Strength Training

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!

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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!!

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Let's wish our ONLY athletics 100m representative all the best in his race tomorrow. We all know that he will do us proud and break his personal best again.
All the way Calvin Kang!!

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After all the troubles, all the difficulties, our all time favorite Mohd Shameer is back for training. He was one of the most consistent athletes clocking whole year round 10.60s. Yet to break the barrier, but coming soon.... one of his come back session, still looking good in his Step Over drills.

Heavy resistance training and explosive, SSC (stretch-shortening-cycle), plyometrics, shock training can improve muscle recruitment under high loads and loading velocities. Fast Twitch muscles recruited in terms of size and number, therefore tendon might be loaded better, which improve on sprinting abilities. Some of the classic plyometrics exercises are bounding, single leg bounding(training unilateral component), box jumping and hurdles jumps. The video below shows how hurdles jumps is done.

Focusing on quick contact on the ground with toes pointing to the sky(dorsiflexion on ankles). You can also use your arms(using of your segments) to help coordinate the movements.

Our latest fellow training mates. Fendi and Wynner

And sometimes we have fun.....

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Thank you for all the support in my training blog, it has been a while since I last blog on my training. This post will be showing how I normally conduct a warm up, Long Warm Up. This is how I call it.
Easy jogging to rise body temperature, followed by a series of Body Stability work. Points to take note: to firm up core area and also firm up your gluts by squeezing it, by doing this, you automatically shift your pelvis anterior. Also not to let your lower back collapse.

Front plane
Front plane
Side plane
Side plane

Once this is done, we will stretch our muscle, with more dynamic stretches than static holds. Arms and legs swings are strongly recommended followed by a 50% effort build up or striding for 50 to 60m and gallop back with back leg pushing on the ground. Next we'll do our Hip Mobility Exercises as shown below. Points to take note: Always keep body in neutral spine position and dorsiflex ankle. only mobilizing hip, and to prevent whole body from moving.

Opening up to the sides

Front and Back

After these mobilizing exercises, we'll do a Adductors Split, getting into a half stance position and moving fast on knees orientating the movement.

Next we will go into a 75% effort build up or striding for 50 to 60m and doing lateral skips. As we move on with our warm up, it just gets more and more dynamic, with more dynamic movements and faster runs. Following next, is the leg swings, side swings, alternate side swings and front swings. Points to take note: always try your best to keep legs straight and dorsiflex ankles, with body relax on the ground. The video shown below might not be as perfect as I've expected. Enjoy!

Side swings

Alternate swings

Forward swings
After the swings, we will do this special movement for the same reason, to mobilize the hip, I call it the Wide Cuts. Bring your feet over your shoulder with back leg fully extended. Point to take note: try your best to keep your legs close to your shoulder and not kicking outwards.

After doing the Wide Cuts, we'll proceed to the Hip Mobilizing Drills, some call it "The Russian Dance". This is quite an interesting drills because it requires, hip mobility and also coordination.

These will be the exercises needed to be done before going for 2 times full effort runs of around 50 to 60m. Focus will be dorsiflexion of ankle and feet stepping over the knees which was shown in earlier post, called the Step Over. And you are ready for the workout for the day. Of course, there are many methods to warm up and I found this warm up very comprehensive and has been giving good results and shown that it really helps to get the athletes ready for the workout or even for competition.

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