I have spent the last 2 weeks getting married! 2 Countries. 10 days of preparation and celebration. Low amounts of sleep, and less than perfect food due to all the traveling and courtesy obligations. Now I’m on honeymoon at one of the top resorts in the region.

Not to worry, our awesome personal trainers at Genesis are keeping our personal training and fitness bootcamp programs running smoothly.

But once next week starts it will be back to all out coaching, training and other fun stuff – all while taking enough time to care for my new and beautiful wife Priscilla.

Meanwhile, this resort is focused on spas and relaxation. Despite its high end layout (and price), the gym here is pretty… sparse… its one multi station machine and one elliptical trainer.

But still, using extended sets my wife and I are managing to get a decent workout. I will be training 4 days out of the 6 that I am here. Here is my workout plan. Anyone who has a similarly limited equipment choice can follow a similar training program.

Day 1: Chest and Back
A1 – Machine Bench Press, 4010 tempo, 8 reps
10 sec rest
A2 – Wide Pushups, 9010 (3 x pauses on the way down) 8 reps
10 sec rest
A3 – Pec Deck Machine Flye, 2010 16 reps
120 sec rest
Do 4 circuits

B1 – 1 Arm Cable Row, 4010, 8 reps
10 sec rest
B2 – Wide Pronated Lat Pulldown, 4010, 8 reps
10 sec rest
B3 – Seated Row, 2010, 16 reps
120 sec rest
Do 4 circuits

Day 2 – Legs

Sprints on Beach

10m starts x 8, 120 sec rest

100m striding x 6, 90 sec rest

Day 3 and 4 coming up!

One of the problems that my personal training, nutrition coaching and fitness bootcamp clients face often is “where to get healthy food!” One suggested solution is protein bars. Unfortunately, I have not found a protein bar in Singapore that meets my standards for low preservatives, low carbohydrate count, great taste and quality ingredients. So I decided to try making some myself. With much help from my sister, we tried several batches of different recipes. And are still tweaking the good ones to make them even better. Will update you all when we find something easy and good for you.

NOTE: So far one of the batches was completely eaten by … me… because they tasted like brownies!

I know family members, personal training or bootcamp fitness clients and friends who have been seriously injured playing sports or performing daily tasks like shifting furniture or carrying kids. The question is are these preventable? Well, they are preventable if they are non contact – i.e. you were not punched, kicked or tackled! However almost all non-contact injuries are preventable with the right kind of athlete training programs.

Below are two videos inspired I believe by Australian sports performance coach Ian King, one of the veterans of the field of sports conditioning, and a man who has helped many athletes get medals in international competition. They illustrate how the usual mindset of “oh it’s just my bad luck that I’m injured” is wrong and doesn’t make sense.

Proper strength training can vastly reduce the chances of all injury.

A recent discussion online asked which type of fat measuring calipers to buy. In my opinion there is only one that you should get. It is the only one I will use in my Singapore personal training private gym.

The brand is “Harpenden” (shown above). It is accurate to 0.1mm and you can actually “see” the measurement change even if the personal training or fitness bootcamp client is already very lean. One of my clients is under 5% bodyfat but he had a break from training for 2 weeks because of exams. I was able to see a 0.5% change in his bodyfat percentage… which works out to about a 0.4mm difference in most of his skin-fold sites.

You will NOT be able to see these changes (good OR bad) with a cheapo, plastic toy style $40 pair of calipers. These can miss by up to 4mm per site because they are simply not accurate or consistent enough. Because I take 12 body-fat measurements per client to get the most possible information to help my client, 4×12=48 and 48mm is a MASSIVE potential error. Might as well use the near-useless electric, hand help methods then!

The principle of “if its good, it isn’t cheap, and if its cheap, it is very unlikely to be good” holds true here just like it does for gym equipment or fitness instructors or nutrition coaches. The Harpenden fat measuring calipers cost more than $700 SGD. But once you get one or use one, you will neever need to “upgrade” and you will never use another fat measurement device again.

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.

Most personal trainers in Singapore simply take a client through a fixed circuit of machine exercises that are the same for each client.This is a great way to earn a quick buck off an unsuspecting client. – NOT Good

Most fitness bootcamps in Singapore simply get a bunch of people to run or jump around in an open field or park without care about long term progress and excellence. This is a great way to injure a person who has not trained in a long while. – NOT Good

But the ONE thing most lacking from most Singapore personal training or fitness/weight loss boot camp programs is doing nutritional guidance the right way.

One benefit that my staff and I have is that we have more than 200 clients in our facility each year. And we track each and every one of them. Measurements, genetic tolerances, fat levels, and each and every weight that they lifted! So we have a huge database of information about what works and what doesn’t.

For example, one of our clients was doing alot of things right, training hard, high level of activity (he does martial arts on non-gym days) and is a motivated client. BUT he was not losing fat at the rate that he should have been.

But -BOOM- once we changed his nutrition to something that suits his particular genetics, and cut out one or two foods that did not suit his genes, he dropped 2.5% bodyfat in 10 days – that about 5-10mm on each bodyfat site.

Another lady had problems with her upper body fat. Her legs looked great and athletic but her upper body was stagnant even tho she ate healthy food most of the time. For her she needed a particular supplement because her family eats NO red meat, and for her, L-carnitine was a very useful thing to boost her fat loss results.

