Personal Trainer in KL Kuala Lumpur, Cyberjaya, Putrajaya, Petaling Jaya (PJ), KLCC, Mont Kiara

Hey peeps! Sorry for not updating this blog for 2 months. I was actually loaded with tons of work even during my last post. And on 19th Nov 2010 onwards, i was away for a overseas assignment (no related to fitness, but my interest in photography). India and Nepal to be precise. I'll be posting regularly starting from January 2011 onwards as I'm already in holiday mood now. Till then ;)

I decided to start what  I call Fitness Rant . And no, I'm not ranting angrily or loudly, but just taking opportunity to blog and reeducate people about exercise science. I get questions that are associated with fitness myth(s) too often, thus I decided I'll rant about it. Question:  I started going to the gym for the past 2 months. I have a trainer and my trainer told me to do chest press, leg press, bicep curls etc etc (she demonstrated a few other exercises that she did not know what were they called) . But when I told my friend about my exercises that I am doing, my friend laughed at me and said If I want to lose fat, I should be doing Sit-Ups and Cardio, that would be enough. Is my trainer doing the right thing? My answer:  What your trainer is asking you to do is good. Chest Press and Leg Press, these are compound movements working on your major muscle group, and is very important to be done if you are looking into losing fat. When you lift weights, microscopic t

I'm trying to make myself sound like some big superstar athlete who came out of retirement. Oh yeah! Just few hours ago, I landed a silver medal from MAPCU Taekwondo Tournament, contributing to today's 1 Gold and 3 Silvers for UCSI University Taekwondo team. I never thought I would be competing in Taekwondo anymore since my knee surgery ( ACL reconstruction and meniscus repair ) in 2005 after snapping them during a District Level Taekwondo Tournament, and re-snapped 3 months later for rushing into training ( yes, I had two surgeries on the same knee within 3 months). Despite not training Taekwondo specifically at all since my knee surgery, I am pretty proud to say I lost in the final 7-8, missing the Gold medal by a point - which I personally think I should have scored at least 10 points for having more than 3 kicks (which lands properly) on the opponent's head. Would I start competing actively in Taekwondo again? Hell yeah! Take home message?  Never be too f

I gave a talk on Fitness Within You ... Anywhere, Anytime at Turning Point Welcafe a few hours ago. The talk basically covers that to be successful in something you do, there must be a desire, knowledge and action plan. That includes fitness. Then followed by bodyweight exercises that participants could do anywhere and anytime without the need of equipments. The talk ended with Q&A session - where many, and I mean it, many interesting questions were asked. I would try to recall as many questions as possible and share it here. Meanwhile, I'm sorry that I did not prepare the exercise list and instructions handout for the participants. But would be emailed to them later.

This post is a continuation from my previous post . **  **  ** Doing too much of cardio is bad if you are looking into losing body fat. Our body works in a unique way. When you are doing long – steady cardio (eg: jogging) your body would break down muscle tissues as energy source when they run out of glycogen source from your muscles. Breaking down of muscle tissues would cause metabolism rate to drop due to lesser muscle mass. This is because muscle mass are built and maintained upon calories which are acquired through the food we eat. Therefore your metabolism rate would be higher if you have higher muscle mass. Then what about strength and resistance training?  When you do strength and resistance training, microscopic tear takes place in our muscle fibers. And our body response to the microscopic tear is by building more muscles, which depends on calories to be built and maintained. That again, means higher metabolism rate. Oh yeah, for the ladies, you don’t have to worry abo

One common question that I’m being asked is about home exercise equipments, or better known as home fitness equipments (blah, whatever you call it.). And the common question would be asked in a way where it revolves around treadmill, stationary bike and elliptical trainer. I’m not surprised considering how the media portrays or should I say associate these machines with burning fat . And for some cases, the abs shaper even made its way into the list. When I give my recommendations, they get surprised that it’s not anything that they shortlisted. Instead I suggest to them buying Kettlebells, Dumbbells EZ Curl Bar or Barbells with Weights. They are all resistance exercise equipments, and none of them falls under the cardio machine category EZ Curl Bar, Kettlebell and a Dumbbell I'll explain to you why in the next post

