Malaysia Open 2009

It has been a long long time since I last blog about our training. Many things happen in the Athletics scene and seems that it's a mixture of good and bad news. 2 months ago I represented SAA, together with Miss Chan our National High Jump coach, took a bus trip up to KL Bukit Jalil Stadium to compete in the Malaysia Open. I went up by myself first just to attend the Team Manager meeting. Miss Chan and the team went up on the 2nd day and arrived in one of the hotel in town. However, due to lack of transportation, the team waited patiently for me.

It was my first visit to Bukit Jalil Stadium and it was fantastic. Most athletes from our south east asia region came and took part in the Open meet, countries like Korea and Taipei were there to join in the fun. That was the time where I witnessed Dipna broke the Junior and the Senior record for the 100m women hurdles on the same day. Pls enjoy the video!

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BionicBand - Make your orders now!!

Thank you for your patience! You can now order the bands through me. Click the link below:

http://reactiv-sg.blogspot.com/2007/09/order-form.html

Fill up the form clearly, with the quantity and the item number, and the system will automatically send an email to confirm your order. All prices stated is inclusive of shipping cost.

I'll purchase once I've received 60 pcs of order. Thanks!

S$82.00

Sizes available :

S-8", Black, Item #: 01BLK75SML

M-9", Black, Item #: 02BLK75MED
L-10", Black, Item #: 03BLK75LRG
XL-12", Black , Item #: 04BLK75XLG

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World Championships 2009 Berlin

It has been a long time since I last blogged about our training. After a long trip for the World Champs, I've got heaps of work to settle and had no time to blog about my experience in Germany. It has been 2 weeks since I got back and at last I've completed my top priority stuff.
I'm sure everyone has watched the World Record being broken by Usain Bolt in the 100m and the 200m. It was phenomenal! Everything was so fast I couldn’t even analyse what was going on. But I’m sure you can check it out on Youtube. If you have been reading our training blog, you would have seen the training videos we did during our stay in Bremen. Coach Hosni, Hakeem and Balpreet went to Berlin and started their stay in the Team hotel arranged by the Berlin World Champs committee. After lots of hassle, they finally managed to check in to a hotel where most star athletes were staying in. You can view their Facebook account for the photos posted!

I went to Germany for a separate mission. I was with the team for the training camp, after which we went our separate ways. I was involved in the World Class Coaches Club organised by Dr Frank Dick, President of EACA, and member of IAAF Coaches Commission. It was a wonderful experience I met close to 40 coaches all over the world, from Canada, Poland, UK, Chile, Greece, Australia, Norway, and Finland. I think I was the only Asian representative. The Head coaches and elite coaches from different disciplines were always ready to share their ideas and experiences. I’ve learnt so much from them… it’s truly a blessing…

We went to the stadium to watch the championships everyday from the 1st event till the last event. It was one of the biggest events I’ve ever been to. The crowd was fantastic, security was tight, and the atmosphere was awesome. My accreditation pass allows me to be in the VIP area, where free flow of food and drinks were served. I was even rubbing shoulders with track stars like Maurice Greene, Donovan Bailey, Linford Christie, Wilson Kipketer, Kim Collins, Michael Johnson etc…

Ralph Mouchbahani, in charge of the BOC culture stadium and local co-ordination, was the man running the whole show, and entertaining our requests. He was indispensable throughout the championships and his cell phone was constantly ringing. Without him, most things could not have been done; like arranging for a meeting room to conduct mini seminars, for discussion with guest speakers.

Interestingly, I met this big guy and he was the one who introduced the BionicBand to me, Andy Miller. Miller, in case you don’t know, is known as the best ‘Mr Fixit’ in the track and field business. He has worked with a host of the world’s top athletes including the likes of former and current Olympic champions – Maurice Greene, Jeremy Wariner, Haile Gebrselassie, Shawn Crawford, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Hicham El Guerrouj, just to name a few. In the next blog post I will explain more about the BionicBand. Several top athletes are wearing this now. Meanwhile, if you are interested, please visit http://www.bionicband.com/ or http://mybionicsports.com/

You can email me for more information as well!

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Training in Bremen

After training for almost 10 days in Bremen, we did our 1st race in Berlin, Spandou. We took a train and it took us close to 3 hours to travel from Bremen to Berlin Spandou. And it was quite tiring..

It was a meeting for teams who are in Germany training camps, preparing for Berlin World Champs. It was quite a nice turn up for the participating countries. To name a few, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, German team, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia were some of the countries that took part in the meeting.

