Personal Trainer Singapore – Coach Jonathan Wong

Useless Without Brain

I was thinking about this recently. Most of us have degrees/diplomas/certifications in many things. But when it comes to the true value of education, I find many people lacking.

The love for life long learning is WAY more important than the degrees we hold. Nothing wrong with having degrees! In fact many of my best friends have PhDs to their name. But don’t lose sight of the journey that gets us to the degree.

The education where correct habits and character are learnt is more important and ensures more success in life than the degree itself.

Same thing with fitness. Im proud of the clients who lose 17kg a month (he was very overweight or else this would not be safe!), jump 50cm more in their broad jump after training with us for a few months, lose inches in weeks and fix their posture and movement problems quickly with the right corrective exercises. In fact, with some of the acupressure and muscle stimulating techniques we use from Coach Charles Poliquin’s Instant Muscle Strengthening Techniques (PIMST), clients can gain 20 degrees or more of flexibility, or up to 50% more strength within a FEW SECONDS.

But those are “degrees” are simply a client’s short term results. Important yes, but not as important as the life and habits that they find. These they take with them forever and are worth way more than more chinups, a leaner waistline or a better broad jump.

I’m far more interested in education. The love for learning can be grown with the right coaching and the right environment. So can the love for making wise and healthy choices in life!

Check out our Curves & Core Fitness Bootcamp, our Personal Training, as well as our athletic training programs to get a life long piece of fitness education.

The research statistics are pretty scary. During our life we have about an 80% chance of having back pain. Sure its not a Singaporean study but I see no reason to think that we are different.

After taking a look at some of the ways “real life” people I know in Singapore that have hurt their backs…it’s something that we as personal trainers and fitness professionals MUST take note of and prevent. Here are some of the ways that people I know have been hurt.

1.    Back pain after Sneezing (this one was a slipped disc that required long term medical care)
2.    Back pain after helping an old lady carry her shipping.
3.    Back pain while slipping on a moist badminton court
4.    Back pain while helping a friend shift furniture

As usual I’m a “be a part of the solution” kind of guy, and actually I study a lots of material specially so that my staff and I at the Genesis Performance Center can help our clients deal with, prevent and recover from back pain so that they are back to full speed, full strength and full health.

Back pain is frustrating because it makes us feel old and immobile and I dare say …. even helpless! It is only responsible for fitness and performance professionals to help people avoid it!

This is why our personal training programs, our sports specific programs and our group fitness bootcamps all take into account the clients current and past back pain problems.

Unfortunately there is money to be made in the Singapore fitness industry (or just about anywhere, but in Singapore it is not a very regulated industry).

Nothing wrong with that!

I do make a living helping people of all ages achieve their health, fitness, performance and appearance goals.

But if only there was more truth being spread, there would be far more people getting excellent results form their fitness program.
I was at a lunch with some of my father’s friends. Because of my experiences as a personal trainer and sports performance professional, I got asked many health, sports and fitness related questions.

Sad to say, I feel that we (myself included) as fitness professionals in Singapore, have not done that great a job so fat at spreading the word about what are the truths and what are the lies that will affect the average person who wants to maintain their health and quality of life.

My dad’s friends were educated professionals in the finance industry but they had many of the same misconceptions that happen on internet forums filled with 14 year old kids.
Some of their misconceptions:

• Back health and core training – more crunches for you? NO!
• The basics of good nutrition – is a calorie a calorie? NO!
• What should a training program look like? – From warm up to program design…
• Jogging, that is what keeps me in shape – If you like it and have good running mechanics sure, but for most people, that isn’t the case (and it isn’t the best use of your time)
• More food makes me fat – More food makes you leaner! Unless its BAD food.

Not everybody once thought that the earth was round. Clearing up misconceptions takes time. Good thing we have the internet and since I can’t speak to everybody person to person, I can do my part by writing good articles that can hopefully save you time, money and injury!

The best way to get the real deal on fitness is to join our women fitness boot camp, our atheltes performance training or our personal training programs!