I just finished 14 hours of learning at the Trigenics Institute in Toronto, Canada. I did at one to one private internship with Dr Austin, the founder of trigenics, because I wanted to learn in the fastest and most accurate way possible. Every time I made a mistake, I was corrected immediately, and every time I had a question, I got a great answer immediately. I will gladly pay for education, and I would gladly pay more for fast and accurate and personalized education.

I wanted to learn trigenics because it is a way of delivering what I want to see in a treatment system. Fast results with less (but still some) discomfort for the patient. The method works. After our official training sessions, Dr Austin, the founder of trigenics treated my multifidus, and erector muscles in my lower back because I was unable to turn my torso as far left as I could right.

This is probably due to the thousands of swings I did while playing softball as a kid. Always turning right to throw and hit because I am a left hander. It got to the point where I even had a minor tear of the obliques on my left side which has been annoying for a long time.

But with just one treatment, I am able to turn both directions with equal flexibility. And even more important, I know how to get this same result with our personal training or fitness bootcamp clients.

The method combines an excellent assessment system together with a very elegant system of treatment that works fast!

Also taught were instant muscle strengthening and flexibility techniques. In fact as part of the course I need to produce a “mini-study” on the benefits of this treatment. I will be recruiting volunteers from our client base soon:)

So, more ways to get stronger, heal injuries faster, and prevent injuries through accurate assessment. That is what my trigenics knowledge will do for our Genesis Performance Center clients.

Industrial espionage and spying is something I thought we only see on TV or in big corporations. But it appears the Singapore fitness industry has some of this too!

Over the last month my staff and I have entertained several “visitors” and “potential clients” at our Gym in Singapore. We help hundreds of clients every year so we know, in general, what client’s needs are and how a new visitor usually behaves.

However these visitors were different. Their attitude was different, their questions were different, and they just don’t seem “usual”.

They pretend to be interested in our fitness bootcamp or personal training programs, but then go ahead and ask alot of questions.

There is nothing wrong with asking questions. And as our many clients can attest to, my staff and I are more than happy to answer these questions.

But these questions are not about their results, but about our client base, our business model etc. WHAT HAS THAT GOT TO DO WITH YOUR HEALTH OR RESULTS? Very odd…

(Quick note to potential spies – 3 of our staff, including myself have backgrounds in the social work/counseling/family crisis management areas. It would be madness to think you can fool us.)

But the world is so connected that soon we found out that these “visitors” are actually personal trainers from other gyms or competing fitness businesses.

Instead of being upset, we are flattered that you want to find out how we do things. It just means that we are doing things the right way, and benefiting the most people.

Even if I gave you every piece of information about our methods, you would not be able to duplicate it.

• If you had lots of money and training experience you could duplicate our equipment and setup
• If you had lots of time, money, determination and IQ you could duplicate our constantly growing education and knowledge
• If you had lots of business coaching, you could duplicate our system.

But what you will not be able to duplicate is the culture of excellence, honesty and care for members that makes all the difference because culture is not about what we do… but rather, who we are.

After all, if you are a spy, this culture is not part of you.

The Singapore health and fitness industry is (unfortunately) well known for scams, fakes and frauds in products and information. Unfortunately, much of this mis-information is passed along by well meaning people. But when it comes to your health, your fitness and your results, it can be hard to tell the truth from the fakes especially in the intentions of the source are good!

But here is a quick question that has helped me alot in both business situations and in the murky waters of fitness information. I learned it first on a audio program by the late personal development author Napoleon Hill.

Whenever somebody gives an opinion (and it is increasingly easy to hear opinions on the internet), simply ask them this question.

Here it is…

“How do you know?”

There. It is simple, just four words!

Whenever somebody with questionable intentions or knowledge is presented with this question, they will usually struggle to answer (watch them squirm, it is entertaining…). It is alot easier to tell if they are trying to pull a quick on on you by listening to their answer to this question, than by listening to their (perhaps rehearsed) initial statement or opinion.

Try it on shady salespeople, internet forum “gurus” and personal trainers who aren’t qualified to help you get results!

Recently I was asked a lot about the range of motion that we should have in training. “why do we use exercise A rather than B?” etc. Here is what both clients and personal trainers need to know about range of motion.

You need to know that there are three different ranges of motion (ROM).

• ROM of the muscle
• ROM of the joint
• ROM of the exercise

While it is not possible to go through every possible exercise, lets use the common bench press as an example.

When using a barbell, the full ROM of the exercise is until the bar touches your chest. However, the main muscles used (prime movers) are the deltoids, the pectorals and the triceps muscles. The joints involved are (mainly) the shoulder and elbow joints.

When the bar is at the bottom, touching your chest, is your shoulder or elbow at the end of its ROM? No. Are your triceps, pectorals or deltoids stretched fully? NO.