Hakeem did the 110m Hurdles, and did a timing of 14.35s. And Balpreet did 12.46s. Great job!

Pls enjoy the video :)

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Training in Bremen - Day 8

This week is an unloading week for both Balpreet and Hakeem. We will be leaving for Berlin for a mini meet on Wednesday morning. The race is in the evening and we'll catch a train back to Bremen and do our final preparation.

The 8th training session. Enjoy :)

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Training in Bremen - Day 6 (rest day)

Beautiful saturday morning in Bremen. It is the 6th day in this beautiful town. Some of our German friends brought the team out for a drink in the nearby bar called Cafe Sand. It is like an open air, Alfresco concept, beach by the river, with tables and benches around for your snacks and drinks.

The weather today was rather sunny, and we could not find a table with canopy, and therefore, a great experience drinking and eating under the hot sun...

Enjoying ourselves :)
Hakeem, Anna and Balpreet :)

Hakeem and the Champion Coach... (just kidding..)

Sprinters of different generations... and different standards ofcourse..

Beautiful cakes :P
Nels: Alfred what cake would you like?

Alfred: ermm..

Anna: Is there any food that you totally don't like?

Alfred: No... pls surprise me..

My surprise cake :) cheese with some dried fruits.. nice!

And this surprises me too....

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Training in Bremen - Day 5

This is our fifth day in Bremen. Hakeem had a weights session in the indoor facility while Balpreet and Coach Hosni went down to the outdoor track which is approximately 10 minutes away by foot for her endurance workout. The indoor facility houses a fully-equipped gymnasium, pole vault, high jump and long jump pits, and an 8 lane 80m Mondo track, where Hakeem did his strength transfer exercises, after each set of weights.

This is a short video clip of our training. Enjoy :)

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Training in Bremen - Day 4

Today's training was in the indoors, and we saw some kids having activities and their kids program in the indoor track, and these children are so cute! Maldives sprinters did weights training, Balpreet did plyometrics and Hakeem did blocks starts into 3 hurdles, and also some German athletes did their training too.

Balpreet in action!

Hakeem's training video

It seems that Hakeem has got some problems with his lead leg landing. Lead leg will make an outwards sweep when clawing down after the hurdle. The only reason that Hakeem and I can think of is the flexibility of the muscles, that is causing the unnecessary outward swing. Any comments?

Do email me about your thoughts and suggestion to help Hakeem to correct his hurdling technique!

Enjoy the videos and come back for more updates!

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Training camp in Bremen - Day 3

It was the 3rd day in Bremen. Weather was great and therefore training was held outdoors. Balpreet's training speed and it was 6 x 60m all out sprints. She told us that she needs training partner, and so... the coaches helped her.. :)

After a hard day of training, the team manager decided to reward the athletes ...

And the drinks..

And satisfied faces....

Our Transport coordinator, Nels! he is 19 years old and 190++cm.....

Coach Hosni and Hakeem...

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Training Camp in Bremen - Day 2

28th July 2009. Today we focused on power training, so we did training indoors. There was a nice gym, with universal machines and also power lifting platforms.
We did some power training, squat jumps into sprints, 40kg x 5 jumps. Hakeem felt a little uncomfortable in the hamstring but everything still went well. Take a look at our training video..

Bremen TV station did an interview coverage on the team, interviewed Hakeem and Balpreet, on the preparations for the World Championships in Berlin. Enjoy the video :)

Hakeem's interview

Balpreet's interview

Pls stay tuned for more updates in Bremen!

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Training Camp in Bremen

The 12th IAAF World Championships is held in Berlin, from 15-23 August 2009. The organizers arranged for training camps around Germany for participating countries to be able to acclimatize before the World Champs.

Athletes from Singapore and Maldives are arranged to be train in Bremen for 3 weeks before leaving for Berlin. We stay in a hostel near to the training stadium, and its also a 5mins drive to the town.

We started training today, and the weather is reasonably good. Sunny and windy - but a little troublesome for hurdling.

Entrance of Stadium

pls enjoy the video

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AYG Singapore 2009

Today marks the end of the 1st Asian Youth Games 2009! The Opening ceremony was on the 29th of June with all participating countries, where officials and athletes witnessed the lighting of the torch and a display of mass dance and performances by our youth and junior dancers and performers from primary, secondary and JC students.