It has been 6 days since Ramadhan started on the 11th August, and I would like to wish all Muslim readers a blessed Ramadhan Mubarak ahead. In case you are not aware, the Ramadhan month is known as the holiest month for Muslims all over the world, where Muslims observes one of the 5 pillars, fasting or also known as Sawn. And it's not uncommon for Muslim friends to ask me how should they adjust their exercise routine during the Ramadhan month or should they stop exercising during the holy month? Even non-Muslim who don't fast would ask me the same question, out of curiosity to know. In general, many side effects take place in the body during fasting mode, both physiological and psychological. Nausea, headache, lethargic and the list goes on. All these happens as the body tries to adapt to the change of diet of not having sufficient calories to sustain the demands imposed on the body. There are also other side effects that are invincible to the naked eyes, like slower metabo

In my previous post, I mentioned that it's not what you eat that makes you fat , but eating more calories than the body need is what makes you fat! But what are calories actually? A calorie is the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. (Okay, that's according to some science textbook's definition). So basically a calorie is a unit for energy. In this post's context, it's about energy for the sustenance for us, humans. We need energy for everything that we do, breathing, walking, standing, and even lying down resting. And we acquire energy from no other than food. A gram of carbohydrate contain 4 calories, a gram of protein contain 4 calories, and a gram of fat contain 9 calories. While above all that, next to fat is alcohol with 7 calories from every gram, and the worst part of alcohol is, it has no nutritional value. And to choose your source of calories, ISSA recommends the 1-2-3 nutritional rule-of-thumb. Wh

Last semester at University, I was required to do a presentation for the module of Physiological Psychology. Physiological Psychology studies on how the mind affects the body or how the body affects the mind, depending on which school of thought you subcribe to. So I decided to talk about Fad Diets considering going on a diet is pretty a hot topic among the female students. I covered on various types of fad diets - low carbs, no carbs, high protein, etc. You may ask how is it related to Psychology. Here's an example; the no carbs and all protein diet causes you body to be deprived of glucose which comes from carbohydrates. And glucose is known as your brain's food that helps in brain functioning. When your body could not find any glucose, they would start producing ketones as replacement. However ketones do not work as well as glucose, hence affect your brain's functioning on decision making etc. The main highlight on this post is on something that made the whole cla

In my previous post, It's Not All About Weight Anymore explains a little about why you should not be concern about your weight, but concern about your body composition instead. Here's another reason why you should be concern with body composition. According to a study by the Mayo Clinic, the old belief that you should be healthy if your weight fall in the range of Normal according to the Body Mass Index , isn't exactly true. Two 23 years old male may have similar weight at 70kg, but one has a body fat level of 15%, while another 22%, the latter has a higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases due to the high level of body fat. The researchers of the study coined it with the term Normal Weight Obesity . While you may look and appear fit , but your body is actually working like an obese person's body - metabolic syndrome. Click Here for Age Adjusted Body Fat Percentage Charts for Men and Women So it can be really deceiving to see someone who looks fit , bu

Very often I hear from people saying that they need to lose weight. While people who started on regular exercise complaints that their weight remains the same on the weighing machine. Let's get a better understanding when it comes to body weight. Our body weight include bone, muscle, water, fat and internal organs. As a fitness professional in general, we always look into what we call Lean Body Mass (LBM) and total body fat. Lean Body Mass consist of muscle, bones, tendons, ligaments and internal organs. While total body fat consist of essential fat and storage fat. Essential fat are required by our human body for body functions. They are stored in the heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, intestines, muscles, bone marrow and lipid-rich tissues throughout the central nervous system and female has a higher percentage of essential fat due to their child-bearing nature. While storage fat is stored in adipose tissue , which includes subcutaneous (under your skin) fat. And it is

Okay, look. I'm filled up with lots of work lately. And I don't have much time to actually blog. However I never say no time to exercise, which is a very common excuse I always hear from people around me. So what kind of quick exercise I do if I don't have time for my training ? A very quick and simple one, no equipments needed and won't even take 15 minutes of my time. 5 rounds of : 20 push ups 20 bodyweight squats 20 burpees Once I complete 5 rounds of those exercises, I end with a plank - holding as long as I can. While It may not be enough according to ACSM's guidelines for physical activity recommendation , but it's anyhow better than not doing anything. Have a great week ahead :-)

