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Testimonials

Sandy Leow

by | Jun 11, 2021

I started working out with Shaun in December 2020. I was suffering from debilitating pain from worn out cartilage of my left knee. The awful discovery happened in January 2020. I went for physiotherapy and even for painful massages at a TCM clinic.

By March it got so bad I was walking with my trekking stick. By April, I had to board my dogs as I couldn’t walk them anymore. Having been running for many years as well as working out on my own in a huge commercial gym for almost 40 years, the immobility was hard to swallow.

But well-meaning friends and colleagues told me that this was part and parcel of ageing. I was 59 in 2020. But I was not about to give up on being active. A friend, Michell who have been working out at Hygieia kept nudging me to give the gym a try. I was sceptical and in fact quite horrified by the idea of lifting weights when I could hardly bear my own weight. I shuffled through the year – there were good days and there were bad ones.

When the December school holidays hit, Michell was nudging again. So I went down to check out the gym. I saw a mix of young and more senior clients but I was still hesitant. What if I injure myself? I went down a second time and what gave me the final push was seeing a 73 year old petite lady going through her paces with Shaun. Shaun was observing her every move with hawk eyes. She did not start pressing till her posture met with Shaun’s approval. I was impressed and I knew then that I would be in good hands. I signed up!

 

By the time I hit March this year, three months after I started, I could do what I could not last year: walk up and down stairs with no pain, walk long distances with my dog, yes, very importantly, I can squat again with no pain! My friends said I have better posture too.

Working out with Shaun further convinced me of his professionalism. He is constantly looking out for his clients even when he is working closely with me. He spots potential problem very keenly and my conversation with him about taking on senior clients being risky reveals his heart for recovery and better health for his clients. He said that to see his senior clients improve in their active lives gives him much fulfilment…now that is a coach I am happy to work with! I cannot wait to restart my training at Hygieia again.

 

Hygieia Strength & Conditioning

34 Haig Road
Singapore 438739
+65 8786 8792
enquiries@hygieia.com.sg

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Bio

My interest in fitness started when I was around 19 years old. Being overweight for most of my growing up years, I decided to do something about it. After months of not being able to achieve the desired results, I began poring through books and articles about training and nutrition. The more I read, the more interested I became in this field, and got better results when the the newly discovered knowledge was applied. After 1 year of persistence and hard work, I lost 24kg and felt fantastic. The sense of achievement motivated me to pursue a career in working with people to help them achieve their own fitness goals.

After achieving my weight loss goal, I tried a variety of training programs for a few years, looking for a new goal to train towards. After aimlessly moving around from program to program, I chanced upon a book called Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, written by renowned strength and conditioning expert, Mark Rippetoe. Little did I know that this book was about to change my life and coaching career.

At that point, I had experience training with barbells and was relatively familiar with it but never have I come across any material that gave such explicitly detailed explanations of how to perform the barbell lifts. I devoured the book and modified my lifting technique and program. In just a few months, I was pleasantly surprised by how much stronger he had become. I now had a new goal to work towards – getting strong.

With full confidence in the efficacy of the Starting Strength methodology, I began coaching my clients using this program and got them stronger than they ever thought was possible. The consistent success my clients achieved through the program cemented my confidence in Mark Rippetoe’s teachings. I then decided to pursue the credential of being a Starting Strength Coach and I’m currently the first and only certified coach in Singapore and South-East Asia

In my 9 years of experience, I have given talks and ran programs at numerous companies and worked with a diverse group clientele of all ages with a variety of goals. Today, I specialise in coaching people in their 40s, 50s and beyond because it brings me a great sense of satisfaction to be part of the process of improving this demographics’ health and quality of life by getting them stronger.

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