For example the clavicular portion of the pectorals (the “upper chest”) would have a fuller range of motion in a elbow in line with ears fly. And the triceps would have a fuller range of motion for example in a lying dumbbell triceps extension.

The shoulder and elbow joints would be at their end range when doing one of the many possible flexibility tests for those joints.

So, whenever you think about ROM, you need to know which ROM you are talking about. And also note that it’s not possible to get full ROM in everything all the time. If you did so, you would dilute the benefit of the exercise you were trying to perform by using too light a weight, or by risking injury.

This means that the key to success and complete development is variety of exercise structured into your program. This is how we help out clients succeed in both our group bootcamp fitness programs and our personal training programs. Science based variation of your exercises for maximum results.

One of the “specialties” I am known for as a Singapore Personal Trainer, is that my programs and nutrition plans help “hard gainers” pack on muscular body weight faster than they EVER have in their lives. Besides helping them break the mentality that “I’ll be thin all my life”. One other thing that I, as a coach has to do, is to show them that they need to eat more high quality foods in bigger amounts.

Assuming their digestive tracts are in order (which we look at during their assesment upon signing up at my personal training gym), they should be able to eat and digest a bigger amount of quality nutrients – needed for maximum muscle building. This can be hard because most people have NO IDEA what kinds of quantities and quality of food it takes to build muscles.

Just to give an example, I used one of the free “calorie tracking” websites to log my food intake for a day. I’m not super huge (80+kg) and I’m not trying to put on alot of weight. I am fairly active because I train most days for about an hour, and I am at about 10% body fat at the moment.

Here is a snapshot of what I ate – I did not include the 5-6 servings of veggies and 4-5 servings of veggie drinks which would add maybe another 150 calories.

I am NOT a calorie counting fan, but in this case it should give a skinny person an indication of just how much he needs to eat to gain size! At this amount of food, I’m not even gaining weight! So if you want to gain quality weight you probably need even more food than this.

You see that right – 1.5kg or so of meat, including a pound of steak at lunch + a bunch of other stuff and a cup of cream on my berries. And thats only 3400 calories (including my veggie stuff). So – skinny guys, if you are not eating at least this much, don’t complain about being a hard-gainer… go cook some animals and then we can talk about it!

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.

I just read a study published in the medical journal “Archives of Internal Medicine” Jan 25, 2009. Yes it was done on women aged 65-75 and it divided them into 2 groups. One group did strength training with dumbells, and another group did “balance and toning” exercises. These were the results…

“A year later, the women who did strength training had improved their performance on tests of so-called executive function by 10.9 percent to 12.6 percent, while those assigned to balance and toning exercises experienced a slight deterioration — 0.5 percent. The improvements in the strength training group included an enhanced ability to make decisions, resolve conflicts and focus on subjects without being distracted by competing stimuli.”

You know the worst part – those who wasted time on “balance and toning” did not even maintain their full function.

And in these studies, usually, even the strength training is average at best, and the results were still good. Imagine if the strength training was conducted by a well qualified personal trainer… I suspect the results would be even better.

Why? The key indicator in quality of life in senior citizens (actually I think it applies to ALL people!) is muscular size and strength/power.

• Size because the more muscle mass you have the more immune system resources you can buffer – i.e. you don’t get sick
• Strength/Power because the stronger you are, the less likely you will get injured. This means, no falling down, no broken bones, no trips to the hospital and no long term bed rest i.e. no fast degeneration!

The problem – as mentioned in this study, is that senior females DON’T OFTEN DO STRENGTH TRAINING, the very form of exercise that will help them. But that is why they have many health issues! So it’s not ok to be “average”. Average is sick and dependent. Be normal! It is normal to be energetic, mentally sharp, lean and strong – at any age.

Kahyin, one of our senior clients warms up with some jumps - she DOES look way younger than her peers and is way healthier! This study is right!

Ok, many of my Singapore personal training and fitness boot camp clients as me if fruit juice is ok for them to drink… I mean, fruits are healthy right? so why not just juice them and get all their goodness… and as an added benefit you can have so many fruits in one glass… my answer (after a short chuckle)…NO, No, NOOOO…unless you want to get fat, diabetic and brain damaged!

Clients come to me to lose weight, burn fat, get healthy and improve their performance and strength… so of course NO is the answer.

Pretty Nice Ads, Pretty Ugly Results

Why?

Firstly fruit juice is high in sugar and low in fiber (even the most organic, healthy ones) – that means that it’s just as bad as any other processed and overly sweetened cola or syrup based drink. Almost nobody can get a healthy and lean physique drinking those… and nobody can get a great physique drinking fruit juice either.

