REACTIV

Reactiv Thera-band exercises (upperbody)

2012-01-21T00:58:00.003+08:00

Reactiv has officially launch it's Health and Fitness Corporate program and is headed by Fuad Idris. This program is targeted for anyone in different level of fitness and is fun and interactive. It is hassle free, minimal logistics and maximum benefits! Incorporating the resistance band - Thera-Band®, and body weight exercises, we can have a full body workout even in your office! It is versatile and inexpensive, for sports performance or rehabilitation training.

Reactiv is currently working closely together with Lifeline in providing Health and Fitness programs to corporate and schools, athletes to elderly. So what can we do with the band? Please take a few minutes off to enjoy the demo video done by us :
Reactiv Thera-Band exercises (upperbody)

having fun doing the video !

ACSi Sprint King 2011

2011-11-15T14:02:00.008+08:00

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 :)

POLITE Games 2011

2011-10-27T00:48:00.008+08:00

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

Speaking in the Health Carnival @Sembawang Shipyard

2011-09-22T17:15:00.009+08:00

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 :)

Hirokazu Kobayashi Workshop

2011-09-15T16:38:00.010+08:00

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!

73rd Singapore Open Track and Field Championship 2011

2011-08-22T13:44:00.009+08:00

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!!

Postponement of 4th Health & Fitness Training

2011-08-15T01:40:00.002+08:00

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).

3rd Health & Fitness Outdoor Training

2011-08-15T01:28:00.002+08:00

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!!

AIA Health and Wellness Week

2011-08-04T14:10:00.004+08:00

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!

1st Health & Fitness Outdoor Training

2011-08-02T01:56:00.016+08:00

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.

Speed and Conditioning Training Program with ACSi

2011-07-19T01:14:00.011+08:00

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.

Track and Field Series 5

2011-07-17T20:44:00.003+08:00

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.

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.
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

19th Asian Athletics Championships - Hyogo, Kobe 2011

2011-07-08T00:15:00.008+08:00

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 :)

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

2011-07-04T21:42:00.003+08:00

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.

Republic Polytechnic Sports Award Night - Glitz

2011-06-08T14:41:00.011+08:00

My Dearest RP Track team :)

It was a night to recognize the sporting heroes of Republic Polytechnic. Representing Athletics to win medals and breaking records were a team of athletes who fought their way through hardship and determination in their golden teenage years. These athletes reminded me of myself when I was competing during my school days. It was a fun night, organized by the OSG of RP, mainly to recognize the achievements of the students athletes in RP.

The Glitz Night.
"Glitz is a celebration and recognition of our students' passion, dedication and contribution towards Republic Polytechnic's sports development and excellence. it also recognizes our students' passion towards excellence and dedication in making an impact to their holistic development as a young individual."

The following athletes from RP were awarded for their contributions:

Nominees for Sportswoman of the year:
The Sportswoman of the year shall be awarded to any member who has by her performances, achieved a high standard of sporting excellence and displayed outstanding levels of Sportsmanship.
Nurhaishireen Bte Mohd Rahim (SAS)
POLITE Games 2010/2011:
Gold (triple jump & long jump)
IVP Games 2010/2011:
Gold (triple jump)
5th SEA Junior Championship, Bangkok:
4th (triple jump)

Nominees for Captain of the year (Female):
The captain of the year shall be awarded to the most outstanding captain who possesses good leadership qualities, has developed good camaderie with the team and advisors and demonstrated good sportsmanship.
Lieu Hui Xian (SHL)

Meritorious Silver Award
The meritorious silver award shall be awarded to any member who has been in the polytechnic team for at least 1 full academic year, attained a reasonably high standard of play and displayed a high degree of sportsmanship.
Muhammad Zaki Bin Sapari
Nurhaishireen Bte Mohd Rahim

Certificate of Merit
The certificate of merit shall be awarded to any member who has been in the polytechnic team for at least 1 full academic year and who may not possess a high standard of skill in the sport, but by his/her dedication, enthusiasm and effort helps to promote the activity on campus.
Chua Chin Yang
Mohamad Khalis B Mohamad Rosli
Mohammad Firdaus B Subagio
Seelam Jayanth Vijay Kumar
Lieu Hui Xian
Natalie Lee Mei Ying

I hope this marks a new beginning for the athletics team, and will eventually motivate them to train and work hard for their sports and events. At least we know that after contributing through hard work and sacrifices, we get recognized by our peers, advisors and coaches.

Team RSYC at Bay Challenge

2011-05-22T22:22:00.002+08:00

Team RSYC is proud to be a participant of the first ever Bay Challenge held in conjunction with the Boat Asia 2011, held on the 14-15 May at the Marina Bay. 16 teams from all over the world had taken part in this race, including Team RSYC, helmer by Reactiv's very own athlete, Fendi.

Fendi had come to Reactiv seeking for apparel sponsorship for racing and Reactiv had provided each person of the 3 man team, 2 team shirts each, complete with bold artwork and designs unique to the team. That's not all as Reactiv had gladly provided the team with 15 extra T-shirts for Team RSYC's supporters and fans. Everyone wanted a shirt of their own and they were all given out by the very first day of racing.

Fendi's team were unlucky to lose out in the round robin as he was drawn up against the top 2 teams in his 'Group of Death' as there was no seeding system in the race. These two teams went on the win 1st and 2nd place. Despite all this, it is certain that Team RSYC was the team most widely remembered by their luminous orange racing wear provided by Reactiv and their effervescent attitude.

Team RSYC would like to thank their sponsors Reactiv for their support and sponsorship throughout the event and are looking forward for their continual support in races to come.

Written by Fendi
Edited by Shalindran

2011 SAA Track and Field Series 4

2011-05-12T19:54:00.009+08:00

The Track and Field Series 4 was organized at Singapore Sports School this time round and this meet saw little participants as compared to the previous meets. The end of the National School Competitions could be the main reason why there weren't many athletes being involved. The Series 4 was initially a 2 day event. However it had to be squeezed into one day as the Singapore General Elections were held on the 1st day, Saturday. Our athletes have been training hard over the past few weeks for this meet.

We are still adopting Gunter's training and yet to see any positive results. We have just moved into the NMS - plyometrics phase. Hopefully we are able to see some changes towards the end of the phase; in 5 weeks time. We are training diligently and able to stick to at least 80% of the required training components.

Under harsh weather condition and poor participation, we were struggling to compete and stay focus. Lossini, an experienced athlete, sprained her ankle at the first 200m of the 800m race causing her to lose her focus. She lost her balance and stepped on the metal rail on the left of lane 1 which resulted with an injured right ankle. Here's how our other athletes fared in the meet.

Khalis
400m - 53.65secs
800m - 2min 08.73secs

Calvin
100m - 11.35secs
4x100m - 41.98secs

Nikita
400m - 61.79secs
800m - 2mins 37.90secs

Lossini
800m - 2mins 42.05secs

I'm sure the next Track Series will be much better, in terms of participation and our athletes performances. As it is closer to competition phase, the performing athletes will need more competitions. Let us hear from the athletes, how they felt towards the track series and their training:

Nikita -
The usual competitors werent present at this meet, especially for the 800m. It was a below average performance for the 800m race, partly due to the lack of participants and the scorching weather. As for the 400m, there was intense competition as Singapore's finest runners competed in that event as well. My timing of 61secs was 2secs short of my targeted timing. Though it wasnt one of my best races, it was tackled with a new race strategy; starting off strong at the first 200m. I hope, with continual effort & training with Coach Alfred, the next Track Series will see some positive results.

Khalis -
I felt that Series 4 was something to look forward to. After training hard for the past few months, i was finally competing. I felt that i could have done better after analysing the mistakes after the race. I'm quite disappointed with the results but i hope that the next series would bring better results for me.

Calvin -
There were some hiccups in the men's 100m race due to the new starting gun. In my opinion, the gun sound was not loud enough for the athletes which resulted in a few athletes to fumble when the gun went off. Some of them slowed down thinking it was a false start.

However, i carried on running as i did not hear the 2nd gunshot indicating a false start what so ever. This being the 1st race after coming back from a month long holiday, i felt this race was a good gauge to know where i stood. In the coming months, i am looking forward to the upcoming local and overseas meets. This would give me more exposure for the year and push me even harder.

Lossini -
My race was a good platform for me to know where i stood physically and mentally, especially after making the transition from distance running to sprints. When i began my race, i felt strong and was in control of the pace. Something that i've not felt in a long time.

Despite spraining my ankle at the 200m mark, limping for the remaining 600m and not attaining the expected time, the race has given me the opportunity to know what else I should work on. It was only been 2 months since i joined Reactiv and I have faith in alfred, the trainings and myself.

52nd National Inter School Track & Field Championships 2011

2011-04-14T12:57:00.009+08:00

Once every year, student-athletes from all across our nation come together to match their strength, speed and stamina against each other at the National Inter School Track & Field Championships. This year’s competition, like all other years, will still be held at Choa Chu Kang Stadium. The competition kicked off yesterday with events as early as 8.30am. We will be updating our readers on interesting and upcoming athletes to look out for over the next few days. Not forgetting ACSi and Sengkang Secondary athletes who train under Coach Alfred Sim.

Day 1: 13/04/2011

ACSi

Theodore Ng Zhi Ying - A Boys Javelin Final (51.79m) 2nd

David Hu Yidong - A Boys Long Jump Final (5.69m) 8th

Darren Koh Chee Yung - B Boys Long Jump Final (6.34m) 2nd

Day 2: 14/04/2011

ACSi

Janolan Ho Mei Xun - C Boys Shot Put Final (12.86m) 2nd

Sengkang Sec

Nur Sakinah Bte Mohd Fauzi - B Girls Shot Put Final (9.46m) 2nd

Athletes to look out for

ACSi :

Timothy Ong Kah Yong - C Boys 100m Heats (11.62secs qualify for Semi) currently 1st

Haikal Ismail - B Boys 100m Heats (11.34secs qualify for Semi) currently 2nd

Day 3: 15/04/2011

ACSi :

Yee Chern Hwee - A Girls Pole Vault Final (2.80m) 2nd

Day 4: 18/04/2011

ACSi :

Nick Ho Ellis - B Boys Pole Vault Final (4.00m) 2nd

Min Junyi - B Boys Pole Vault Final (3.50m) 6th

Andre Lim You Kwan - B Boys Pole Vault Final (3.50m) 7th

Wang Brian Ziqiong - A Boys Triple Jump Final (13.10m) 5th

Day 5: 19/04/2011

ACSi :

Ng Gek Yeen Jiya - A Girls 3000 Metres Walk Final (20min 50.00sec) 3rd

Rajandran Baladashyalan - B Boys Triple Jump Final (13.10m) 3rd

Thitikorn Ngampakdeepanich - B Boys 2000 Metres Steeplechase Final (07mins 22.03secs) 7th

Gregory Teo Yi Rong - B Boys 2000 Metres Steeplechase Final (07mins 25.33secs) 8th

Shawn Lim Wei Loong - C Boys Pole Vault Final (2.65m) 6th

Benjamin Wong Jie An - C Boys Triple Jump Final (11.47m) 8th

Sengkang Sec

Winona Howe - B Girls 3000m Final (11mins 53.29secs) 3rd

Day 6: 20/04/2011

ACSi :

