ACSi Sprint King 2011

On the 5th of November, ACSi conducted their annual Sprint King event supported by Reactiv. This is the 2nd Sprint King event since and the participation has been going on well. The participants came from ACS (Junior) and ACS (Primary). Our target is to talent scout for sprinters from the ACS family. These athletes are in Primary 5 and this allows us to select our runners and offer DSA for the kids. Apart from sprinters selection, this is also a great chance for the kids to watch how the seniors train in Secondary level and also as an orientation for them if they should consider ACSi as their choice.


This year we have only 8 participants. The number doesn't seem convincing due to school holidays and many schools activities going on. Nevertheless, that did not stop us from running our Annual Sprint King event.

The seniors guided the P5 into our usual warm up routine and demonstrated the movement of the required drills and exercises. I strongly encourage mentorship as this is beneficial to both the seniors and juniors. By teaching, the seniors can also improve their own knowledge of the running technique.

We did drills and exercises and some agility runs to include some fun component in it. The races were done at the end of the session where the boys were required to sprint 60m for a round of heats and finals. From the group of boys, we identified a few potential sprinters and they were looking great during their drills and even in the race.



The participants were all given a T-shirt each, sponsored by Reactiv.



I am very excited about this project and I believe in the future this will be a big event that will attract much more athletes. All thanks to the ACS family, the teachers and coaches, student helpers who have helped out in this event.
See you next year :)

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POLITE Games 2011

Over the weekend we had our POLITE Games held at Bishan Stadium which was proudly hosted by Republic Poly. It was scorching hot early in the morning and our competitors from various institution gave their best performance despite the threatening weather. There were a total of 6 participating institution namely, Singapore Poly, Ngee Ann Poly, Nanyang Poly, Temasek Poly, Republic Poly and ITE with the largest number of participants coming from Singapore Poly – 60 participants.

Republic poly sent a contingent of mainly track athletes and out of the 37 athletes, only one representative contested in the women triple and long jump – Shireen. She also contributed in the 4 x 100m relay and received 2 silver medals from the jumps, out of the 3 events she participated.

Zaki leading the pack with Khalis fighting for his 3rd position.

Another outstanding performance came from Zaki Sapari of RP. He dominated the 400m and the 400mH coming in first for both events with a time of 50.63s and 54.13s respectively. My biggest surprise was Khalis, who did not train and clocked a reasonable time of 54.01s and managed to fight to a 3^rd position in the 400m finals.

Don Ng was also the dark horse in the sprints events. He managed to squeeze to the finals in the 100m and 200m. He ran many races in the 2 days event in POLITE, heats and finals plus the 2 relays.

It was a huge disappointment however when Don did not manage to complete the baton transaction from the 3^rd to the 4^th leg. Zaki slowed down for Don but he still fumbled and dropped the baton. It was a huge set back for the RP team.

However his efforts was paid off when he anchored the 4 x 400m team and finished 40m ahead of the 2^nd team to clinch the gold medal in the long sprints relay. Our 4 runners did really well and fought for the name of RP, with Khalis starting the 1^st leg, followed by Zaki who pull the gap away from the other schools and Shanker extending the lead further more, giving Don a big lead to finish the race comfortably.

Habibah leading with Natalie just behind.

RP is also quite lucky to have Natalie and Habibah to help us in the short sprints. I was hoping for some medals from them and indeed, they came in 1^st and 2^nd for the 100m and the 200m. Therefore I think I made the right decision to put Sok Hong in the 200m, and the 400m to let her have a chance to race in the finals. She did us proud by qualifying to the finals in the 400m.

Photos from: Zaki Facebook , RP office student affairs staff

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Speaking in the Health Carnival @Sembawang Shipyard

I was honoured to be invited to Sembawang Shipyard to talk about Sports injury prevention on their 3 days Health Carnival. All Thanks to Mr Luke Hung, Mr Rosli and Khalis for their great help and assistance.

It was my first time visiting a shipyard and seriously, it's huge... It was rather interesting to see the workers and staff cycling around the shipyard as it is really too far a distance to walk from one place to another. I didn't have the chance to explore further, as my main objective is to deliver a Health talk. There were booths and stores by external vendors selling health products and game stores with Xbox gaming for prizes waiting to be won!

I was given an hour slot to share about basic understanding of running, common injuries and how to prevent it by demonstrating stretching exercises.

Looked a little serious...

Topic of the Day!

Very Serious and Attentive Participants..

Not too serious please..


