Category Archives: Fitness

What? Warm Up? Don’t waste my time!

No, don’t bother warming up.

Pull a muscle, feel your heart palpitate and fall down.

….

Now, we don’t want that to happen…do we?

Whatever your goal is, you MUST MOVE WELL.

Warm-ups are non-negotiable components of your training. Prepare yourself mentally and physically to reduce the potential of injury. Get more blood flowing through your tissues so your muscles can be ready for action. Get oxygen and nutrients to your muscles and brain.

The type of warm up has to relate to the exercise/activity that you are about to embark on. If you are doing strength training, ensure the muscles around the joint and the muscles that you are working on – is properly lengthened and supple. Mobilize the joint area so that you have proper range of motion. Do dynamic stretching that imitates the movement pattern and also some isometric holds e.g. planks, 5 min squat test or even dead-hang pull up holds. Running 5 mins around the block just to warm up, won’t help your body be ready for squats. It elevates your heart rate so that your blood is pumping more than your static state.

By the end of your warm-up, you should feel all ready to go!

Check out the video below. It’s a 8-minute warm-up that maximizes your full body movements in all movement planes (transverse, saggital, frontal planes).

Warm up exercises: Jumping Jacks, arm swings, lunge and twists, lateral lunges, torso swings, inchworms, shoulder circles and shoulder rolls.

Try this out the next time you train.

Advertisement

Live Great Run 2013, Running Clinic

Today was the final Running Clinic for the Live Great Run 2013. Held at the Great Eastern Mall at Jalan Ampang, there were almost 50 running enthusiasts who came and participated in this clinic.

These clinics are good because they focus on different training areas. Today’s focus was on Race Preparation, Race Timing Anticipation and Strategy. The main trainer, Edan Syah presented tips and information on how to prepare for your race, especially before the race. He also presented the race route, route elevation& distance and tips to run this route well.

After the talk, participants ran the 5.3km route around the area and was welcomed back to a feast of bananas, 100Plus and sachets of Perskindol muscular-relief gels.

I had the honor of taking the participants through the cool-down session, and also a Plank-Hold competition. The winner was a gentleman who held for 3mins and 5secs.

What an experience this was today! I look forward to more races and events !

Being Fit? What’s That?

Commit To Being Fit

When you speak to people about being fit, usually the responses are:

  • “I can run… not too sure about anything else!”
  • “The only weight-lifting I do is during grocery shopping.”
  • “You mean, go to the gym?”

In reality, being fit or having an acceptable level of fitness is a combination of different modules. In CrossFit, there are 10 components:

  1. Strength
  2. Power
  3. Cardiovascular Endurance
  4. Speed
  5. Stamina
  6. Flexibility
  7. Accuracy
  8. Balance
  9. Agility
  10. Coordination

These fitness components are directly translated to your day-to-day routines. Eg. Grocery shopping, doing housework, walking to your car with a heavy laptop bag.   Everyone needs to spend some time working on these components so that you can move better and live better.

Think about an activity that you find tough (or had some hesitance) doing. It could be bending over to pick up something, walking down the stairs,  Then, ask yourself these questions:

  1. How did I feel while doing that? (Tired, sharp pain, etc)
  2. Where was the pain? (Knee, back, elbow, etc)
  3. How long have I had this pain? (1 week, 2 months, etc)

There are many reasons why a movement is difficult :

  • Inflexibility of your muscles/tendons/ligaments
  • Poor posture/spinal alignment
  • Previous injury

I will break that up in my future posts as it is a pretty huge branch of its own! Everyone has got different issues so I will address it in my next few posts.

If you have a burning question regarding this topic, please feel free to contact me via the Contact Form below.

For more articles on Fitness, click here.

Fitness

Fitness on its own, makes people physically stronger. What I would like to have, is a healthy society and community that are willing to change their perceptions and habits that they have been leading their lives with, to become a more balanced individual, mentally and physiologically.

Start from within.

Start exercising, moving better, eating well and living your best life!

For more Fitness articles, click here.