Arjun Kunnasagaran - A Boys 5000 Metres Walk Final (29mins 25.33secs) 2nd

Lim Jiang - A Boys 5000 Metres Walk Final (30mins 58.11secs) 6th

Timothy Ong Kah Yong - C Boys 400m Finals (56.00secs) 2nd

Let Jian Jie - A Boys 400m Finals (51.47secs) 4th

Janolan Ho Mei Xun - C Boys Discus Final (30.91m) 7th

Justin Lauw - A Boys Shot Put Final (13.03m) 7th

Nicholas Lee Zhao An - B Boys 110 Metres Hurdles Final (15.55secs) 2nd

Yee Chern Hwee - A Girls 110 Metres Hurdles Final (16.76secs) 3rd

Zachary Devaraj - A Boys 800 Metres Final (1min 57.10secs) 1st NEW RECORD

R Kartik - A Boys 800 Metres Final (2min 04.36secs) 6th

Jonathan Wong Shern Yang - B Boys 800 Metres Final (2min 03.54secs) 2nd

Gregory Teo Yi Rong - B Boys 800 Metres Final (2min 07.37secs) 7th

Wong Chuen En - B Boys Javelin Final (39.86m) 7th

Sengkang Sec

Karthik Muthu S/O Supramanian - A Boys 5000m Walk Final (29mins 04.02secs) 1st

Winona Howe - B Girls 1500m Final (5mins 27.80secs) 7th

Day 7: 21/04/2011

ACSi :

Adil Ashraf Heah - B Boys High Jump Final (1.75m) 2nd

Isaac Soh Huei Ming - B Boys High Jump Final (1.73m) 3rd

2011 SAA Track and Field Series 3

2011-04-04T18:29:00.008+08:00

The Singapore Athletic Association Track and Field Series 3 was held in a different venue again. This time at Nanyang Polytechnic. This meet also had a special event. A selection trial took place for the 4x400m Men & Women Training Squads for the 26th SEA Games.

Over the two days, we were greeted with fine weather at the start, small showers in the middle and a windy end. In this meet, only athletes from Reactiv took part. Mainly Wayne, Nikita and Melanie. Schools under Coach Alfred Sim did not take part because he wanted the athletes to work on their weakness before the National Schools competition which will be next week. We are hoping to iron out the relay combinations after the disaster of the ACSi 4x100m at the SPH relays.

The 4x400 selection trials was the last event of this meet. The purpose of this trials was for the relay teams to try and qualify for the SEA Games relays as soon as possible. Both the Men and Women had more than 1 team.

The women's team needed to go below 3mins 49.28secs to qualify. However, they only managed to do a timing of 3mins 59.04secs.

The men's team however had already qualified for the SEA Games. The young lads from Raffles Institution JC had qualified with a timing of 3mins 24secs 1 week ago at the Singapore Press Holdings Relay meet. Nonetheless, 3 new teams were formed and the winners of the trials did a timing of 3mins 19.99secs making them the new team to qualify.

Since this is the first of many time trials, athletes were still not up to the mark. They however have till July to qualify. So we would like to wish all athletes the best and encourage everyone to work even harder for these coming months.

Singapore Press Holdings Relays 2011

2011-03-31T11:19:00.007+08:00

The Singapore Press Holdings Relay was held in Bukit Gombak Stadium over the weekend, 26th and 27th of Mar. It has been a disappointing weekend for the ACSi sprints relay. We managed to get a bronze in the 'C' Division 4 x 200m and gold medal for the 'A' boys 4 x 800m.

However we got disqualified for the A, B, C Div 4 x 100m. We had 2 weeks to practice the relay and the team also has a mixture of sprinters and jumpers. Our sprints team was not as strong although Haikel ran 11.3s. We therefore needed some of the jumpers to help us in the relays. It is due to the lack of practice and the coach's poor judgment that caused mistakes like these to happen.

Sengkang secondary on the other surprised us with a bronze medal in the 4 x 100m B boys. However the team consisted of all sprinters and had the same amount of practice as ACSi. Shawn was the only one running under 12s. Sengkang also took part in the 4 x 200m for B boys and C div- Boys and Girls.

I feel that this is a fantastic race right before the National Schools Competition and these relay competitions would also psych up ACSi sprints team and motivate them to do more practices for the upcoming events. They need to focus on being healthy and get as much rest as possible until the Nationals - which is in 2 weeks time.

All the best to all schools for their preparation to the Nationals!

For results and information,
Please visit : http://www.singaporeathletics.org.sg/sph-school-relays-championships-2011
For Photos :
Day 1 (part 1)
Day 1 (part 2)
Day 2 (part 1)
Day 2 (part 2)

Nanyang Polytechnic Invitation Race - 16th March 2011

2011-03-21T00:11:00.015+08:00

It was a great turn out for the first ever invitation race organized by Nanyang Polytechnic to secondary schools to encourage participation of the B division athletes. There were 15 secondary schools in total whom registered for the event. Out of the 15 schools, I was in-charge of 2 schools - ACSi and SengKang Sec Sprints team. We took part in most sprints events and managed to get medals for the short sprints.

Haikel won the 100m with the time of 11.36s - 0.3s off his PB, which he clocked one month ago. Shawn came in 2nd following very closely behind Haikel with the time of 11.58s. This is also a PB by Shawn who started training with the team for about 2 months and managed to clock a PB 0.2s faster than his previous time. Catholic high sprinter settled for the 3rd place, 0.01s behind Shawn.

Chen Shan from Sengkang sec came in 1st for the 100m finals with the time of 13.7s. She had a lead of 5m to the 2nd runner and managed to run close to her PB. However, the senior athletes had not been training consistently due to the busy schedule of academic work they have to handle in school. The following are the pictures of athletes, who took part in the event.

Doris from SengKang Sec came in 2nd in the 1500m.

Aisha came in 2nd for the 400m, SengKang Sec.

Clyde Tan ran a good race and managed to fight till the end, to settle for a 3rd position. He was initially showed resistance to change to a proposed race plan that I've been trying to explain for the past few months. He did quite a bad time during the heats with his old race plan. However he came in 1s faster in the finals after using the race plan I've been coaching since months. His willingness to try new race tactic in the finals pleased me, especially during a training competition like this.

TEAM ACSi

Team Sky Track (SengKang Sec)

The Swift meet will be the next competition - SengKang Sec will not be taking part. Shawn Poh will be representing Singapore in the WALA competition in Perth. The next big competition will be the Nationals School, which is what everyone has been training for.

All thanks to organizers, coaches and teacher in charge, who made this event a success. NYP provided free T-shirts for all participants! I feel that this invitation races should be more often, and other schools should start to initiate invitation races to encourage more participants.

Till then..

Monitoring (internal load) of Aerobic Training (extensive interval)

2011-03-16T22:51:00.007+08:00

We planned a lactate monitoring session on the 3rd March, 3rd microcycle of the phase. Gunter Lange advised us to work at 110% load of the maximum aerobic effort (30mins). To work at this range, the lactate measurement should be at 4-8mmol window. In order to identify that, we engaged Physiquezone to help us to do the testing. It was held at SJI and 9 of our athletes took the test. It was mainly athletes from Mr Melvin Tan's training group and our Reactiv athletes. We found quite a few interesting readings and the test results were sent to Gunter for simple analysis.

The Objective is to find the targeted time for the given distance workload and this is to facilitate the planning of the extensive intervals.

Ding Yifei from Physiquezone collecting data.

Jensen taking blood sample from Lance Tan who took part in the testing.

We were glad to have Yifei and Jensen to assist us in the testing. We will have testings like these to monitor our training loads and the next one should be done most probably in the next phase.

37th National Junior 2011: 5-6 Mar, Bishan Stadium

2011-03-07T14:44:00.009+08:00

The weather was not forgiving at all. Under the scorching hot sun were the athletes who qualified for the 37th National Junior 2011. Most prefered to warm up indoors at Bishan Stadium because of the heat. The 2 day event drained the coaches, teachers, officials and the athletes. Competing under such high temperature, hydration was the number one issue to tackle. However, nearing the end of the event on Day 1, the meet was stopped abruptly by the lightning warning.

The schools are using these competitions to get their athletes ready for the coming National School Championships. From the results of the sprints, it is clear cut who are the performing schools. I'm not surprised by the competitive results, and in fact waiting for more impressive PB from the athletes. The Sports School athletes are sweeping most of the sprints events in all categories, boys and girls.

There were a few ACSi sprinters selected for the competition. Chern Hwee represented in the women 100m hurdles U20, came in 3rd with the time of 18.89s. Jonathan Wong came in 1st with a PB of 2.05.24 in the 800m U18 boys. Ariff in the same race but different fate, came in 2nd last with the time of 2.17.54. Ariff competed in the school sports day the day before and therefore the inconsistency of race result.

Haikel 2nd from the left

Haikel suffered from a headache and only managed to run 11.54s for the heats and 11.55s in the finals. Brian Foong ran the 400m U15 and managed to do a PB of 60.94s, but not good enough to squeeze into the finals. In the boy U18 400m race, Jonathan Wong did a 55.05s in the heats and 54.33s in the finals. And Jianjie ran the U20 400m with a time of 52.45s in the heats and 52.30s in the finals, fighting through the race to dip for the 3rd position, behind Zaki and Chin Hui - 2nd and 1st respectively.

Men U20 400m

The bulk of the participants were from secondary schools and JC, only 2 polytechnics took part, Singapore Poly and Republic poly. Zaki from Republic poly came in 1st in the 400m Hurdles with the time of 55.76s, giving a big lead to the 2nd man following behind him with the time of 63.00s

The next big thing coming up is the SPH relays. I will do my selection for the boys and girls to decide on the 6 runners for SPH.

For results and information,
Please visit : http://www.singaporeathletics.org.sg/37th-singapore-junior-athletic-championships-2011
For Photos :
Day 1
Day 2
For Videos :
Stay Tuned

Pictures and Videos courtesy of Singapore Athletic Association

SAA Track and Field Series 2

2011-02-21T15:39:00.013+08:00

The SAA Track Series 2 was held at ITE Simei this time and it was overwhelmed by the superb support and participation of schools. Coaches and teachers were ready to expose their athletes to the local competitions in a bid to prepare for the coming National Schools Championship in April. These competitions serves as build up races to allow specific training preparation.

It was so exciting to see athletes competing and doing Personal Best already in February. On Day 1, Haikel from ACS(I), whom previously had a PB in the 100m of 11.7s, did 11.33s with the wind of 1.8+, finishing neck to neck with 3 other athletes whom were just a mere 0.01seconds away. He did a fantastic acceleration up to the 50m and was leading till the very last 5m when all 3 sprinter stick their neck out and tried to finish the race first.

Calvin Kang finished the race first with the time of 10.70s but with the aid of the tail wind of 2.8m/s+. However, the HCI boy Tan Zong Yang did a fantastic dash and finish right behind Calvin for the second spot and Izwan passed the tape as 3rd position. Hakeem was not training well for the pass few months due to his University commitments and therefore came in last in the heat with a time of 11.14secs.

We also witnessed the 400m race on the same day. The performance from Chin Hui of Raffles Institution JC was something to note. He did a personal best of 49.70secs finishing the race infront of teammate Seow Yeong Yang. I'm very optimistic that he will do very well in the National Schools and might have the chance to qualify for the 2011 World Youth Championships.

Nikita did a timing of 61.52secs for the Women 400m. I will have to increase the intensity of her training and hope she will do well and qualify for the World University Games in August.

