The way the work is written
How we coach
We programme in four-week blocks, keep one journal for the whole collective, and treat Singapore heat as part of the plan rather than an excuse after the fact.
Assessment, not screening theatre
The first session is sixty minutes and it is not a gauntlet of tests with laminated scores. We want to see how you breathe once the work has started, not how still you can hold a pose on a mat. We watch a squat, a hinge, a press, a carry and a get-up from the floor. We look at the range you actually have today, and we ask what load you have taken in the last year, including walking, running, and the weeks you did nothing.
We also ask about the week you live: wake time, commute, the hour you usually eat, and whether you can train at 06:30 without turning the rest of the day into a negotiation. That information changes the programme more than a pretty score on a clipboard. If something in the history belongs with a doctor or a physiotherapist, we stop the loading conversation and send you there first.
You will not leave with a colour-coded report. You will leave with a first block, written in ordinary language, and a note in the journal that the next coach can read on Monday morning.
Programming in blocks of four weeks
Four weeks is long enough to see whether a dose is working and short enough to change it before a bad idea becomes a habit. Week one is for volume you can repeat. Weeks two and three add load or a harder variation. Week four is quieter on purpose, even if you feel fine. The deload is how we keep week five honest.
We do not rewrite the block because a single session felt good. We also do not cling to a plan that the journal is already contradicting. If you missed two sessions, if sleep dropped, or if a calf started speaking up, the next week gets simpler. The block is a container, not a contract you fail.
How a block is shaped
- Week 1, volume. Familiar lifts, enough sets to practise, loads that leave something in the tank.
- Weeks 2–3, load. The same patterns, heavier or longer, with rest that still protects the last repetition.
- Week 4, deload. Fewer sets, the same positions, and time to review the journal before we write the next block.
If a race, a flight or a sick week lands in the middle, we slide the deload rather than stack fatigue on top of the disruption.
Load, heat and recovery in Singapore
The room sits in Tiong Bahru. Mornings start humid and evenings often feel heavier than the temperature suggests. We treat that as a programming fact. A set that looks ordinary in a dry, air-conditioned hall can be a different piece of work at 18:30 after a day outdoors. We set intensity by how the work looks and how you report the night after, not by a percentage copied from a temperate-climate template.
Early slots at 06:30 and 07:30 are cooler and they fill first. Midday at 12:15 is for people who can leave a desk and come back. Evening slots ask more of recovery; we keep the conditioning shorter then, and we are quicker to cut a finisher if the main lifts already did the job. Hydration is ordinary water and a bit of salt in food. We do not run a protocol about it. We do watch for the session that looks fine until the last set unravels.
If you train outdoors as well, tell us the days. Two hard pieces in one hot afternoon is how people lose the following week. We would rather move your indoor conditioning than pretend the weather is a mindset problem.
How we measure progress
We keep five numbers and notes, and we look at them together at the end of a block. Body weight is recorded if you want it on file. We do not treat it as the deciding measure, and we will not build a block around a weekly weigh-in.
- Absolute load on the basic lifts. What you can squat, hinge, press and carry with the same positions we saw in week one.
- Quality of range. Whether a depth or a lockout is available on a normal day, not only on a good one.
- How much volume you can tolerate. Same work, next morning still usable.
- Sessions missed. A plan that looks perfect and loses two weeks is the wrong plan.
- Your own note on sleep and energy. A short line in the journal, not a questionnaire with twenty boxes.
If the loads are up, the range is cleaner and you are still arriving, the block did its job even if the mirror has not organised a press conference. If the loads are up and you are exhausted, we missed the recovery. That is on us to correct.
Where our remit ends
We coach training. Eating sits next to that work as a set of ordinary principles: regular meals, enough protein that the sessions can land, and not using food as a punishment. We will not write a plan, count your plates, or sell you a protocol. Pain and injuries belong with a doctor or a physiotherapist. If you already have one, we will read their note and programme around it. We coordinate. We do not diagnose, we do not clear you for sport, and we do not tell you to push through a symptom that should be examined. When something sits outside the room, we say so early, while there is still time to get it seen properly.
Shared notes across the collective
Six coaches use one journal. After every session we write the loads, the variations we used, anything you told us about the days in between, and a line about how the work looked. The note is short on purpose. A novel that only one person can interpret is not a shared system.
This is why a replacement does not break the programme. If the coach you usually see is on a course or out sick, the person who takes the floor already knows the block, the last loads, and the thing we are watching. You should not have to perform your history again at 06:35. If a note is missing, that is a mistake on our side, and we treat it as one.
You can ask to see your own record. We will sit down with it at the end of a block as a matter of course. The journal exists so the collective can coach you, not so we can store a private mythology about your training.
The floor we use