Athletics competition starts on the 30th of June, the following are the results for Day 1:

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Singapore Sports Awards 09

" For the past four decades, the Singapore Sports Awards has honoured the achievements of our country's sportsmen and sportswomen. The Awards recognises our athletes' sports accomplishments of the past year. and they express our confidence in the future for Singapore's sporting fraternity and our rising stars. "

On 19th June 2009, Singapore National Olympic Council and the Singapore Sports Council recognised Singapore's top athletes comtribution to Singapore sports and their outstanding performances in 2008, selected a list of athletes for the award presention. These awards are catagorized as follows:

• Meritorious Awards
• Sportsboy / Sportsgirl Team of the Year (Event)
• Team of the Year (Event)
• Sportsgirl of the Year
• Sportsboy of the Year
• IOC Trophy
• "Sport and the Fight against Doping"

Calvin Kang was awarded the Meritorious Award for Sportsboy (Individual). He is also the only representative from Athletics. This was due to his heavy involvements in local and overseas competitions namely: World Junior Championship, Commonwealth Youth Games, Beijing Olympics etc.

I wish that Singapore Athletics will be motivated by Calvin Kang's performances and use it as a platform to excel in local and international competitions.

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1st AYG - Flag Presentation Ceremony

The flag presentation ceremony was held in Raffles Institution. The 1st AYG will be held in Singapore, and I was there to witness the flag ceremony with the Guest of Honour Mr Teo Chee Hean, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence; and President for the Singapore National Olympic Committee. There was also a cheerleading performance by RIJC before the ceremony:

The Team Singapore flag presentation ceremony was graced by DPM Teo, who presented the Singapore flag to the CDM, Mr Lee Wung Yew. Mr Lee Wung Yew, our Olympian shooter then handed the flag to Our National Swimmer, who is also our Flag Bearer, Ms Quah Ting Wen. The Pledge taker, National Bowler, Ms New Hui Fen, led the AYG contingent in reciting the pledge. The presentation ended with the National Anthem, photo taking and the VIPs penning their well wishes on the Well-wishing Board.

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35th Singapore Junior Athletic Championships 2009, 30-31 May 2009, Saturday & Sunday

It has been a long break since the National Schools Competition and almost all students laid off track training and just got back not long ago. Meet result wasn't as amazing and this could be due to the scorching hot weather in Gombak Stadium.

Quite a number of athletes did not turn up for the competition, mostly due to "O" Levels examination.

Our youngest training mate represented his school in the 100mH and came in 4th! (only 4 participants..) did a PB of 14.95s on a 0.914m height with wind: +3.1m/s.

Enjoy the Video!

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The new training apparels are out! Pls click on "Training Merchandise" at the right panel of the page to have a look at the new catalogue!

Thanks for all your support!

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Permit Meet 2009

A Permit Meet was held this weekend at the Bukit Gombak, Centre of Excellence. The events held were 60m, 300m, 200m Hurdles and the 4x100m relay. This Permit Meet was conducted for athletes to tune themselves especially for the senior athletes to prepare for SEA Games. Our athletes from Reactiv took part in this Permit Meet and below are the videos of the athletes that took part.

Enjoy :)

Permit Meet - 23rd May 2009 - 60m heat 1: UK Shyam

Permit Meet - 23rd May 2009 - 60m heat 2: Hilmi, Hakeem

Permit Meet - 23rd May 2009 - 60m heat 3: Wynner

Permit Meet - 23rd May 2009 - 300m heat 1: Shalindran

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AYG 09 Workshop

First ever AYG is to be held in Singapore!

Incorporating to the AYG, SSC planned a series of workshops and talks by ex players and sports science department in various topics like nutrition, psychology, physiotheraphy and physiology department.

SSC has prepared a comprehensive program for the Team athletes and Team coaches and managers. The workshop on 23rd of May 2009 was a sharing session with inspirational and motivational talks by famous ex and current National Athletes and also sports medicine and sports science department in SSC.

It was very interesting and infomative. My favourite speaker, sprinter, mentor and also my idol Mr C Kunalan was there to present on Olympism!

SSC was also promoting a program for the elite athletes called the PACE, Programme for Athletes' Career and Education. Something about this program:

It aims to:
1. Assist elite national athletes to balance sporting achievements with their education and career goals.
2. Assist ex national athletes to develop a professional career after sports.
3. Assist corporate partners to assume a social responsibility role to show support for local sports talents.
4. Provide corporate partners with a pool of potential new hires who are proven high-achievers in the field of sports.

For those athletes who wish to participate in elite level of sports, this can be an option for you!

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Hurdles Training - Hakeem

It has been a long while since I last update the blog. Anyway, I've recently bought a video cam, its easier for me to post videos and pictures of our training. (excited!)