The overwhelming participation of the Track Series 2 delayed the events by more than an hour on Day 1, and ended about 7 to 8pm. It was tough on the athletes to gauge the warm up time, and eventually they were too tired and unable to compete properly. Day 2 was much better, the organizer managed to follow closely to the time schedule. The competition finished off with a short get-together for the SEA games qualifying athletes. A short presentation was given by Mr Kunalan, and also by the German expert Mr Gunter Lange, who shared his experiences with the athletes and coaches. Mr Gunter was here for the past 2 weeks and gave an intensive workshop for periodization and also sprints training.

I will write more about what Mr Gunter shared in the sprints and planning workshop, in my next post.

SAA Track and Field Series 1 and POLITE Games 2011

2011-02-02T01:31:00.008+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year to all! Wishing all a prosperous, fruitful and lots of Personal Best in this Rabbit Year!

This was a busy year to start with. The Track and Field Series earlier this month and also the POLITE games are the first 2 competitions of the year. We were all excited about competing in the first SAA Track Series, previously called the All Comers Meet. I’ve also realized that there are quite a number of athletes I now work with, namely Reactiv guys, ACSi, Republic Polytechnic and our latest inclusion of Seng Kang Secondary.

SAA Track and Field Series 1 was held on 2 days, 16^th and 23^rd Jan 2011 at our very familiar Bukit Gombak Stadium. For the 2 Sundays, our guys tried sprinting and competing with their spikes after a long break from the conditioning phase.

ACS(i) was having a school overseas trip on the week of the track series and therefore only a handful of athletes took part in the competition. We had quite a good conditioning phase, doing reaction drills, speed drills, acceleration drills, working on the core muscles and body weight exercises. Not forgetting the dreadful endurance sessions to work on our aerobic and the anaerobic system. Below are the results of some of the boys who participated:

Let, Jian Jie

100m - 11.93s
200m - 24.06s

Muhammad, Hasif

100m - 12.75s

Ismail, Haikal

200m - 24.06s

We were also very anxious about the POLITE Games that was just a week after the Track Series. We were training 3 times a week but most of the time, not all could make it for the training. However, I felt that competition is the best training; therefore I encouraged all of them to participate in the track series. The results are as below:

Lee, Natalie

100m - 13.63s
200m - 28.37s

Muhd, Firdaus

100m - 12.03s

Kyser Tan

100m - 12.01s(H)

Sapari, Zaki

100m - 11.50s ,
200m - 23.27s

Tiang, Alicia

100m - 14.14s
100mHurdles - 18.61s(H), 20.79s(F)

Ross, Khalis

400m - 54.82s
200m - 24.30s.

The latest training group is from SengKang Secondary School. We started early January and worked mainly on drills, basic strength and fitness. Although it was only a few sessions, I can already feel the energy and passion from these youngsters. They signed up for the competition before I took over the team, and these are the results:

Nurpriska

100m - 14.55s

Lin, Iris

100m - 14.90s

Goh, Jio Yan

100m - 15.33s

Lee, Ryan

100m - 13.98s

Liew, Rachel

100m - 15.39s

Abdul, Halim

100m - 12.72s

Siti, Nuraishah

400m - 1.12.77min

Ng, Shirlene

200m - 31.90s

Ang, Chen Shan

200m - 29.19s

Lastly, these guys who train and raced the whole of last year, did the usual preparation and raced in this track series. To my surprise and worth mentioning is Hakeem. He did a time close to his PB (10.93s). Hakeem trains 3 times a week without my supervision, due to his work and academic commitments. It seems that this works better than 5 times with my supervision! Another worth mentioning is Calvin Kang, who did the total opposite of Hakeem. Calvin did 1s off his 200m PB! His 21.68s was done during 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou. And 2 months later he cruised through the 200m with a time far off his PB. Please see results of the guys below:

Melanie
100m - 13.04s
200m - 26.57s

Sharda, Nikita

200m - 26.54s

Abdul Hakeem
100m - 11.17s (H), 11.03s(F)

Amos Lim

100m - 11.88(H), 11.74s(F)
200m - 24.51s

Kyser Tan

100m - 12.01s(H)

Wong, Tsu Haw

100m - 12.37s(H)

Poon, Wayne

400m - 56.78s
200m - 26.01s

Kang, Calvin

200m - 22.68s

Photos: http://tinyurl.com/664llbr
Videos: http://tinyurl.com/67s8ylp

More updates coming up for the next few competitions!

Stay tuned and like our Facebook page!

Alfred here signing off

Reactiv Annual BBQ - 2010

2011-01-04T22:08:00.009+08:00

That marks the end of the year 2010! Its been a tradition since 2007 where Reactiv sprinters will gather for an annual BBQ. The previous BBQs were held at Conan's and Shalindran's place. This get-together is also the only time when all athletes gather and meet each other as one big family. Since many trained at different times of the day and do not meet each other too often. Apart from the local competitions, this is the only time where everyone sat and had a good chat together.

having a chat while waiting for the food.

our 1st round of cooks

2010's BBQ this time was at Sin Ming Walk, The Gardens Condo. We were blessed with good weather though it started to drizzle alittle just before starting the fire. The program for that night was BBQ, gift exchange and games. It took us 2 long hours to set the fire and realized it was because of the charcoal (It was my fault..). Our poor athletes had to rely on the chips and salads (I realized many do not take vegetables..).

veg is good

Just when the pit was at its optimum heat, we were left with about an hour to BBQ with so much food uncooked.. but none of the food was wasted thanks to our big eaters.

everyone started to help. or they queuing for the food?

It so happened that it was also Alicia's birthday (30th Dec) and we surprised her with a birthday cake!
birthday girl

So anyway, we did our usual yet unique gift exchange session. The explanation is as follows:
1. The gift must be something that you own and do not need it anymore.
2. Gift cannot be bought just for the sake of the exchange.
3. It must be useful to others but no more useful to you.
4. It must be in working condition (e.g. no used bottles, half used shampoo, expired diary etc.)
5. No money spent on the preparation of the gift (wrapping it up with newspaper or used magazine)

roadside gift exchange was cool

We had our gift exchange at the pit but were asked to leave because our booking time was up! In the end, we continued our gift exchange outside the condo. My big apology to all athletes for making them stand in the drizzle to do the exchange!

hakeem got a new pair of spikes from khalis

But at least, some guys managed to get some nice gift. Alicia got her nice pink fluffy Hello Kitty blanket!

"IT'S SO FLUFFYYYYY"

Happy coach.

Well, hope that we have a blasting 2011 after this BBQ, especially SEA Games is end of this year!

So Let's Go For It Guys!

REACTIV 2010

Reactiv would like to wish you a Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T12:13:00.001+08:00

We hope that your Christmas would be enjoyable and may the essence of Christmas remains always with you and your family.

Take care.

16th Asian Games in Guangzhou City, China

2010-12-11T11:48:00.007+08:00

The 2010 Asian Games was a multi-sports event in Guangzhou, China. The Game began on 12 November and finished on 27 November 2010. Calvin Kang from Reactiv gave us his insights on the Games. Have a read.

[Photo from http://www.teamsingapore.com.sg/content/teamsingapore/en/News/latest_news/2010/mixed_day.html]

16th Asian Games 2010 Guangzhou, China

The 16^th Asian Games in Guangzhou had the hopes of the incredible success of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. As China were well prepared and ready to take on the Asian Games, it was a success. I would say that my stay in Guangzhou was great. Firstly, the very smooth traffic conditions, to the very courteous volunteers ready to greet you at every corner at any time of the day. And the high level of competition at the games. Track and field was scheduled in the later part of the games thus, we had been exposed by the media on how the Asian Games was going and I can remember that I was waiting patiently but eagerly to participate in the games. I was going there for one goal which is the 4x100m relay. There were daily times on the sports on the newspaper given to us every morning in our apartments, there was this interview and the girl said that the experience at the Asian Games were better than that at the YOG simply because the service was so good. The Chinese people had to pride of their country and thus giving their best in their area of volunteering. However, we cannot compare to China mainly because of the people to area ratio. There were hardly any hiccups, bus timings were very consistent, the reporting times and race times were smack on the dot.

On the race day of the 4x100m, I was charged up to run the race of my life as it was the last competition for me for the year. Equipping my mind mentally and staying relax helped me to feel good. The weather was cool and definitely dry, and it did not struck me that I may have been dehydrated. 30mins before reporting I had a major calf cramp. Thankfully, a masseur (sathi) was there to attend to me, shaking and stretching my calf. Downing 2 full bottles immediately helped me to recover. We had our spirits lifted up and were ready to give our best. Our heat had strong competitors like Japan, China, Saudi Arabia. I was at the 4^th runner position counting my steps, feeling the cheer of the crowd for china was daunting and having Japan (Olympics bronze medalist) team on the outside of me gave a slight anxiety. But I knew that the Singapore team had trained well and we had the camaraderie and we were ready for this meet.

On your marks! Set, Go! Gun went off. Gary did a great start not letting the Japanese Eruguchi to pull away. Stepping on the mark, Elfi took off, accelerating down the straight. Shouting for ‘ Up!’ Elfi’s Hand went up, Gary aiming to place the baton in his hand. First time, it missed and slip, trying the second time made Gary over stretch and lose his running momentum only leaving elfi pulling further away and out of the exchange zone. There the relay time for the Singapore Team had ended. Leaving Amir and me to watch and observe the other runners zooming past us. We did not know what to do at that moment. In the minds of Gary and Elfi it was a shocker and in my mind, I guess the race was over and it was the end of my season. However, the relay is a team event and we took the result as a team.

Thankfully, they managed to squeeze me in the 200m. I was very fired up to run in the 200m. Usually, I did not have a clear race plan but this time round. I really had a plan from the blocks, coming out fast the first 30m mainly opening up my strides. Coming into the straight at the 80m to engage the frequency and powering and maintaining down to the finish line. In most races, the last 20m would kill me. But having a good race plan and being confident helped me to stick with the pack and finishing with a personal best of 21.68s . I was happy with my timing as I was aiming a personal best. And there I finished my 2010 season on a high. In the 100m having a season’s best of 10.61s and in the 4x100m in 40.14.

Thank you Calvin for sharing your wonderful experience in the Asian Games.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I personally feel that there were too much pressure on the boys, hoping for a new national record. Having said that, there were also lots of indirect stress on the runners. For example, the new relay coordinator Mr Melvin Tan, took over Coach Hamkah for the responsibility of the 4 x 100m. For the past 4 years when Coach Hamkah and Mr Tang Ngai Kin took control over the relay team, there were resistance from personal coaches, uncertainties and even fights within the team and the coaches. However, the ex SAA had a team of experts to conquer these problems. These people include: Ralph (TD), Veera (Chief Coordinator), Hosni (Head Coach Sprints), Sharon (Video Analysis) and myself (Assistant Coach Sprint). We had a huge team to work closely together. However for this incident in Guangzhou, I would say Mr Melvin Tan is fighting this battle alone. I will not regard this as a failure, and Mr Melvin Tan should face it and come back stronger.

I also feel that nobody should be penalized for the baton passing. Accidents do occur and it happens to be during a major game. In fact, these boys should make full use of the chance to observe and learn from the Asia's best athletes and share it with our local athletes and coaches, and eventually improve our sporting culture in Singapore.

I can't wait for the new season to start and to look out for more young talents and potential athletes from Singapore school's system.

This is Alfred Sim signing off.