At last a smile was spotted!

Try to reach for your elbows, opps, sorry.. Try to stretch your Biceps :P

Understanding the importance of hipflexors and how it will cause backaches.

Did you see what's on the screen??

Many companies are very concerned about the well being and the health and fitness of their employees. I supposed the welfare of their staff are really well taken care off. It can be seen from these initiatives by bringing external vendors to conduct training sessions/workouts and talk/workshops to increase the awareness of healthy living. The trend has been significantly increasing, especially in the corporate world. I hope I can be of some help to the office crowd, giving them more ideas to workout even in their restricted small workplace - Introducing Theraband!

We will talk more about the Theraband in the next post :)

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Hirokazu Kobayashi Workshop

Prof Hirokazu Kobayashi

A project initiated by Mr Melvin Tan and Myself to help the 4 x 100m relay team check and discuss about our next 10weeks of training. We invited Prof Hirokazu Kobayashi from Japan - Coaching Director of Japan National Training Centre, Senior Lecturer of IAAF and Beijing RDC Sp. Researcher. His vast experience in Strength and Conditioning - body control and stabilizing exercises, helped the coaches and the athletes to understand their weaknesses in the core strength.

The workshop started off with basic understanding of sprinting and what the Japanese training system is currently doing. We had a great question and answer session with Prof. Since language was a barrier, we engaged Ken (also a sprinter in Singapore) for the help of a translation. We discussed about the training methods and technique of how the Japanese sprinters train. He also spoke about some training equipment used by the Japanese track team, the flexible hurdles.



We went on for practical session in the Singapore Sports School gym. We did many exercises to strengthen the core muscles and body alignment. Prof Kobayashi is amazing, demonstrating all exercises with proper posture and technique at the age of 55! Even many of our young and fit athletes couldn't do it.

I invited our Republic Polytechnic team to attend the workshop and we had lots of fun doing the exercises.



I sincerely thank all those who are involved in this project, and appreciated their support even though it was in such a short notice. Special thanks to the following people: From SAA: Mr Tang, Mr K, Mr Ong, Mr James Wong, Mr Low and Jinlong. Sports school for providing the venue, The athletes and coaches who came and attend the workshop, the translator - Ken and lastly Mr Melvin Tan for assisting me to make this happen.

We hope to have more of these experts to help and assist us in the future!

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73rd Singapore Open Track and Field Championship 2011

We witnessed the 73rd Singapore Open over the weekend with 36 teams - ( foreign and local ) participating. It has been a long while since we enjoyed the crowd filling up the stadium for both days. The Championship was held in Bukit Gombak Stadium for 2 full days. The appearance of the stadium looks quite different this time, with decorated flower pots and nice tentage. They also hired a DJ to provide music for the whole event.

The Singapore Masters also participated in the event. I've never been to the Master Track and Field meet before and this time, it was an eye opener for me to see our veteran runners competing. This is also very motivating for our younger athletes as the veterans displayed their determination and passion for the sport.

Republic Poly sent a small team to prepare for the upcoming POLITE games in October. A small team was sent to expose themselves to the competition atmosphere as most of them were first timer in Athletics. We saw improvements from previous results and we are eager and hungry to achieve more.

The weather was not on our side, it was a wet weather on Saturday where it was raining for the whole afternoon. Nikita ran her 400m heats in the rain and was made to wait for 4-5mins in the rain before the race started. Despite the difficulties that she faced, she managed to trash her PB by a second, and crossed the line with a time of 59.08s.

The Association also promised to award anyone who can break the Singapore Open record for $500.00. The Japanese 110m men's Hurdler - Iida Masayuki from Japan did 13.93s (0.2m/s) broke the championship record and earned himself a $500.00! The previous record was also set by a Japanese, Hideki Nomoto with the time of 14.11s back in 2007. This is also a new initiative by the SAA, giving away cash prizes to motivate and encourage better performances.

The next competition coming up will be the POLITE, 2 more months of preparation before we see the under 23 age group competing among themselves. It will be a crucial 3 months for those preparing for the SEA Games, stay healthy, fresh, positive and injury free!!

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Postponement of 4th Health & Fitness Training

Since our dedicated coaches are involved in the upcoming Singapore Open Track & Field Championships, the 4th Health & Fitness Training (21st Aug) will be postponed to the following Sunday morning (28th Aug).

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3rd Health & Fitness Outdoor Training

Reactiv 3rd Health & Fitness Outdoor Training was held on the 14th of July. The weather was perfect for our healthians to have about 1.5hours of exercise.