Remember that I was saying I was up for something that I've not done before last month ? and I will be out of Malaysia every weekend. Well, that something that I've not done, is done for as I received an email last week from the Singapore Sports Council informing me that I've successfully passed my Sports Massage course. And as mentioned on the title, I'm now a Certified Sports Masseur. The 6 weekend course was a great one as I learned so much new things from the trainer of the course who is a Sports Rehabilitation Specialist with the Singapore Sports Council, assisted by one Senior Physiotherapist and two senior sports masseur. And of course, a short exposure to the Singapore fitness industry shows how much our country are actually lacking behind in terms of promoting fitness and healthy lifestyle by our government. Singapore Sports Council Sports Massage Course Batch of May 2010 Out of the 22 students, only 6 of them including me are people working in t

** Update on 25/6/2010 ** Apparently what we saw as reality show on television wasn't exactly reality . See what was reported by CBSNewsOnline at Youtube on 18th June 2010. ** Original post on 19 April 2010 ** I saw on the official Biggest Loser Asia facebook group that audition for season 2 is coming soon. To be honest, I did have the thought of asking some of my obese friends to join the audition back in the debut season although I've personally not watched more than 10 episodes of Biggest Loser USA. And yes, I did NOT watch a single episode of Biggest Loser Asia, in fact I can't even remember what was their airing time and day on Astro. I only saw the the winner's photo as people were talking about him over the internet. And I personally think that he looked sick. Before and After - Biggest Loser Asia Season 1 winner The reason is simple. I'm disgusted with what was and still being portrayed on television about losing weight. It gives a w

** Update on 23/6/2010 ** I came across this article ( 8 Stupid Myths about Squatting ) by world renowned strength coach, Charles Poliquin . Look what he has to say about Squats are bad for knees on Myths #2 . Myth #2: Squats are bad for the knees . Not only are squats not bad for the knees, every legitimate research study on this subject has shown that squats improve knee stability and therefore help reduce the risk of injuries. The National Strength and Conditioning Association has published an excellent position paper on this subject with an extensive literature review, and data from the Canadian National Alpine Ski Team suggests that regular squatting reduces not only the rate of injuries but also the time it takes to recuperate from injuries that do occur. When I was hired to work with the Canadian National Women’s Volleyball Team, I found all of them suffered from varying degrees of an overuse injury called patellar tendinitis, or jumper’s knee. I believed the

I was warming up with full range of motion (ROM) body-weight squats, squatting as deep as I can with my knee extending beyond my toes. One trainer came over telling me that it's bad for my knees and it's not safe - I should be doing half squats and knees should be behind the toes instead. Knowing his background, I believe he's speaking from the input of a certain textbook. So I explained my point to him that I opt for full ROM + knee extending beyond toes as I believe in getting full functional range of motion and with knees extending beyond the toes are part of natural human movements. While I also told him that he was not wrong to say it's bad for my knees. According to Kreighbaum (1996) deep squats with knees extending beyond toes are absolutely fine. However there are 3 concerns to look into; (1) Speed of descent, (2) size of calves and thighs, (3) Strength of controlling muscles. Let's see what he has to say; The primary danger to the k

I'll be away from Malaysia every weekend for the next 6 weeks starting from 8th May 2010. I'm up for something exciting, something I've not personally done before. But I'll only announce what it is once I'm done with it. And oh yes, I'm sorry I've not been blogging consistently. I've been really really tied down with things which has higher priorities. I promise I'll start blogging actively again on health and fitness :) Meanwhile, stay tuned !

I saw on the official Biggest Loser Asia facebook group that audition for season 2 is coming soon. To be honest, I did have the thought of asking some of my obese friends to join the audition back in the debut season although I've personally not watched more than 10 episodes of Biggest Loser USA. And yes, I did NOT watch a single episode of Biggest Loser Asia, in fact I can't even remember what was their airing time and day on Astro. I only saw the the winner's photo as people were talking about him over the internet. And I personally think that he looked sick. Before and After - Biggest Loser Asia Season 1 winner The reason is simple. I'm disgusted with what was and still being portrayed on television about losing weight. It gives a wrong impression of what we as fitness professionals do for our clients. And reality show isn't exactly reality, at all ! In reality, we do not train up to 4-5 hours per day, what more for people who before being in the show,