Malaysia Open 2010

2010-11-02T23:37:00.009+08:00

Malaysia Open was held at Majlis Sukan Negara Stadium, Bukit Jalil. It was not held at the main stadium as there was a soccer match taking place during that weekend. Nonetheless, we saw athletes from Saudi, Qatar, Thailand, Taipei, Philippines and even Sri Lanka coming to compete at this meet. Singapore only sent a small contingent as most of the other National Athletes were tied down to the IVP Meet that week. Here are the results of the athletes from Singapore.

Amanda in lane 7 of the 100m Heats.

Amanda Choo 100m W (Semi 12.10s, Final 12.03s 7th),
Nadiah 100m W (13.00s),
Michelle Sng High Jump W (1.60m),
Rachel Yang Pole Vault W (No height),
Calvin Kang 100m M (Heats 10.85s, Semi 10.71s) & 200m M (22.90s),
Shalindran 200m M (Semi 22.23s ) & 400m M (Semi 51.33s),
Stefan Tseng Triple Jump M (15.09mm 3rd),
Sean Lim Pole Vault M (4.20m 3rd)
Izwan 100m M (Heats 11.05s) & 200m M (Semi 22.83, Finals 22.44)

Izwan in lane 5 in the 100m Heats

Stefan saying a few words on winning the bronze medal.

We also got Shalindran and Calvin Kang from Reactiv to share their experience with us.

Shalindran:
This Malaysia Open was very different for me. It was the first overseas meet whereby it was free and easy. Stefan, Calvin Kang, Calvin Cheng (went there to support and for a holiday) and I drove up together to KL to compete. We had our own accommodations as well staying minutes from KLCC. As soon as we checked in, we went to look for our team manager who was staying in a different hotel to get our number tags and find out what time our races are.

I wasn't too happy about my 400m race as I was aiming to break my Personal Best of 49.35secs. Being in the 3rd Semis, I watched how my competitors ran their races for the 400m. Especially the races with the Saudi guys in it. Those guys ran effortlessly hitting timings like 46 and 47seconds and it was simply a jaw dropping experience for me. As for my race, I was too carried away with the others in my heat. Everyone started so fast that it made me go slightly faster than my actual race plan. By the 200m mark I was in last place and the lactic acid had already kicked in. I managed to push through the last part and came in 4th out of the 5 athletes in that heat with a timing of 51.33secs. I was very dejected straight after the race. However, the day must still go on and I came back stronger for the 200m the next day in which I attained a new personal best timing.

Overall, I feel delighted that I got to compete overseas at least once this year and that I managed to achieve a personal best. However, I feel that more backing and aid needs to be given to athletes. It was the first time I had to fork out money to go overseas to compete and it's such a shame that a national athlete has to do so. I also feel that it was very messy on the Singapore side as many issues were settled last minute. Hopefully things between the management's wants and athlete's needs be straighten out in time to come.

Calvin Kang:
The competition was good and I didn't expect teams like the middle east to compete as they were also enrouting to the Asian games. This is the first time that Team Singapore's athletes all travelled up by themselves to compete and it was like a road trip and the 'pit stop' was to compete. We gave our best and carried on with what's in KL like visiting the KLCC aquaria. The main stadium that we were suppose to compete in was closed due to a soccer match so we had to resettle to the practice track. However, the track was good and I manage to run a decent time in the 100m.

Overall I would say that it was a fun trip and also a stepping stone for my progress in the century sprint to garner and boost that confidence I need in the 4x100m in the Asian Games Guangzhou on the 23rd nov.

To view more pictures,
Shalindran's Facebook Album

Institute Varsity Polytechnic (IVP) Games Day 2

2010-11-02T23:04:00.007+08:00

The IVP Track and field Meet 10/11 came to an yesterday, 30 Oct 2010 and once again athletes from Reactiv representing National University of Singapore, Republic Polytechnic and various other institutions took the track to test their mettle and race for new seasons’ and personal best timings.

400mH

The meet saw its first real action in the Men’s 400mH events where there was a close fight between Muhamad Zaki Sapari from Republic Polytechnic (training under SDSC) and Sharman Dustageer from NUS. There was little to separate the two in the early stages of the race, but it was obvious that Zaki had a good race tempo going and was having an easier time clearing the hurdles because of the height advantage he had over Sharman. It was a close fight but Zaki triumphed in the end, coming in first with a time of 56.09s to Sharman’s 56.69s. Fudin (coach Remy Gan) came in 15^th among the 17 hurdlers with a time of 68.10s. This is also his first attempt in the 400mH.

200m

In the 200m, Melanie Francisca and Abdul Hakeem both did personal best and seasons’ best timings respectively. Both athletes managed to qualify for the finals easily, coming in second in their respective heats to qualify automatically. Natalie from RP also came in 4^th in the finals with a time of 27.46s. She was racing with powerhouse national athletes and managed to beat the rest of the athletes from other institutions.

The Men’s 200m final boasted a strong field of competitors but Hakeem managed to hold his own, coming in 2^nd with a time of 22.08s; a strong showing from him given the fact that he had been away from competition for about half a year. Gary Yeo came in 1^st with a time of 21.64s. Marcus and Kyser from RP managed 26.40s and 24.54s respectively in their heats but couldn’t qualify for the finals. It was a struggle for Kyser to start racing so soon after a few months of break. He only had a month of training prior to the IVP.

The Women’s 200m final also saw a quality field of athletes competing. However, with a more aggressive start compared to what she did in the heats, Melanie was able to finish the race in 3^rd place with a personal best timing of 25.74s. Dipna Lim Prasad and Valerie Pereira produced stellar performances and fought each other to the finish to take gold and silver respectively with timings of 24.68s and 24.69s respectively.

Relays

The final events for the day were the Men’s and Women’s relays. It was an easy victory for the men from NUS in both relays, with their 4x100m team managing to break the Championship Record. The team was anchored by Abdul Hakeem. The Republic Polytechnic team ran well and came in 8^th in the final. Although the time was not faster than the heats, they did their best and some athletes having run than 1 event on the day were evidently worn out. RP came in 3^rd for the 4 x 400m, and the runners were Khalis, Zaki, Firdaus and Fudin.

In the Women’s relays, Nikita returned to the track to anchor NTU’s 4x400m team. She managed to sustain the lead they already had and brought the team to victory. Melanie ran in the 4x100 and 4x400m relays where NUS clinched silver medals. RP did not send any women relay team.

This marks the end of the season for most of the athletes. The winners of the events will be invited to race in the Asean University Games in Chiang Mai, Thailand at the end of the year. We hope that they will do well and make us proud.

Credits:
Written by Melanie and Alfred
Edited by Hakeem
Photos courtesy of Benedict Sirius Ong , Lance Tan Fana Farhanah and Singapore Athletic Association

Institute Varsity Polytechnic (IVP) Games Day 1

2010-10-25T18:28:00.009+08:00

The Inter-Varsity Polytechnic (IVP) Track and Field Championships are currently being held over two weekends, with the various local universities, polytechnics and ITEs coming together to compete in this highly competitive meet. IVP 2010 is being organized this year by Nanyang Technological University and certain events were held yesterday at the Bukit Gombak Stadium.

We saw a few Personal Best (PB) and Season Best (SB) performances from Coach Alfred Sim-trained Republic Polytechnic as well as competitors from the Reactiv training group.

Personal Best and Season Best

1. Nikita ran 2 PBs yesterday with one coming in the 800m finals where she came in 2nd behind Lossini of Singapore Polytechnic, and another in the 400m where she established new PBs in the heats and finals, on her way to winning the 400m event.

(Coach Alfred: Nikita started proper sprint training with me during the 4th quarter of last year and improved on her speed after a year of training. She has shown much improvement in her running form. After a few competitions, she started to get the 400m race tempo, and eventually did her PBs at IVP. With the strong endurance base developed by her previous coaches, Mr Low Cham Pew and Mr Lim Kien Mau, it was not difficult for me to bring her to the next level.)

800m - 2mins 32.72secs (PB)
400 heats - 60.68secs (PB)
400 finals - 60.26secs (PB)

2. Melanie ran her first 400m race this season.

(Coach Alfred: Mel was not familiar with the race tempo and messed up her race during the heats, going too fast in her first 200m and eventually dying out due to the early onset of lactic acid accumulation in her race. It was after the 2 hour break where she realized her mistakes and did a SB to justify her painful lesson learnt.)

400 heats - 64.71secs
400 finals - 62.87secs (SB)

3. Firdaus As a captain of RP track team, he managed to run a PB, at the same time clocking below 12s. He is also in the RP 4x100m relay team, where he runs the 2nd leg. RP is now in the finals of the 4x100m to be run this coming Saturday.

100m heats - 11.97secs (PB)

4. Natalie Lee from Republic Polytechnic, who trains with Sprint Dynamic Sports Consultancy (SDSC), came in 3rd in the 100m finals.

(Coach Alfred: She managed to run a Personal Best in the heats. She is strong in her push and gave Balpreet from NTU a run for her money. What she is lacking though is stride frequency)

100m heats - 13.26secs (PB)
100m finals - 13.35secs

5. Shireen, Alicia, Kyser, Khalis and Zaki from Republic Polytechnic ran in the other individual events for RP.

(Coach Alfred: It was after a long break where Khalis and Kyser started theiur training proper just a few weeks before the competition. Someone who amazed me was Alicia, who only did 2 hurdle training sessions and 4 training days in total, and yet managed to run her way into the 100m Hurdles finals. Unfortunately, she didn't manage to finish the race after tripping over the first hurdle. On another note, Shireen, who was part of our Asian Youth Games contingent last year, unsurprisingly came in first for her pet event as she out-jumped the 2nd place jumper by more than a meter! )

Shireen 1st for Triple Jump (trains with Dr Valeri Obidko)
Khalis came in 4th in the 400m finals with a time of 54.00secs (trains with SDSC)
Zaki came in 2nd in the 400m with a time of 51.04secs (trains with SDSC)
Alicia Tiang heats - 20.22secs. Tripped on the first hurdle and did not finish the finals.
Kyser ran a time of 12.19secs in the heats.
4x100m Boys (Kyser, Firdaus, Marcus and Zaki) qualified for the Finals

Day 2 of the IVP Meet will be held on the 30th of Oct. We hope to see more PBs and SBs on that day. Hakeem and Melanie, both from NUS, will be running in the 200m and 4x100m finals.

Credits:
Written by Shalindran and Alfred
Edited by Hakeem
Photos courtesy of Singapore Athletic Association Facebook

Wings Track & Field Meet 2010

2010-09-28T13:18:00.012+08:00

Wings Athletics Club organised the Wings Meet for the local athletes after 1 week of break from the Singapore Open. It meet was held at ITE Simei where the events waere delayed due to the pouring rain and the logistic problems. They couldn't find a starter gun in time for the races thus causing delays to about an hour or so.

However, there were still PB times made in this Wings Meet.

1. Calvin Kang

100m - 10.94sec
Mens 100m Heat 6

Mens 4x400m relay

2. Shalindran

100m - 11.27sec (Season Best)
200m - 22.29sec (Personal Best)

Men 100m Heat 2

Men 200m Heat 4

3. Hakeem

100m - 11.34s - (Season Best)
200m - 22.49s - (Season Best)

Men 100m Heat 6

Men 200m Heat 4

4. Prayaank

100m - 11.72secs

Men 100m Heat 3

5. Shahrul

100m - 12.02secs (Season Best)
Men 100m Heat 4

6. Melanie

100m - 12.98secs
200m - 26.63secs

Women 100m

Women 200m

7. Nikita

200m - 27.78secs
800m - 2mins 39secs

Women 800m

Women 200m

The Wings meet created another platform for more local athletes to compete. The meet was not perfectly organised, but at least we managed to have fun and had friendly competition between athletes. We hope that there will be more of these races in a year to help athletes prepare for their competitions, e.g. IVP, National Schools, Major games like Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, SEA Juniors and even SEA Games.

