ACT is a tough 45-minute bodyweight-only high intensity (HIT) workout. I designed it to be hard not because I wanted it to be the toughest class in Shanghai, but because of all the physiological effects that I discussed about in my last blog and what needs to be done to reverse metabolic syndrome. If you recall from the last blog on sugar, one of the main issues we have in society is an over-consumption of
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When you’re training HIT, especially in a group where others seem fitter than you (‘seem’ is the operative word), it’s kinda like browsing your WeChat Moments. All you see is people posting how great they are. They may be at a new restaurant or hotel grand opening, or they may be on vacation to somewhere exotic, or how amazing their food tastes. Everyone’s amazing except you! Hopefully you know that not everyone’s amazing except for
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We are not all that different - you and I. Pushing yourself to go to the gym and exercise is a miserable experience and I don’t even mean the activity of exercising! Just trying to convince yourself to go is an experience so unpleasant, it’s enough to derail any focused and disciplined individual - yes, even me. I am also not always at my peak performance. I almost always drop in strength and gain fat
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So you’ve been working out pretty consistently now for at least 6 weeks and you’ve seen some progress in your strength, fitness and maybe your body composition has even improved slightly - nice. But recently, you’ve shown little to no progress and so your motivation begins to wane. Your workout routine which you were so keen on before is getting bland and even boring. Time to change the workout routine and inject some new stimuli to
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Less than a week remains as Olive Branchers make final preparations before this Saturday morning’s Spartan Race! Some of us may be feeling super excited, especially those who have done long distance sports or obstacle courses before, but others with much less experience in these settings may be feeling a bit nervous - anxious even! For a lot of us who are trying a new event for the first time, it can feel daunting and
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I’ve blogged many times on mental toughness (here, here, here, here, here, and here). And now, one of my favourite bloggers, Eric Barker just wrote another blog on it! In his blog, he provides 3 tips to improve your mental strength. Read here to become a stronger you, mentally and
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I’ve blogged a lot about mental toughness (you can read about them here, here, here, here, here, and here), but I’m going to start the new year with a Member Spotlight blog on a Olive Branch member, a mentor and a friend, Cary Cheung. A story on real mental toughness put into practice. Although Cary doesn’t regularly attend ACT class here in the Shanghai Olive Branch studio, he does train ACT regularly at his home
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If you’ve come to one of our classes before, then you would have probably heard me say “PUSH TO FAILURE”. This is ingrained in our training philosophy because of one main ideology - stimulus equals adaptation. If you’re trying to make your body stronger (ie. adapt), then you need to apply a stimulus (ie. training) that is strong enough so that the body can hear it and then make the necessary improvements to build up.
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It’s everyone’s favourite time of the year when people finally have an excuse to role-play their superheroes and dress as revealing as their heart’s content! Halloween has always been a season of festivities and parties as autumn comes to an end and we have much bounty to celebrate for from the late harvests. Now, I’m not here to tell you not to go out and enjoy yourselves on this most debauchery time of the year,
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It is inevitable that we will all encounter some hardships in our lives. Even Buddhist philosophy claims that life is suffering in the Four Noble Truths. Sometimes, life gets a little harder and other times life can get a lot harder. What is certain is that you will undoubtedly experience many more hardships to come. And they come in many different forms. It can come from voluntary means like choosing to eat the healthier meal
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