Life’s not about perfection – whether it is about looking, eating or being perfect.

We are all humans, after all.

Rather, it is a journey about trying, that is, taking small steps in our daily lives to make an impact in our lives and health.

And that is where Active Health comes in.

Engaging the community in sport and exercise

Explained Muhammad Amir Hamzah Bin Mohamed Pauzi, 29, a Coach at Active Health, “We serve as a social extension of ActiveSG where we engage the community an innovative way about sport, fitness and health.” 

He continued, “The first Active Health Lab was inaugurated in 2017 at Our Tampines Hub and since then, we have a total of eight labs around the island and more coming up this year. These labs are a one-of-its-kind experiential space.”

Providing guidance to embrace active living

As an Active Health Coach, Amir’s role is to provide guidance on preventive healthcare and exercise advisory to deliver effective and engaging experiences for Singaporeans to embrace active living on a sustained basis with the aim of promoting the ownership of one’s health.

Added Amir, “For instance, at Active Health @ Decathlon Singapore Lab, it is a discovery space that lets you explore fun and easy ways to better understand your current health and fitness level to adopt a healthier, more active way of living. The community can participate in our different programmes to gain insightful knowledge or sweat it out with a great selection of workout programmes and interest groups.”

In order to help Singaporeans take charge of their health, Active Health’s services are focused around four domains: physical activity, screen time, sleep and nutrition. Content and programmes are curated for different age groups from children, to youth, working adults and seniors.

Said Amir, “We believe that these domains are interlinked with one another in providing holistic health to an individual. A small improvement in one aspect of the domain will cause an indirect effect to another.”

Workshops and fitness assessments

Workshops are conducted both physically and virtually to help Singaporeans to have a better understanding of these domains.

Added Amir, “They can also kickstart their health journey with us by attending our Fitness and Health Assessment, to get a comprehensive guide by our coaches to ascertain their current well-being and get tips for sustainable lifestyle.”

With regards to staying fit and healthy, Amir, who is an avid cyclist himself, thinks that having low self-efficacy to do physical activity is the biggest obstacle among Singaporeans.

He explained, “In lay terms, it means most of us don’t have the self-confidence or beliefs with their own capabilities to exercise and sustain it in the long term.”

Continued Amir, “I am confident to say that most of us have the understanding that in order to stay fit and healthy, the bare minimum is to exercise and watch what we eat. I had clients that attend our sessions with chronic health diseases like hypertension and diabetes. I am not surprised when they mention the importance of exercise and good nutrition as a form of preventive health care, but most of them don’t really do it.”

Active Health, therefore, provides a safe space for such people to reach out and interact with the coaches there, with regards to their concerns on exercise and nutrition.

Said Amir, “With the environment in place and having a social network of like-minded individuals for wellness, rest assured that the public are empowered with the tools, knowledge and confidence to stay fit and health to sustain a healthy lifestyle.”

Active Health for regular athletes

But what about those who are already into regular exercise i.e. marathoners and triathletes, and what can Active Health do for them?

Said Amir, “They can attend our Fitness and Health assessment to get their baseline body measurement checked. With this knowledge in hand, they can plan out their training routine as well as fitness goals to aim for, before they are due to come for a check-in session within the next three months. This is suited to individuals who love data and facts and will like to track their progress in the long run before their next race.”

Besides data, Active Health also provides talks on how to eat and rest better, to give avid runners and triathletes insights into the importance of proper training and nutrition, as well as understanding more about how sleep impacts recovery.

Added Amir, “Active Health Decathlon also has different fitness tests at our Discovery Space such as the Vertical test to gauge their lower limbs power as well as the Sit-To-Stand test to understand the lower limbs muscular strength and endurance. Both are ideal tests to have a better understanding one’s body while running.”

Active Health’s new addition, the ActiveFIT kiosk, is a self-guided Fitness and Health assessment where athletes can do up to seven fitness tests and at the end, receive a report on how they fared. Athletes can use this as a form of fitness tracking as well as to see how their fitness levels have changed over time.

Training and exercise for athletes

Besides regular body checkups at Active Health, Amir adds that this is not the only way for athletes to maintain a healthy body.

He added, “As an avid runner or someone who competes in triathlons, naturally a training regime should be well-established in order to upkeep the cardiorespiratory fitness as well as an added benefit of resistance training for muscle strength and endurance.”

Continued Amir, “For holistic health and wellness, cardio and resistance exercise should be part of the exercise routine. As a start, plan in a week, to have a minimum of three days of cardio and two days of resistance exercise. However I believe that when competitions are nearer, overtraining might be an issue and hence the need to understand the importance of having proper recovery to train at peak performance as well as to prevent burnout. As well, another perspective of overtraining will be insufficient nutrients and recovery before the next bout of exercise.”

Exercise recovery and its importance 

In fact, Amir stresses that having a nutritious post-exercise meal is very important in order to stay healthy – definitely not an upsized Big Mac meal with fries and Coca-cola.

This is the Refuel part of the 4R’s of exercise recovery – Refuel, repair, rehydrate and rest.

Said Amir, “Refuel with starchy food preferably wholegrain. This is to replenish the glycogen that were used up in the body to fuel your exercise. Repair with high quality lean protein to provide enough amino acids in the body for muscle repair and maintenance.”

He continued, “Rehydrate with water and isotonic drinks to replenish the loss of fluid through our sweat during exercise as well as regulating our body temperature to normal. Consuming this as soon as possible after exercise will be most beneficial to recovery. Otherwise, try to have a small snack that contains carbohydrates and proteins, such as a banana and a glass of milk.”

And finally the last R, which is Rest, means to have at least eight hours of sleep per day for proper muscle recovery for the next bout of exercise, according to Amir.

For more information on Active Health and what there is to offer, head to www.activehealth.sg.

Alternatively, if you are keen to check out the range of both physical and online workshops available for yourself and/or your family, check them out at https://go.gov.sg/activehealtheworkshops 

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Photos are courtesy of Active Health Singapore.