We have many clubs in Singapore, However, the active ones that have been organizing competitions for the past 5 years are Swift and Wings. I believe the future of Singapore Athletics will be club based and subsequently create the friendly competition within clubs in Singapore. More clubs, more athletes, more chances to represent and compete and thus this will hopefully increase the participation of Athletics in Singapore.

Singapore Open 2010

2010-09-20T20:37:00.015+08:00

The Singapore Open 2010 was held on the 18th and 19th of Sept and it attracted many foreign and local athletes to Singapore. We saw countries like Japan, Sri Lanka, Chinese Taipei and Thailand to name a few.

Locally, the Singapore men's 4x100m relay team used this meet as their preparation race and tried to emulate the SEA GAMES medal placing run which they did last year. There was however a shuffle in the team as Lee Cheng Wei had to sit out due to a hamstring injury. Calvin Kang was picked to replace him and anchored the race.

Despite coming in 2nd with a timing of 40.71s, the team was still in high spirits and took the opportunity to learn from their mistakes which was evident in the race. We hope they will get their work together before they leave for New Delhi 2 weeks from now.

It has been a tough season for most of the athletes, facing major events like the YOG. This is indirectly affecting our athletes, where it is a nation wide participation and training was slightly disrupted. Having not competed for a long time, our Reactiv athletes were eager to race at the Singapore Open.

Coach Alfred Sim with his athletes.

1. Calvin Kang - 100m - settled for 11th

Needless to say, Calvin's 100m performance was a disaster! His poor execution in his acceleration phase caused him his race. It could be due to his hamstring injury that he caused him to hold back during his race. He had a minor strain on the hamstring when he went to Vietnam Open, Hanoi. However, he did a good anchor for the relay. I hand timed him a fly-in 120m at 11.9s.

Calvin in his 100m heats. finished with a timing of 11.06

2. Shalindran - 400m - 3rd in the finals

Shalindran just recovered from a poplitious tendon injury which started since last Nov. He was still racing till March and was then told to completely rest. After some extensive rehab, he started training again in July. I was shocked when he ran his heats at 52s! Luckily he managed to get back his race momentum the next day in the finals and clocked an early 50s.

Shalindran did his Season Best with a timing of 50.20secs

3. Hakeem - 200m - 3rd in the finals

Hakeem switched from 110m hurdles to 200m. This is his first official race after his switch and a short training of 2 months after this return from the USA, Texas. We were working a lot on his running posture, as he was 'sitting' a little during his run when he just returned. I think 22.55s is a reasonable time for someone who just switched events. These races can be a good build-up for him for his University competition.

4. Melanie - 200m - 5th in the finals

We did a few adjustment this year for Melanie. Her problem is always the acceleration phase. We up the weights, worked on acceleration techniques, breathing techniques and increased her fitness level by increasing the intensity and volume of the endurance workouts. But seems like she can't transfer what we've done into the races. Application is one of the toughest things to do, knowing what to do and executing it, is different!

Melanie did a timing of 27.10secs which was far from her PB of 25.91secs.

5. Nikita - 400m - 4th in the finals

Nikita did a reasonably good timing (61.9s)despite her change in event - from 800m to 400m. I saw that she has the potential to do sprints, her running mechanics and her cadence in her strides convinced me that she can do well in her 400m. Her strong aerobics based training previously with Coach KianMao from RP, made her endurance training easy to handle. We now have to work on the race plan for the 400m.

Let's hope these athletes will do a better time this coming Wings Meet, and to prepare for their big games - Commonwealth Games and IVP for the University Students.

The Singapore Open also invited athletes from SDSC to participate in our event. 100m and 200m wheelchair/non-wheelchair. It is really interesting to watch these athletes compete, especially for our local junior athletes, hope that they will be motivated and train seriously to raise the standard of athletics in Singapore.

100m non-wheelchaired athletes

I personally feel that SDSC should be working closely with SAA and organise their competition with SAA. There should not be a separate meet, as we are all categorized under Athletics. In United Kingdom Athletics (UKA), I had a chance to speak to the head coach for the Paralympic Team - Coach Peter Eriksson, he said that athletics events are all grouped together, Olympics and Paralympics athletes. Therefore I think that this is a good start to let both association and council to work closely together.

The Sprint King 2010

2010-09-05T18:37:00.014+08:00

The Sprint King program, the brainchild of the Portuguese Athletics Federation, was created in a bid to attract the youth in Portugal to athletics. In order to fight the popularity of football in their country, the program gave athletics coaches and managers the opportunity to identify talented youths in Portugal and subsequently allowed the different channels to assist them in their sporting careers.

Taking a page out of the Portuguese’s playbook, Reactiv decided to scale down the event to the school level. One of the first ever Sprint King events in Singapore was held in Anglo-Chinese School Independent (ACS(I)) to help in their recruiting of students from their affiliated schools. It was a 2 hours session with 18 students from Anglo-Chinese School (Junior) and Anglo-Chinese School (Primary) participating.
The students were grouped into 3 heats and were subsequently ranked based on their best times in the 60m, to compete in the second race. A training workshop was conducted before the race, where simple running drills and proper starting position were taught to the students.

After the 3 finals heats, the 8 fastest sprinters were selected, with the winners being awarded a Reactiv training tee.

The Sprint King

We would first like to thank the teachers of the 3 schools involved, and also the parents of the students, without whom the event would not have been a success. Thanks also go out to the ACS(I) teachers who helped in the logistical and the administrative part of the event; Mr Lawrence Ang, Mr George Lam, Mr Wong Ting Ee and Mdm Kelly Chan. And not forgetting the student helpers from the ACS(I) track team. As a token of our appreciation, everyone involved received a free sample of our Reactiv training apparel line.

For more pictures: CLICK HERE

Training At CCAB 23/08/2010

2010-08-24T14:24:00.005+08:00

The Training Group at Reactiv have been putting in their fullest efforts to prepare for Singapore Open which will take place on the 18th and 19th of Sept. Yesterday's training had to be indoors due to the pouring rain. We focused on drills alot and once the rain subsided, we did a few runs before calling it a day. They worked on their running technique by breaking it down into drills such as butt kicks, A skip, B skip and single leg step overs just to name a few.

Picture: Hakeem, Nikita, Calvin and Shalindran seen here doing high knee.

The group will be training at CCAB on Wednesday late afternoon again. Hope to see you there.

Athletics at YOG (Day 6)

2010-08-23T09:30:00.006+08:00

It was a hot and humid start to the final day of the Athletics Youth Olympics Games. The heavy downpour in the evening however did not dampen the spirits of the Youths as they continued to dash across the finish line one last time.

Ranjitha Raja of Singapore was in the line up for the 1000m Girls B finals and she completed the race coming in a respectable 5th with a timing of 3mins 03.90secs.

Stina Troest (picture below) from Denmark, who is Coach Alfred's friend's athlete came in 2nd in the 400m Girls A Finals with a personal best timing of 58.88secs. Olena Kolesnychenko from the Ukraine who was the hot favourite to win, but came in 3rd. Aurelie Chaboudez from France came in 1st with a fantastic personal best of 58.41secs

The last event at Bishan stadium was somewhat different. We normally run relays with our own countrymen. But at this Youth Olympics, it was to run under your continent. We had teams like Europe, Americas, Oceania, Africa and Asia

This exciting event started off from the 200m mark where the 1st athlete would run 100m and then pass the baton to the next athlete to run 200m, followed by 300m and finally 400m to the finish line. The Americas dominated both in the Girls and Boys Medley Relay in which the top sprinters took part and showcased their talents once again to the world.

The YOG for Athletics has come to an end. A very good experience for all who have went down to watch at Bishan stadium. An experience which one would never forget.

Athletics at YOG (Day 5)

2010-08-23T09:12:00.002+08:00

Golds and Personal Best timings are what these YOG athletes came here for. Many have already made an impression to the world but there were still a few other events to watch out for at Bishan Stadium on Day 5 of the YOG Athletics.

Zachary Ryan Devaraj from Singapore gave it his all at his final run in the 1000m B Final and that got him a personal best timing of 2min 31.75secs. He was one of the other 6 who managed to run a PB.

In the Girls 200m A finals, Nkiruka Florence Nwakwe from Nigeria won the finals with an absolutely stunning timing of 23.46secs which also is her new personal best timing. This final also had many doing their PBs.

Lastly, the highlight for sprint events at Bishan came from the 200m Boys A finals. Zhenye Xie from China who was favourite to win came in 1st with a timing of 21.22secs. It was a 1-2 finish for the asians as Japan took the Silver with a timing of 21.27secs.

Athletics at YOG (Day 4) - Evening Session

2010-08-22T14:37:00.004+08:00

The evening session of Day 4 in Bishan Stadium was the most exciting to watch. We witnessed many A finals and also the crowning of the fastest boy at the Youth Olympics. We start off with the Boys 110m Hurdles.

Australian boy, Nicholas Hough was jubilant as he crossed the line first with a timing of 13.37s. The top 4 athletes managed their personal best timings and this proves what has been suspected all the long; that the Bishan Stadium track was an ideal venue for fast times. It was however, sad to see Nicolas Borome of France clutching his hamstring after the 8th hurdle and then stumbling on his last hurdle before falling to the ground. We at Reactiv wish him a speedy recovery.

Next up was the Girls 400m Finals. Robin Reynolds from USA, who was fastest off the blocks, proved her billing as pre-race favourite by coming in 1st with a season’s best time of 52.57 seconds.

In the 100m Girls Final, Josephine Omaka from Nigeria won the final easily with a time of 11.58secs. A visibly disappointed Myasia Jacobs from USA came in 2nd.

Then came 100m Boys Final, the event which everyone was waiting for. Japanese sprinter Masaki Nashimoto was leading the pack immediately with a blistering start. However Odane Skeen from Jamaica came from behind and took the lead with 40m to go, and won the race comfortably with a personal best time of 10.42secs. Nashimoto and Great Britain's David Bolarinwa dipped at the line together with a time of 10.51secs. Nashimoto however got the nod for second place. So there you have it, Odane Skeen, the Youth Olympic Games Sprint King.

Athletics at YOG (Day 4) - Morning Session

2010-08-21T12:27:00.005+08:00

Today we have the most finals with 11 golds to be won. There are 2 sessions today, the morning and evening sessions. Here is the report for the morning's events.

Singaporean Goh Wei Ning ran in the 100m Girls Hurdles C Finals. She did better in this race compared to her qualification run, although her time of 14.92 seconds was still off of her personal best time. Nonetheless, we at Reactiv want to congratulate her on her participation at the 1st Youth Olympic Games.

In the 400m Boys A finals, top qualifier Luguelin Santos won in a time of 47.11s. It was however a close finish for 2nd place between the boys from South Africa and Kenya. Both of them though managed to register a personal best at the finals.

Liang Wei also did her best for Singapore at the 100m Girls C Finals earlier today with a time of 12.85s.

Stay tuned for the evening updates as we will be witnessing amongst others, Boys 110m H A Final, Girls 400m A Final, Girls 100m A Final and of course the Boys 100m A Final.

