Genesis Performance Center play a sport of some kind. Because many of these clients are highly motivated types of people, they often play these sports competitively and want to do as well as possible in tournaments. The level of the tournament can range from school leagues to professional (i.e they do it for a living).

Part of the personal training, or athletic training /strength and conditioning program is to get them to peak for the day of competition.Every sport is different, every athlete is different and if you want the program customized for you, then you need to sign up! But there are some principles that hold true for almost any sport.

1. End your training with a “strength and power” phase of training. Some training programs are for growing muscles, some are for building endurance, but the program just before your competition should be one that emphasizes speed, strength and power.

2. Don’t do your conditioning workouts too much, and don’t do them too early. You only need a few weeks to condition yourself for endurance/fitness. Don’t waste your recovery ability on that stuff far from the tournament. And when you condition – ONLY use stuff that will be used in your sport. Long distance running is useless unless you are a long distance runner.

3. Finally, taper correctly for goodness sake. 2 weeks of no training before a competition is not a taper. It’s a disaster. In most cases, drop training 20-80% in the week approaching the competition depending on how you feel. Tapering is an incredibly complex topic and needs to be customized.

Most importantly DON’T PANIC. If you have done too little and there is only a week to go before tournament, its too late! You cannot “cram” for physical performance. Do your best but learn from your mistakes.

But, more common, is that people do TOO MUCH before competition and enter feeling drained. The feeling you want is “I can’t wait to compete” when the game begins.

Things like this can make the difference between winning and losing (and for sure you don’t want to be off yoru game when your opponent is peaking). That is what our athletes training program is for.