It combines all the “bad parts” of fruit – the high sugar, concentrates it and gives you many servings of this in 1 glass – it takes several apples (4-5) to make 1 glass of apple juice. When was the last time you ate 5 apples in one sitting? Thats the amount of sugar you are taking in!

It takes away the good stuff – the skins and fiber in fruits is gone! These actually slow digestion if you eat the whole fruit. That makes the impact of the sugar less on your body when it is digested slowly and released slowly into the body.

Most fruit juices in coffee shops and hawker centers are “enhanced” with sugar syrup – oops thats not in real fruit!

Finally fruit juice commercial production is EVIL. Fruits are very heavily sprayed with poisons to protect them from bugs (its actually because the soil they are grown in is so bad that artificial fertilizers are used which do not provide the plant the nutrients to be healthy and have its OWN defense against bugs – thus pesticides are needed)…

Do you think fruits are lovingly plucked and gently squeezed one by one to make juice? Of course not. They are crushed by the thousands, skin and rind and all and the juices drained out. Oops some pesticide is left on the skin… oops… its in your juice.

Most pesticides are nervous system and brain toxic. That is BAD.

I prefer to have full nerve function and brain function. I prefer to be lean and healthy. I don’t drink fruit juice!  And any Singapore personal trainer who knows his/her nutrition facts won’t tell you to either.

I know that we need about 8-12 servings of fruits and veggies to stay healthy, alkalanize our body, and get a  wide spectrum of anti-oxidants. That is why I use a organic veggie and fruit extract that keeps the nutrients but does not give us the high sugar content. I also use a variety of organic fibers to keep the digestive tract healthy. We used to be able to get great nutrition from fruits… but fruit today is not what it used to be – its low in nutrients, genetically modified to be sweet, and covered in pesticides… we should all use a greens/fruit supplement and a fiber to stay healthy. Contact us to see if we have any in stock so you can get the nutrition your body needs to maximize its potential.

There are so many definitions of fitness, and it means different things to different people.

• For a weightlifter it means that you should be able to lift as heavy a weight as possible from the floor, to overhead. For a soccer or basketball player it means that you would be playing at a highly competitive level even late in 2nd half or 4th quarter.
• For a triathlete it would mean improving on your personal time (swimming, running and cycling suddenly become easy if you are undergoing our triathlete training program)
• For a golfer it might be putting 15m on your drive (which should take us just weeks to help you with)
• For a “regular” man or woman who works a “normal” 9-6pm job, fitness may be looking good, having good energy and productivity, and having the ability to do whatever tasks life throws at him or her.

And even for this “regular” person which is, most of us, he or she may have such different goals.

• Lose Fat
• Lose Weight
• Bulk Up/Build Muscle
• Lower Cholesterol and improve other indicators of health
• Prevent osteoporosis
• Have energy to chase their kids around
• Overcome diabetes… and so on…

Different goals need different programs, techniques and planning to achieve.

It is best to go after one goal at a time for best results. (Don’t be fooled by programs that claim to do everything all at once for everybody!)

Even if there are too many “problems” to solve, we go after the most challenging and biggest one first.  E.g. if a person needs to run faster for his sport but is overweight, we target his oversize tummy as a priority because in the big scheme of things, that will give more benefits.

What to go for first, how long before you change “target”, how to best go about each of these goals and what method would work best FOR YOU is how we design our personal training programs for clients.

To get into the Singapore’s best personal training / fitness coaching sg program, just click on the link here.

NOTE: Even things like exactly how long each set should last, must be customized for your body type for maximum results?

To be technically excellent a personal trainer in Singapore or elsewhere will need to have good understanding of:

• Biomechanics (how the body moves in space)
• Kinesiology (how the joints move etc)
• Nutrition
• Endocrinology (hormonal system)
• Manual Therapy (massage, rehab, trigger point work etc)
• Injury Prevention
• Performance Enhancement

And I’ll probably think of more if I really sat down to do it. The body is such an awesome piece of creation that we will probably never get to the end of it.

Oh yeah, don’t forget that it’s not just good enough to know. A personal trainer must distill out the important points and teach/coach them to a client.

I believe all this is too much to teach in any reasonable amount of time. It needs to be learnt over years of consistent study and practice. This cannot be driven by any certification. It has to come from an intrinsic sense of excellence. Being the very best that you can be.

I know I’m not perfect but I do want to make the best use of whatever God given ability I have. If that means spending several hundred bucks a month on books, dvds, seminars etc. So be it.

“Who we are is God’s gift to us, who we become is our gift to God” so we might as well be the best we can be!

Maybe one day personal training will be a professional qualification. That will be a happy day for the fitness industry. But meanwhile I will “act as if” that means that I will “act as if” we are a professional organization and industry. That is how things come into being eventually.