Athletics at YOG (Day 3)

2010-08-19T09:11:00.005+08:00

Today marks the 3rd day of the Youth Olympics for Track and Field. The weather is perfectly fine today which was a total contrast of yesterday and the day before. Not too hot and not too wet. The events today are not as exciting as the day before. It will be a long wait before the sprint event, 200m. But nonetheless, the excitement at the stadium was good enough to make this wait worth while.

The qualifications of 400m Hurdles for both girls and boys took place today. Head Coach of Reactiv, Alfred Sim, was at scene today giving his view of races. A coach friend of his from Denmark was here for the YOG. His athlete Stina Troest was participating the 400m H. She is hot favourite as she's ranked 5th this year for World Youth Ranking. Stina was in the last heat of the girls 400m H and the race was dramatic. French girl, Aurelie Chaboudez, finished just a few milliseconds ahead of her but both of them did PBs and are in the gold medal contention.

Just like the saying, the ball is round, in Track and Field, anything can happen in a race. The last heat of the boys 400m H saw the USA boy, Gregory Coleman, stumble at the 4th hurdle. His left leg hit the hurdle causing him to trip. However, that did not stop him from finishing the race and its great sportsmanship seen here at the Bishan Stadium. It was breathtaking to also watch the boy from India, Kumar Durgesh, outrun German Boy Felix Franz in their heats.

Singaporean Ranjitha Raja braved the 16 others today at the 1000m girls event. Her timing of 3mins 07.66secs was 5 seconds shy of her personal best timing but she managed to come in 11th in her heat.
The 200m boys was electrifying. Zhenye Xie from China was fastest overall with a timing of 21.27secs. Tomasz Kluczynski from Poland did a timing of 21.80 and was looking quite good in the race. Another to look out for at the finals will be Patrick Domogala from Germany. These boys are clearly a class above any of our local athletes as their timings today were so close to our national record of 21.14secs. Will we see one of them surpassing it in the finals? We shall wait and see. Good job to them.

Written by: Shalindran
Photos by: Calvin Kang

Athletics at YOG (Day 2)

2010-08-18T09:13:00.009+08:00

So Day 2 kicked off with the Boys Javelin Qualifications and there will also be events such as the 2000m Steeplechase for both Girls and Boys, not forgetting the highlight of day 2, the 100m dash. I was pretty disappointed as I was not really able to catch the events live. I was watching online but it kept buffering every 10seconds, making it difficult to watch. But nonetheless, I managed to get a glimpse of a few performances by the athletes.
It was a case of a fast track for the boys competing in the 2000m SC. This is evident from the fact that seven of them bettered their Personal Best timings during the qualifications. Having said that, I am sure we will see even better runs by this group in the next race.

Another surprising display was the Boys Javelin. 11 out of the 15 throwers threw PBs. The winner however did not achieve his personal best but managed to top the field with the distance of 77.27m on his last throw.

Singaporean Zachary Ryan Devaraj knew he needed to step up his game in this Youth Olympics. He was up against many fast athletes from countries such as Qatar and Ethopia. Despite being left behind by the leading pack, he managed to run a PB with a timing of 2min 32.27seconds.

Liang Wei was the next Singaporean youth put to the test in the 100m Girls qualifications. Her heat was disrupted due to a false start. However, Liang Wei had a powerful start of the blocks on the 2nd run. She had in fact, the fastest reaction time and managed to come in 4th in her heat with a timing of 12.79s which was slightly off her PB of 12.58s.

Next up was the Boys 100m. I got our very own Fastest Boy, Calvin Kang, to give me live updates from Bishan stadium as I gave up buffering from the online platform. Calvin was rather excited about the 100m as it was the event he had been running since a little boy. He gaves us his view on who to look out for in the 100m.

“Is he the next Usain Bolt?? Youngster Odane Skeen from the Jamaica has been the grapevine of this Youth Olympics. Turning 16 in 9 days time, this Jamaican is seeded as the fastest boy in the YOG. The 100m heats still continued despite the slight downpour. David Bolarinwa kick started the 100m heats with a time of 10.62sec and was the fastest overall. Odane on the other hand was not far off finishing top of his heat with a time of 10.63sec after facing 2 false starts. The Asians like the Japs and Thais were also on their game in their respective heats. Overall, the boys weren’t really pushing this was only the qualifications. Expect a fantastic final this Sat morning.”

This rounds up Day 2 of athletics at YOG. Many achieved PBs today. It could have been due to the weather. Whatever the case was, these athletes are really talented. We have much to learn from them.

Tomorrow's events promise to be as exciting, with the 200m sprint on show. Till then,

Written by: Shalindran
Edited by: Hakeem
Pictures: Calvin Kang

Athletics At YOG (Day 1)

2010-08-17T15:33:00.009+08:00

Today marks the first day of the Youth Olympics Games for the Track and Field athletes. The weather was not our usual Tuesday morning sun but rather a scorching sun with little wind. That did not deter the Youths in their quest for medals. Today's events were mostly qualification rounds into the next level.

In the 100m hurdles for girls, we had our very own Singaporean girl, Goh Wei Ning. Being in the 1st heat, she was the quickest off the blocks as compared to those in her round. Her final timing of 15.01secs was only fast enough to be able to run in the lower classifications. Ekaterina Bleskina from Russia was the fastest qualifier posing a time of 13.32sec. However Megan Simmonds from Jamaica (picture below) caught my attention. She was the shortest among all her other competitors but had excellent technique clearing the hurdles. She would be one of the few to look out for at the Finals.

Sean Toh was the next athlete donning the Singapore flag and running 110 Hurdles. A hiccup in the starts caused the athletes in his heat to stop running once the gun was off. Though the siren was already sounded, Sean continued to run for another 40m until he was signaled to stop by one of the officials standing by the side. His final time after the 2nd run was 15.09secs which was more than 1sec of his PB. If not for the disruption, I felt he might have been able to run a better race.

Wendy Enn from the Singapore Sports School ran the 400m. The field for this event was very strong with athletes doing timings like 53s. Wendy clocked a timing of 62.74s. I would predict that the 400m girls final will be a fight between Robin Reynolds from the USA and Bukola Abogunloko from Nigeria.

The last sprint event for that day was the 400m boys. Once again, the youths showed their class by running fantastic timings which have surpassed our national record. One athlete was the talk of the town at this event. Santos Luguelin from the Dominican Republic (seen from the picture below) lead from the start to finish and his superlative time of 46.82secs was well enough to put him at the top.

It is just Day 1 and already we see so many outstanding results. As the days go by, we will be expecting first class performances by the youths. I cannot wait for Day 2 to come as it will be where the speed demons will be unleashed!! The 100m heats.

So till then, here's Shalindran signing off from Reactiv

Credits: Photos courtesy of Weijen Chao and Calvin Kang

5th All Comers 2010

2010-08-07T13:35:00.005+08:00

It has been quite some time since the last update on Track and Field. This is because there has not been much local races. Recently, a new team in the association was formed and they were put to test at the 5th All Comers 2010. The changes were quite significant for example a different competition venue was picked, (ITE SIMEI). Despite the few hiccups, it was a good job done by the new team with a vision to keep moving forward. We saw a Malaysian team (Nordin Jadi Athletic Club) coming over to compete in which many of them did personal best timings. It was a good exposure for our Singaporean Athletes.
As for our training group, since most of us are recovering from injuries, only Nikita and Prayaank were suppose to compete. However, during training that week, Nikita felt the same pain at the knee which many of our athletes have been going through. Thus, I decided that it was not feasible for her to compete but instead to rest and recover. Prayaank took part in the 100m where he did 11.53sec.

I am looking forward to the next big meet in Singapore which is the Youth Olympic Games 2010. Though none of my athletes will be competing, I was very interested in being involved with the Games. Just recently, I got myself accredited for the YOG Athletes Village located in NTU. The training stadium in sports and recreation centre is for Athletics, Weightlifting, Judo, BasketBall, Swimming and Basketball. And I have the privilege to be the National Technical Official of Athletics. It is one of the best place to be, where athletes will be doing their workout and "secrets" being revealed! Watch out for our blog, as I will update the trainings and pictures from the YOG.

Till the next meet, here's Alfred signing off.

SAQ in Bishan Park Secondary School

2010-07-20T02:46:00.003+08:00

Activo organized and conducted a 1.5hour SAQ (Speed, Agility and Quickness) program with Bishan Park Secondary School on the 8th of July 2010.

Mr Hansen Bey was the main coordinator for this program. We had so much fun meeting the super active kids from the Soccer and Basket Ball school team. The activities were arranged into 3 groups, managed by different instructors. Mr Hansen was incharged of the Agility Ladder, Mr Latiff took charged of the short hurdles, and I was incharged of the Reaction Ball. I have to thank Mr Eddie from Xpat Fitness, for helping us to film these video clips, and Brenda from Activo for the photos.

The SAQ is very beneficial to all students ranging from secondary to tertiary level, who are involved in sports. These 3 components will definitely enhance sports performance. It will be ideal if the coaches from the sports groups will adopt the idea of doing SAQ as part of their training regime.

Pls enjoy the video!

Fit Band at Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Secondary School

2010-07-13T00:36:00.003+08:00

Reactiv collaborated with Activo and conducted a Fitband session with the Teachers and Staff of Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Secondary School. The 20 minutes session was conducted in the early morning 7.30am on 28th June 2010.

The session started out with stretching warm up, brief introduction of how major muscle group can be stretched. Basic body weight exercises were introduced with Activo resistance fitbands. The teachers had a great time working on both upperbody and lowerbody muscles. They were exposed to the different variation of exercises that they can do even in their office.

The short session ended off after 3 sets of the 5 different fitband exercises, a great way to start the day! Please see the pictures below :)

Strength and Conditioning Workshop at Singapore Polytechnic

2010-07-05T04:06:00.004+08:00

A 2 hour session of Strength and Conditioning was conducted in Singapore Polytechnic on the 21st June 2010. Approximately 20 athletes from the Track and Field team attended the workshop. They were given a talk on mental skills by Mr Hansen Bey from Vitage Pte Ltd and followed by the S&C workshop by me. The equipment were provided by Vitage, Activo. For more information on the products, please visit www.activo.sg.

The Workshop covered a series of total body weight exercises and increased intensity of exercises with the help of equipment like the medicine balls, short hurdles and plyometrics boxes. It was interesting to see athletes of different event groups trying the exercises. Those exercises were done progressively and were designed to help them have proper technique of executing the exercises. The different variation of exercises allowed the athletes to have more choices to choose from when working on specific major muscle group.

The video clips are done by Reactiv, with the help of Mr Eddie Thomson of XpatFitness for taking the photographs and the videos. Please enjoy the video!

Asian Grand Prix 2010 - India

2010-06-08T15:28:00.005+08:00

The Asian Grand Prix is held in India, 3 stops namely - Pune, Bangalore and Chennai.
The 4x100m relay team ran in the 1st leg clocking 40.97s and finished 8th out of the 9 teams. nobody did the 100m individuals. There was a slight improvement for the relay team in the 2nd leg in Bangalore, they ran a time of 40.86s and finished 9th out of the 10 teams. Calvin and Elfi ran a good race in the 100m individuals in Bangalore and did 10.69s and 10.65s respectively. The following boys competed in the 100m as well: Cheng wei 10.96s, Nasir 11.05s and Rahman 11.11s.