We did a total body weight training, on the upperbody, core muscles and the legs today as well. Doing exercises that involved the use of speed ladders and therabands, each healthian were able to reap the benefits of these exercises.

This outdoor training concept is to escape from the monotonous routine in an air-conditioned gym, and enjoy the outdoor breeze and sunshine. For anyone who is interested in this program, feel free to contact us at : enquiry.reactiv@gmail.com. We welcome you to join us with your group of friends in this fun and relax 1.5hr session at CCAB!!

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AIA Health and Wellness Week

I was honored to be invited to speak in the AIA Health and Wellness week. Under the A&H department, Marketing Manager Miss Amanda Pang, invited many speakers from the different areas of health and fitness industry to speak this week and I was asked to talk about the topic: Basic Understanding of Distance Running: Training and Preparation. In that 1 hour session, I covered topics like how to prepare for a marathon, what diet to focus on, and attire for distance running.

Miss Amanda Pang

I've been presenting about Speed Training so often and this is the first official Distance Running session I've done. It was quite a nice crowd with about 30-40 agents listening. I was trying to make the talk less scientific so that it can be easily absorbed. It seems like my presentation was quite well received. Coach Bahktier came and assisted me in the photo taking, and also gave some running tips to some of the participants.

At the end of the session, we had Q&A and had very interesting questions coming from the crowd. Mr Robert presented a token of appreciation for the effort taken to speak for the Health week. I was also invited to speak on the same topic, for the office at Tanjong Pagar the next day.

Mr Robert, MC for the day.

The awareness of living is not just about proper diet and nutrition. Exercising regularly also plays a huge part in this area. The ability to exercise at least 3 times a week, to work mainly aerobically has many benefits to the health and fitness of the body. It can increase the blood circulation in the body and improve the cardiovascular system, training for a stronger heart, just to name a few. Therefore I highly encourage everyone to workout and need not train competitively. Looking forward for a healthy society in Singapore!

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1st Health & Fitness Outdoor Training

Reactiv 1st Health & Fitness Outdoor Training was held on the last day of July! On a great sunny Sunday morning, our Healthians consist of musicians, ex athletes, celebrities and friends! We gathered, had fun and did a mass workout.

I realized that the stadium was quite empty on a Sunday morning. I saw only a few couples and small families working out and running around playing football. We were like the only group having fun with music and laughter.

Coach Bahktier brought his foldable 3m x 3m canopy and a foldable picnic table. Ice-cold isotonic drinks were also served to keep the Healthians hydrated. We had Shalindran to help us to capture this memorable and fun moments we had during the session. The equipment used were speed ladder and colour markers and cones. We did a total body weight training, on the upperbody, core muscles and the legs.

This outdoor training concept is to escape from the monotonous routine in an air-conditioned gym, and enjoy the outdoor breeze and sunshine. For anyone who is interested in this program, feel free to contact us at : enquiry.reactiv@gmail.com. We welcome you to join us in this fun and relax 1.5hr session at CCAB!!

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Speed and Conditioning Training Program with ACSi

Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) engaged Reactiv to work together with the Year One Rugby players to improve on their Speed and Strength. A well-planned 10 sessions of speed and body weight strength training started last Monday with an introductory session of dynamic warm up. Coach Bahktier and me did a time trial for the boys to record their 30m field dash. We were quite happy with some of the players who could run sub 5.00s without speed training prior to Rugby training.



With our Brower Timing System, we managed to clock accurate electronic time, with each player sprinting twice.



We did complex training with the boys, doing squats into sprints, lunges into sprints and plyometrics exercises into sprints.



The boys were strong enough to finish the training, and some complained having "jelly" legs. I strongly believe in doing body weight exercises before going to the gym to pump external weight bearing equipments. I think it is unnecessary and not advisable for young boys 13-16years to carry heavy weights. However, they should start to learn proper technique of squatting and even the right way to carry heavy load from the ground.

In this program, the players will be trained to do lateral movement, quick reaction and change of direction. The training sessions were planned according to the requirement of the body energy system for speed training, where we focus on the importance of duration of each sprint and the rest and recovery intervals. We will also work on the proper running technique to increase running efficiency.




All thanks to Mr George Lam, Mr Adrian and his Rugby coaching team.

Check our Facebook Page for more pictures.