(For both these clients we used biosignature to help them get results)

As you can see, diet troubleshooting is not a simple matter of “calories in-calories out”. (Subject for another LONG post) it is a matter of balance and individualization especially for those who have plateaued.

Meanwhile what are the general guidelines?

If you are fat – i.e. can’t see your abs (guy) or don’t have a firm stomach (ladies), I use the following nutritional guidelines.

• No starches
• Green veggies unlimited
• Un-processed meat unlimited
• Nuts 2 handfuls per day for medium/large men (70kg+) and 1 handful per day for women and smaller guys.
• Fish Oil – 1g per day per % of bodyfat you are
• Cheat meals – 1 per week – But you can test 2-3 (on the same day) to see if you can tolerate it.
• Post workout shake is protein + glutamine + glycine
• Drink water and unsugared tea.

Here is a picture of me after a 4 week holiday + reservist + little training and horrible army food. No carbs for you fat boy!

If you are lean – can see abs (guys) can see line down the middle of your tummy (ladies)

This is a picture of me 12 weeks later – Carbs will help me stay LEANER

You actually need starches. Start adding them post workout. And see if you get fatter (you should probably get LEANER because you prevent the body from using precious protein as a fuel), if you don’t get fatter, add them to your solid meal post workout too, then breakfast. More on training days less on non training days.

The rest of the plan remains the same except that you should take a cheat meal probably midweek, and your post workout shake should have some carbs instead of glutamine (glycine remains).

I actually just made this transition (I have a basketball tournament coming up and want to be leaner) – it happens at about 10 % bodyfat for guys and 16% for women.

The “fat person” plan is usually called a “cyclic ketogenic diet” and the “lean person” plan is usually called “carbohydrate cycling”.

There are man other factors to consider. But consistently do the first things first, and most of you will already get significant results.

But of course if you want an experienced eye to help you adjust weekly/monthly exactly what you should be doing according to precise measurements and tracking – that is what our personal training programs are for – results results results!

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!

Why do you exercise? Of course people tell me that they do it to look good, to stay healthy, to feel better, to fit into their clothes again, to show off to their old schoolmates at a reunion, to look good on their wedding day… true.

But when it comes down to it, each time you do a piece of exercise, it has to have a purpose.

Any exercise is better than watching TV all day… but you and I are both busy and don’t have time for sub-optimal training.

Each weight that you lift, each set of sprints that you do, each time you change workouts MUST HAVE A PURPOSE. I strongly discourage “random or buffet training” because if you train like that, you have NO CLUE if you are on your way to reaching your goals.

• Are olympic lifts like the snatch and the clean good? Yes!
• How about lifts like the squat, deadlift and presses? Yes!
• Chinups? Yes!
• Kettlebells… well sometimes:)
• Sprints? Yes!

Alot of things are “good” but its like food… if you wanted to have a nice dessert you might choose ice cream, cakes, red bean soup, bananna pancakes, pies, or any number of yummy foods.

Each nice on its own… but when mixed together and put into a blender, you get a messy slop that is yucky.

• So each time you choose an exercise – choose it for the muscles it trains.
• Each time you choose a rep range – choose it for its training effect and total time under tension.
• Each time you choose a rest interval – choose it depending if you want to develop power (rest longer) or capacity (rest shorter).
• Each time you plan a series of workouts, they are designed to build on each other for maximum progress, not to be a “surprise” that varies so often that you have no chance to track and assess.
• Each time you perform a rep – do it precisely and correctly, or else you have no idea if you are progressing!

I have had clients who claim to be able to do huge numbers of kipping chinups but their actual max chinup was very unimpressive. That makes them actaully weak… even though their skill at kipping seems to imply that they are good at chinups. They train properly for a few weeks and their max chinup goes through the roof…

Guess what? So does their kipping chinup:) It does not work the other way around.

A Rep is NOT a Rep unless it's done properly and consistently

Don’t worry, all these factors are taken into account in the Singapore’s best personal training programs as well as our fitness bootcamps. Your results are guaranteed because your progress is tracked, assessed and measured. There is no luck involved. Just results. Period.

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A short video clip as I share about how sleep affects fat loss. This is just a short clip, but in all our programs no matter if its personal training, fitness bootcamps or NS Fitness, we address sleep issues! We help all our clients sleep better with nutrients and habits that suit them! Remember more, and higher quality sleep makes you stronger, leaner, less prone to illness, and more productive!

George Washington Carver - Working With Great Intent!

As a Fitness Coach here in Singapore, I know that many personal training, and athlete clients want it all and they want it now.

That’s good! And as a coach and as a fitness professional my staff and I keep up to date on the latest in science and practice so that we can deliver results!

But in fitness, just like in many things, focus is critical. You can’t lose fat really fast and gain muscle really fast at the same time! You can’t improve your vertical jump and your 10km run time fast at the same time… and so the list goes on…

I like the saying of Dr George Washington Carver (not the US president). He was a scientist who discovered more than 300 uses of the peanut and these uses made peanut production popular and made his state of Alabama rich.
He was wondering what to research on and realized that he needed to

“Decrease the EXTENT and increase the INTENT”

Thus he ended up focusing on just 1 thing… the peanut! HE got great results.
Part of coaching is helping clients to focus on one thing at a time so that they get consistent results. Too much extent with too little intent = nothing!

Do you need an extra boost of INTENT. Check out our programs which are all goal oriented and focused on helping you achieve your best results ever.