Our team didn't perform in the 3rd leg of the game, due to the bad living condition, and our athletes were not used to the environment. Elfi couldn't take the condition and fell sick, eventually had to drop out of the competition. It was a bad relay exchange from Calvin to Cheng Wei, and therefore did not do well for the 4 x 100m, and thus lost the chance to qualify for the year end big games.

The next race will be in mid July, Vietnam Open. Calvin Kang will be targeting towards it, now that the relay team did not qualify during the Asian Grand Prix, Calvin has to qualify through individual performance, for Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games.

Sprint Series 2

2010-05-29T16:55:00.005+08:00

There hasnt been much local races these past few weeks for the seniors as most of the races were catered more for the juniors to prepare themselves for the upcoming SEA Junior, Asian Junior and of course the SYOG. The 4th All Comers was to be held on the 29th May. However it was postponed by the SAA due to logistical circumstances. As such, a Sprint Series was created for athletes to compete.

Melanie during her 80m

Nikita during her 300m

Shahrul after his 300m

It wasnt a big turn out, mainly National athletes and the 4x100 Mens relay team. The Sprint Series had events such as 80m, 100m and 300m. All vying to do a good timing after weeks of training. Melanie, whom ran 80m, Nikita, whom ran 300m and Shahrul, whom ran 300m, were the athletes from Reactiv who participated in the Sprint Series.

Cool down with the Coach

Here is the Video of the Races Today.

In other news, Calvin Kang will be going for the Asian Grand Prix held in India in June. On behalf of Reactiv I would like to wish him all the best.

Malaysia Open Meets

2010-05-22T17:02:00.007+08:00

After a long break, Calvin Kang is back to burn the track! For the past few months, Calvin have to train with nagging pain on his knees. We did lots of strengthening work like wobble board squats, single leg squats, single leg step up, running drills single leg isolation and plyometrics exercises. He convinced me that he could once again tear the track in the 100m, so therefore I've decided to let him race in the following Malaysia meet: namely Negeri Sembilan and Pahang Open.

I've planned for Calvin to race in Taipei Open which is scheduled to be end of May, but he recovered and proved that he could race earlier than I expected.

He represented in the 100m in Negeri Sembilan and did a SB of 10.61s.
He was also involved in the 4 x 100m.

In Pahang, he raced in the 200m and did a SB of 21.88s, he also participated in the relays.

The following pictures are some of the shots captured in Malaysia, all thanks to Rahman Lim.

200m in Pahang
Calvin Kang
Calvin Kang
100m finish in Negeri Sembilan
100m in Negeri Sembilan, in picture: Calvin Kang, Izwan, Rahman

Our National 4x100m relay team: Izwan, Calvin, Rahman, Nasir

Akira Swift Meet 2010

2010-03-26T00:25:00.007+08:00

The annual Akira Swift Meet attracts hundreds of primary school athletes to participate in the Track and Field events. In fact, this is the only meet apart from the National Primary School Championship, that allows mass participation for the primary school level. However, the 2 day event was delayed by the bad weather, causing much waiting time for the athletes. Some of the athletes pulled out because of the rain and the long delay.

Although I'm dealing mainly with athletes age 16 and above, I am equally concerned about the primary school level kids. I noticed this young indian boy from Ang Mo Kio Primary winning both the 300m and 100m sprints, and he is considered small and short compared to his peers. I was really amazed by his really fantastic running style and posture. He could potentially be the next champion in the future! Good job for the coach!

As for the Reactiv group, we planned to use this meet as a training competition, and those who participated were as follows:
Calvin Kang - 100m, 4 x 100m
Shalindran - 400m, 4 x 100m
Hilmi - 4 x 100m
Jinglong - 4 x 100m
Prayaank - 100m, 4 x 100m
Melanie - 100m
Alfred sim - 100m, 4 x 100m
There was supposed to be more participation, but some of us were having strain and pain. We eventually decided to just send a small team.

It has been 3 years since my last competition and because of some "personal" reasons, I had to race with one of our athletes. Surprisingly, I did quite well even without training! Some of us had to do 3 races on that day, 100m heats and finals, and lastly the 4 x 100m. Team Reactiv, consisted of the "Past", the "Present" and the "Future", namely Alfred Sim, Calvin Kang, Hilmi, JingLong, did the relay legs respectively. We got 2nd in the timed finals.

In the 100m Men, 3 of our guys including myself were in the finals. Calvin Kang, Prayaank and Myself. Calvin did a 10.86s in the heats and 10.83s in the finals. Izwan and Shyam came in 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Please enjoy the videos!

Shalindran in the 400m Men Finals 1

Calvin Kang, Prayaank, Alfred Sim in the 100m Men Finals

Melanie in the 100m Women Finals

Bionic Band

2010-03-10T02:05:00.005+08:00

"Energy Therapy" is in trend now, as seen in the market. People wearing bands around their necks and wrists, sticking little pads on the shoulders, necks and legs to help ease pain as they believe strongly that these will help increase blood circulation. All these claims are true to a certain extent. In general, they do help in blood circulation and therefore increase the health benefits of the sedentary.

In one of my posts last year, I introduced this product called the BionicBand.

How it can help our body? How is this product different from those currently selling in the market? How does it look like? How many colours? How much is it?
Please click on the link below and find all the information in there!

www.reactiv.mybionicband.com

Watch the videos in the main page. I've done the balance test to all my friends and it works! It's fascinating. You can also visit my facebook page.

Reactiv on Facebook

Take a look at the photo album of those BionicBand Users!!

Testing Day in Singapore Sports School

2010-03-04T23:11:00.005+08:00

Congratulations to Calvin Kang, who will represent Singapore in the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha! The indoor Champs will take place from 12 to 14 March 2010, and is expected to become the biggest gathering in terms of participating nations in the history of these championships, exceeding the previous record set two years ago in Valencia.

In preparation towards the big day, we did a test on the 25th Feb, 40m acceleration. Calvin Kang, Yusman, Melanie and Ashiq did the test. Jinglong and Louis joined our training too. Jinglong did a series of 5 hurdles run. He has much room for improvement - he has to work more on speed and his technique over the hurdles. Ash is facing the same problem too, he might not be as coordinated as most athletes, but I can see his determination to learn and fix his problems.

This reminds me of a term that Loren Seagrave uses - " to re-engineer the athletes" and to quote him, " old saying - if it's not broken, don't fix it. New saying - if it's not broken, break it and fix it even better".

Enjoy the video clip!

Allcomer 2 - 2010

2010-02-09T00:38:00.003+08:00

Despite all the recent controversies, SAA maintained their professionalism and organised the Allcomers in Bukit Gombak Stadium well. I observed an effort being made to feed live results on the wall of the photo finish room. That was something new and very interesting, just like the big screens that replay the runs and display the results straight after the event.

It was quite a good turn out, especially for athletes gearing up for the National schools competition which will happen in less than 2 months time. However, none of the 4 x 100m relay boys were seen competing in the sprints event. Will they be ready for the big games at the end of the year? Or are they just interested in regional meets and games?

As usual, I encouraged our guys to take part in the 100m and 400m. It was great to see that they were not tired after the race. At this phase of the year, my target is to get my guys’ fitness levels up, so that they can sustain higher intensity training as we progress into the season. As such, it seems that we are heading down the right track.

Our guys tried their best to run a good race; however the time clocked didn’t look as promising. It is still early in the season, and this is only the 2nd competition of the year. Many competitions along the way are lined up for us, so we just have to stay focused and reproduce what we do in training.

Here are some of the videos that I took, please pardon the quality for now…

Ash in the 100m

Ash in the 200m

Melanie in the 100m

Calvin Kang in the 100m

Yusman, Shalindran, Hilmi, Amos, Prayaank and Joseph in the 100m

Amos in the 400m

Prayaank in the 400m

Kenneth Khoo, Shalindran, Calvin Kang in the 400m

Hilmi in the 400m

Malaysia Open 2009

2009-12-23T22:09:00.002+08:00

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!

BionicBand - Make your orders now!!

2009-09-19T02:06:00.005+08:00

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

World Championships 2009 Berlin

2009-09-12T03:14:00.005+08:00

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!

Training in Bremen

2009-08-08T06:28:00.004+08:00

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 :)

Training in Bremen - Day 8

2009-08-04T21:53:00.002+08:00

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 :)

Training in Bremen - Day 6 (rest day)

2009-08-02T03:16:00.004+08:00

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....

Training in Bremen - Day 5

2009-08-01T19:48:00.002+08:00

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 :)

Training in Bremen - Day 4

2009-07-31T05:25:00.003+08:00

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!

Training camp in Bremen - Day 3

2009-07-30T22:37:00.004+08:00

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...

Training Camp in Bremen - Day 2

2009-07-29T22:52:00.007+08:00

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!

Training Camp in Bremen

2009-07-28T02:39:00.012+08:00

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

AYG Singapore 2009

2009-07-08T00:46:00.012+08:00

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:

Singapore Sports Awards 09

2009-07-08T00:17:00.001+08:00

" 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.

1st AYG - Flag Presentation Ceremony

2009-06-03T15:06:00.003+08:00

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.

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

2009-06-01T02:20:00.004+08:00

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!

2009-05-28T03:19:00.002+08:00

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!

Permit Meet 2009

2009-05-23T17:32:00.015+08:00

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

AYG 09 Workshop

2009-05-23T16:22:00.005+08:00

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!

Hurdles Training - Hakeem

2009-05-21T01:08:00.004+08:00

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

3rd Allcomers

2009-03-22T12:26:00.010+08:00

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

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

2009-03-19T18:37:00.005+08:00

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!!

Strength Test in SSC

2009-03-11T01:18:00.008+08:00

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!

POSB Everyday Champions Award 2009

2009-02-27T03:17:00.008+08:00

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 :)

2nd Allcomers - Continued

2009-02-15T23:12:00.006+08:00

2nd Allcomers

2009-02-15T13:36:00.007+08:00

14th Feb 2009 saw not only Valentine's but also the 2nd Allcomers 2009. 200m was the event and here some candid photos. Videos and other pictures will be posted up real soon! Keep updated!
Athletes that took part were:

Wynner

Hakeem

Hilmi
(here with Alfred)
Melanie
and Joseph and Calvin (whose pictures aren't here yet)

Power Training

2009-01-23T02:43:00.003+08:00

Lunges position, pushing forward using only front leg.

Just to share, some crazy ideas that I have about acceleration training. I've seen Patrick Johnson done a similiar drill like this. Inspired by him, testing on my athletes.

High Speed Drills - Step Overs

2009-01-20T15:12:00.001+08:00

High Speed Drills

The step over drills is used in the high speed running phase in the 100m. I personally find that this technique is one of the most efficient way in order to sprint fast using the right muscle to do the right work. The hamstring is considered as a fast muscle and is suitable for carrying out task that requires fast movement. Therefore, making use of the anatomy of the body, we can speed up our recovery phase by smacking our heel to the butt fast.

As shown in the video above, Wynner ran through the equally spaced hurdles and simulating the stepping over action with the aid of the hurdles.

If we focus on his feet, you can see a cycling action with the feet , smacking from heel to butt and thus generating high velocity to drive the thigh forward, and feet going just over the knee of the opposite leg. It need not be a 90 degrees high on the thigh, I feel it would be a waste of time over driving of your knees. Just let your feet and let it serves as a guide, and step over your knees will be efficient enough for a nice "claw" to the ground.

2009-01-19T03:24:00.006+08:00

The new season began with the SAA 1st Allcomers meet in Bukit Gombak Stadium, Centre of Excellence for Athletics. Events were as 2008, alternate events for different Allcomers. 100m races were held on the 10th Jan, and the 400m races were held on the next day.

