ENTHUSIASTIC, NEVER SAY DIE AND CARES ABOUT THE COMMUNITY: An interview with Esther NUS Arts Student

@slidingtackles

We are so happy to feature fun loving sporty individuals from our local sunny island Singapore and popping up is Esther a 21-year-old undergraduate from NUS actively in NUS Kayaking and NUS Boxing.

I am super active in school activities as well as in church. I am an enthusiastic, never say die individual who cares very much about the community. I like to think I’m really sociable and a happy individual that always is up to motivate those around me to do better.

What are your weekly sports involvement and how do you keep up with it?

I do weights and functional training on Mondays, boxing training with NUS Boxing on Wednesdays and Kayak on weekends with NUS Kayaking, a recreational club. My fitness goals have deferred from year to year depending on what I join, my schedule as well as personal health goals. I used to powerlift to gain weight from 2013-2016. After I joined more cardio-heavy activities such as boxing and kayaking, I moved from strength training to agility and dynamic training. I still train with weights once a week but I try and make sure I always do more compounds than isolations because my goals aren’t to get a certain group of muscle larger but more to be lean, agile and toned as well as fast. In that respect, I started running more in 2016, something I didn’t do a lot back then because I thought running wasn’t paired with weights. Running helped me destress and challenge myself. In 2018 my goal is to run a 10km marathon and perhaps even 21km. I’m more happy in water than km Land and so kayaking calms me a lot too, besides Land training.

Could you provide some tips on a particular workout?

I’ve tried to do a pull-up recently. I did a whole motivational blog post on it with regard to life (Haha!) but Pull-ups are hard if you’re a girl and skinny. Start with getting accustomed to hanging on the bar, don’t use assisted machine, you can if you want to supplement the muscle memory but it won’t really help you cross the bar. Use a resistance band, start with pulling yourself up with a resistance band slipped through the bar and the other end slip your foot through it. Then progress to slipping your knee through it. Slowly you’ll pull yourself up. Gotta do it daily.

How would you advise other fitness like you to maintain a healthy exercise routine?

Okay so here’s the thing. I think it’s realistically really difficult to keep staying fit with a million and one commitments. For me, I have church service, school, academics, family, and a lot of other things. My weekends are taken up and my weekday nights are basically burnt. There’s literally no time at all. But, you have to set goals for yourself. It is easy to just say never mind, eat whatever I want and make myself feel happy. This is bad in the long run because people stuff themselves with junk food and live sedentary lifestyles. Instead, I advise people who really want to stay fit to find something they like to do and keep doing it. If it helps, sign up for classes/CCAs(if you’re in uni) that force you to have a weekly commitment to a sport. If you like to run, sign up for a marathon and train for it. Get yourself out of the bed when it’s hardest and go running or boxing or whatever it is. You’ll see the difference because you’ll be happier, healthier and a motivation to others.