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Track and Field Series 5

The SAA Track and Field Series 5, held on the 16th of July, was a competition to aid our local athletes to qualify for SEA Games 2011. Participants had to meet the qualifying mark in order to register for the competition. As such, there were not as many competitors at this event.

Calvin was our only representative from Reactiv. He ran the 100m and 200m. Here are his results.
100m: 10.88s


200m: 22.34s



Reactiv would also like to congratulate the following athletes for qualifying for the SEA Games 2011.

1. Chan, Sheng Yao (HCI) 4.62m pole vault men – Surpasses SEA Games qualifying mark of 4.50m. Also established a new U17 boys record, improved Sean Lim’s 2009 4.61m mark.
2. Yang, Rachel (Wings) 3.82m pole vault women – Surpasses SEA Games qualifying mark of 3.75m. Also established a new national women record, better her own 2010 mark of 3.81m mark.

Results from SAA Website

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19th Asian Athletics Championships - Hyogo, Kobe 2011

A view from the practice/warm up track

The 19th Asian Athletics Championship is held in Japan, Kobe. This is already the 3rd day and we are still very excited about this trip. Team Singapore sent 7 Athletes with 1 Team manager/Coach. They are:

Relay Men:
1. Calvin Kang
2. Amiruddin
3. Gary Yeo
4. Elfi Mustapa
5. Izwan Firdaus

Pole Vault Women
1. Rachel Yang

100m Hurdles
1. Dipna Lim

Today marks the beginning of the competition with the 100m Men Heats which started in the morning, 10.40am. There were 4 heats altogether and progression of 3 + 4 to the Semi-finals. Our representatives are Elfi and Amir, who did 10.78s and 10.70s respectively. Only Amir is lucky enough to squeeze through the heats and managed to earn himself a spot in the semi-finals as the last qualifier. Both Elfi and Amir tightened up towards the last part of the race, and this caused their reduction in the leg frequency.


For more information on the result, please visit: www.asianathletics.org

The athletes faced wet condition with heavy drizzle whole day, slippery training ground and cold weather. Our athletes were drench during warm up and did their best to stay in the cover as much as possible. I hope this bad weather will not last for the next 3 days of competition. The Pole Vault Men was also reschedule due to the rain and risk of injuries.

Warming up in the shelter

Had some nice Takoyaki before we leave for Hotel.

Our team when back to hotel for lunch and Amir was ready to set off for his Semi-final on the same day. We took the 3pm bus ride for the 5.45pm race. The sky still did not clear up and the heavy drizzle continued to wash the track. Most of the athletes took the initiative to warm up indoor on hard concrete ground, a long curved corridor of the main stadium.

Athletes preparing for the 100m

Amir was in heat 2 of the semi-finals where he challenged the Asian power house athletes. Sri Lanka - Shehan, Japan - Kotani, HongKong - Tsui Chi Ho and our SEA games countries Indonesia - Fadlin and Thailand - Jirapong (AYG Champion). Amir dipped with the pack and only managed to beat his previous time by 0.01s. Came in 2nd last with the time of 10.69s.

At the end of the day, we met up with James Wong and SAA President Mr Tang Weng Fai for dinner at a Japanese Restaurant. We went straight from the stadium, and that explains why we looked like going for training... We had a huge feast!

The Men's Relay 4 x 100m will be the next day, and I'll will be blogging very soon.
Oyasuminasai :)

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1st Singapore U23 / Open T&F C'ships

This Track and Field Championship was a good initiative by the association to get our youths more involved in the sport even after National Schools is over. It was a big step forward for the association as this Championship was heavily invested by Mr. SUN HUI of SUN INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT PTE LTD. It was a Singaporean-only event for the youths to showcase their talents and SAA proposed to send the two top performers, 1 male and 1 female, to the 13th IAAF World Championships. Held at the Nanyang Polytechnic over 2 days, the event however saw very little participation.

Gunter's workshop was also held in NYP, focusing on the topic of throws. Our guys went to the workshop to sit in with the throwers, and the throw coaches. However, the participation for the workshop was also quite poor. Only 2 coaches, and a few of our throwers turned up.



On the Reactiv front, we had a few athletes putting their mettle to the test.

1. Lossini
800m Women open - 2mins 36.62secs
400m Women open - 1min 04.37secs

2. Calvin Kang
100m Open - 11.06secs



3. Marcus Kwuan
100m Boys - 13.28secs

4. Huang Laiyu
400m Boys - 1min 04.45secs

5. Nikita
Fell sick so was not able to participate.

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