The video below is the men 100m running under 11.0s and 11.0s - 11.5s category combined.

After breaking the 110m Hurdles record, Abdul Hakeem did his PB in the 100m sprints. Enjoy the video :)

These are the results:

1 1503 Poh, Seng Song 83 Wings Athletic Club 10.80s
2 1501 Abdul Halim, Abdul Hakeem 87 Wings Athletic Club 10.96s
3 1447 B Hanif, Izwan Firdaus 86 Swift Athletes Assn 11.03s
4 1256 Mohd Refunggi, Mohd Nasir 89 ITE11.11s
5 1445 Ayub, Shameer 84 Swift Athletes Assn 11.20s
6 1359 Foo, Aaron 92 Sengkang Sec Sch 11.38s
7 1274 Abdul Rashid Lim, Abdul Rahman 88 Nanyang Poly 11.43s
8 1332 Koh, Aaron 91 Raffles Institution (Jc) 11.83s

14th ASEAN University Games 110m Hurdles Finals

2008-12-21T02:49:00.000+08:00

14th ASEAN University Games 110m Hurdles Finals

Please enjoy the video :)

Hakeem breaks 42-year-old national record at the 14th Asean University Games!

2008-12-19T13:28:00.008+08:00

The 14th Asean University Games 2008 was held at Kuala Lumpur, Bukit Jalil Stadium, Malaysia.
Singapore sent a contingent of athletes from 20 over different sports to compete in this season's last competition.

Athletics events started from 15th to 18th December.
Results from the competition were up to expectation and Singapore AUG contingent morale was aroused by the smashing of the longest track record held in Singapore Athletics!

The 110m Hurdles national record was formally set by Osman Merican at the 1966 Asian Games in Bangkok with the timing of 14.76s, 42 years ago.

Abdul Hakeem erased the record book with his new national record of 14.45s, slashing the previous record by 0.31s!

Here are the results:
1st ROBANI HASSAN Malaysia 14.07s HR
2nd ABDUL HAKEEM ABDUL HALIM Singapore 14.45s
3rd SURIYA JUDASRI Thailand 14.55s
4th MOHD. ROHAIZAD JAMIL Malaysia 14.70s
5th MICHAEL VAUGHN F. MENDOZA Philippines 15.11s
6th CAHYO APIP DWI Indonesia 15.21s
7th ROBIN DARWIN TULIAO Philippines 15.37s

Congratulations to Hakeem and hope he will smash his record again very soon!

Apart from Hakeem, our training group has another representative that went to the Games to participate in 4 x 100m, 4 x 400m and the 200m.

Melanie has been training since her secondary school days and competed in the national schools competition. Only when she was in Millennia Institute did she start to train seriously, and she trained 5 days a week before she entered University.

She showed vast improvement in her sprint work and strength, and for that she earned herself a place to compete during the IVP where she won the 200m race.
She was then selected for the AUG - and this being her 1st overseas meet representing the country and her university, she was eager and ready to perform well.
Although she did not manage to break her PB for this trip, it is always a great experience to race with athletes at different levels.
I believe she will learn a lot and this will not be her last overseas competition, there is still a long way to go.

I hope this will encourage more athletes to believe in themselve and miracles do happen!

Hurdles drills

2008-11-26T15:13:00.011+08:00

Hurdling is considered as a sprints event and it is also one of the most technical event. It requires high coordination and flexibility to execute the movement. Breaking the motion up into lead leg training and trail leg training. The video shown below is to focus on the trail leg. To maximise forward movement, the trail leg should be crossing the hurdles as close as possible to minimise flight time. This will allow more speed over hurdles (sprinting) and not jumping over hurdles. The medial side of your legs should be facing the ground when crossing the hurdle, and driving the knees towards the chest.

As mentioned above, Hurdling is a sprints event. In between hurdles should be as quick as possible. It is a rhythmic run, with 2 fast contacts before and after hurdles. Hurdlers should be trained to have proper hurdling technique and not neglecting the nature of the event; Speed. In between hurdles should be approximately 1.00s to 1.02s for a 14.5 - 14.7s 110m hurdler. Speed training, power, plyometrics training is very essential for Hurdlers. Plyometrics especially, for the fast eccentric phase. Hakeem, stopped hurdling for close to a year, Just got back for hurdling training for 2 months, did close to his PB. His technique has been very nice and he is well coordinated. We did nothing but speed and strength. Pls enjoy the training video.

Acceleration

2008-11-08T15:00:00.003+08:00

The following pictures are from Dartfish analysis. The pictures are in sequence. The lines are to serve as a guide as to see whether he fully extending his segments. Extending his hip area and legs to gain maximum distance. Very often athletes focusing too much of frequency in the acceleration phase, causing fatique and not covering distance to the optimum.

This pictures shows the fully extended leg on the ground before off ground contact. Although not perfect, this is good enough for the acceleration phase. The 2 lines shows the angle difference of the body from the 1st 3 to 4 steps to the rest of the contacts. However, please take a look at the next picture. This is something i cannot explain...

It could be the tightness of the hipflexor, that he is unable to extend his hip area. From physiotherapist point of view, it is due to the weakness of the core muscle that he is unable to activate his core as much and therefore activated his hipflexor instead. Or, it could just be that he was too eager to go for the next step.

2008-10-29T03:40:00.001+08:00

Plyometrics training using hurdles

Hurdles Jumps by Fendi

Commonwealth Youth Games - Pune, India

2008-10-17T16:56:00.003+08:00

It has been a super long time since i last blog about our training matters. Has been travelling quite abit and no time to sit down to blog. Just came back from India, Pune from Commonwealth Youth Games. 2 sprinters went. Balpreet and Calvin. Both manage to enter up to semi finals. Calvin missed by 0.01s to the finals.

Balpreet Heats: 12.47s, semi: 12.37s

Calvin Heats: 10.94s, semi: 10.76s

After watching the 100m finals, I realised that running technique is really important. that is why I'm very particular in running mechanics. making sure drills and interval runs are done properly. Abeypitiyage Shehan Sadaruwan from Sri Lanka confirmed my statement. With close to perfection running technique, fantastic legs frequency and cycling action, with arms pumping vigoriously and relax at the same time. He is a class above all. He is not bulky, not very tall, doesn't look like a sprinter, but he ran 10.43s in the finals.

Balpreet Kaur Purba and Abeypitiyage Shehan Sadaruwan

Strength Training

2008-08-24T17:30:00.004+08:00

Let me share some of my basic exercises that I would require everyone to be able to execute it. Warming up in the gym, I will make use of the swiss ball to do body stabilizer exercises to activate and "wake up" the muscles. The clips below demonstrate 2 exercises that I've included in my warm up before strength training.

There are many variation to this swiss ball exercises, e.g. rolling to the left and right diagonally. Focus of this exercise is that you have to firm up your abs and core area, keeping your body straight like a plank and control your breathing, never hold your breath!

Forward Roll

Next is the Knees Tug in, same as the Forward roll, keeping abs and core area firm, movement is only from the legs, pushing the ball outwards and bringing it back with your knees tug in.

Knees Tug In

In between the exercises, we will do our stretching, focusing more on dynamic stretching, with more swings on the upperbody and legs. And we are ready for our strength training!

2008-08-16T23:47:00.000+08:00

Calvin's 100m race in the Olympics. Heat 7. As usual, very good acceleration , however overwhelmed by the Blacks....

Calvin Came in 6th in his Heats and ran a 10.73s with a headwind of -1.4m/s. Came in 1st from Portugal, Francis Obikwelu (10.25s, 2nd Obinna Metu from Nigeria(10.34s) and 3rd Walter Dix from USA(10.35s). Many people asked told me that Calvin needs more strength, more speed endurance, more power, needs to bulk up and many many more. He did 16.1s for his 150m, did 21.7s for his 200m. He can half squat160kg and bench 80kg. Could it be his technique? Or could it be his race model of the 100m? We found out some problems with his last 30m during the Singapore Open which is few days before he flew to Beijing. But I don't expect him to master the technique in such a short time. He is still a Junior and many more years to come. Lets hope he will represent Singapore in the Olympics as a qualifier and not as a wild card entry.
Many big Thank You to all the coaches and friends who are so concern about Calvin and my training method, all your valuable comments is greatly appreciated. I will do my best and produce more Champions!!

REACTIV

Reactiv Thera-band exercises (upperbody)

ACSi Sprint King 2011

POLITE Games 2011

Speaking in the Health Carnival @Sembawang Shipyard

Hirokazu Kobayashi Workshop

73rd Singapore Open Track and Field Championship 2011

Postponement of 4th Health & Fitness Training

3rd Health & Fitness Outdoor Training

AIA Health and Wellness Week

1st Health & Fitness Outdoor Training

Speed and Conditioning Training Program with ACSi

Track and Field Series 5

19th Asian Athletics Championships - Hyogo, Kobe 2011

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

Republic Polytechnic Sports Award Night - Glitz

Team RSYC at Bay Challenge

2011 SAA Track and Field Series 4

52nd National Inter School Track & Field Championships 2011

2011 SAA Track and Field Series 3

Singapore Press Holdings Relays 2011

Nanyang Polytechnic Invitation Race - 16th March 2011

Monitoring (internal load) of Aerobic Training (extensive interval)

37th National Junior 2011: 5-6 Mar, Bishan Stadium

SAA Track and Field Series 2

SAA Track and Field Series 1 and POLITE Games 2011

Photos: http://tinyurl.com/664llbrVideos: http://tinyurl.com/67s8ylp

Reactiv Annual BBQ - 2010

Reactiv would like to wish you a Merry Christmas

16th Asian Games in Guangzhou City, China

Malaysia Open 2010

Institute Varsity Polytechnic (IVP) Games Day 2

Institute Varsity Polytechnic (IVP) Games Day 1

Wings Track & Field Meet 2010

Singapore Open 2010

The Sprint King 2010

Training At CCAB 23/08/2010

Athletics at YOG (Day 6)

Athletics at YOG (Day 5)

Athletics at YOG (Day 4) - Evening Session

Athletics at YOG (Day 4) - Morning Session

Athletics at YOG (Day 3)

Athletics at YOG (Day 2)

Athletics At YOG (Day 1)

5th All Comers 2010

SAQ in Bishan Park Secondary School

Fit Band at Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Secondary School

Strength and Conditioning Workshop at Singapore Polytechnic

Asian Grand Prix 2010 - India

Sprint Series 2

Malaysia Open Meets

Akira Swift Meet 2010

Bionic Band

Testing Day in Singapore Sports School

Allcomer 2 - 2010

Malaysia Open 2009

BionicBand - Make your orders now!!

World Championships 2009 Berlin

Training in Bremen

Training in Bremen - Day 8

Training in Bremen - Day 6 (rest day)

Training in Bremen - Day 5

Training in Bremen - Day 4

Training camp in Bremen - Day 3

Training Camp in Bremen - Day 2

Training Camp in Bremen

AYG Singapore 2009

Singapore Sports Awards 09

1st AYG - Flag Presentation Ceremony

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

Permit Meet 2009

AYG 09 Workshop

Hurdles Training - Hakeem

3rd Allcomers

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

Strength Test in SSC

POSB Everyday Champions Award 2009

2nd Allcomers - Continued

2nd Allcomers

Power Training

Photos: http://tinyurl.com/664llbr
Videos: http://tinyurl.com/67s8ylp