The following training videos you see are series of 100m hurdles runs done by Hakeem. It was meant to be an endurance training. However, I've incorporate hurdling exercises with endurance, by reducing the height and distance to 100mH marks and lowered the height to 0.990m as compared to the actual height and distance. This setting will reduce the intensity of the run and allow lower hurdles clearance. Recovery of each run is just walking back distance.

Please enjoy :)

Run 1

Run 2

Run 3

Run 4

Run 5

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3rd Allcomers

Last week was the 3rd Allcomers which saw the 100m and 400m races. Day 1 were the 100m races with:

Joseph

Melanie

Wynner

Calvin,Hakeem

With Hilmi and Jing Long as well.

Day 2 , which the 400m races were slated for had to be postponed to Thursday morning because of very bad weather. However, there are no photos or videos available from the postponed races.

Women - Under 13 secs: Melanie

Men - Under 11 secs: Hakeem, Calvin

Men - Under 11 secs: Joseph

Men - 11.0 to 11.5 secs: Wynner

Men - 11.0 to 11.5 secs: Hilmi

Men - 11.5 to 12.0 secs: Jing Long

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Conference in Singapore - International Training stint in Berlin enroute to World Championships.

The conference was held in Copthorne Orchid Hotel 15th to 17th March 2009, which 6 participating countries, namely Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Maldives, Nepal and Singapore attended the 3 days interactive conference. It was a detailed briefing of the expectation in the duration of stay in Germany preparing for the World Championships in Berlin. It was a 3 days conference with lots of questions and answers where there were problems with planning in training prior to world championships and also issues with countries that need to apply for visa before entering Europe.

Representatives from various countries

And most importantly, we made friends and close relationships with chief coaches and general secretaries of various countries. All thanks to Mr Ralph Mouchbahani from Germany for organising this special conference for interested participants. Singapore representative involved in one of the topics was Mr Veeramani, Technical Director for SAA. And I am honoured to be representing under SAA to sit in the conference.

I personally feels that gathering like this is really important, it brings coaches and officials together and establish contacts for future collaborations. At least I benefited from these gatherings and whenever it is possible, there will be chances to conduct and organise a training camp or a sparring session with their local teams in their countries.

Anyway, lets hope there will be more than 1 athlete to qualify to the World Championships in Berlin this August. Good Luck Singapore!!

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Strength Test in SSC

Strength and conditioning is very related to athletics and most of the strength training is very applicable to what sprinting requires.

The last strength test was done on the 22nd Dec 08. Due to some reasons, we could not include all into the strength test. Only carded athletes like Calvin Kang and Hakeem can enjoy the services provided by SSC. (Shalindran is in NS)



A series of test was done. 1st was the jumps test on the contact mat. 4 types of jumps, CMJ, Counter Movement Jumps, 10 continuous quater jumps, drop jump into CMJ and lastly drop jump with legs straighten. It was facilitated by our SSC physiologist, Faizul.

Faizul and the Contact Mat


Faizul with his data collection.

Right after the jumps test, I could see that the boys were rather tired. But we got to finish the 1RM strength test. That will include the half squat, bench press and bench pull. We have got our SSC Head of strength and conditioning, Oh Paul Wee and also Ken, strength coach in the S&C department to facilitate the proper protocol.


1 RM squats

All athletes manage to hit their Personal Best and even go 10 to 20kg more than their PB. That's great improvement. However, this strength must be applicable and be functional to sprints.

1RM bench press

From the strength test and recommendation from Paul and Faizul, I can design and plan out the training prog to train their individual weaknesses. This will be monitored for the next 8 weeks again to see if there is any progress in the test and the performance outcome of the sprints. We'll see how these guys perform in the 3rd Allcomers!

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POSB Everyday Champions Award 2009

I was very honoured to be part of this grand occasion tonight -

to be one of the Winners of the POSB Everyday Champions Award for the Coaches Cateogory.

The event was graced by President S R Nathan and Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister of Community Development, Youth and Sports, organised by Singapore Sports Council and POSB.

The award seeks to recognise individuals, coaches and organisations who have consistently contributed time and effort, beyond their call of duty or responsibilty, so that others can enjoy sport and grow in sport.

The profile of all 57 winners are listed here - in 3 separate categories: Individual, Coaches and Organisations.

Please vote for myself in the Coaches category HERE!
http://www.singaporesports.sg/Posbchampions/home.aspx

Thank you for your support :)

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