A tired “yay” escapes our lips. It’s the sort of “yay” that happens when you notice the ERP has decreased from $2.50 to $2.00 right before you pass under it, or when you find out that the only coffee at the breakfast buffet is lukewarm, but  you suppose there is still coffee.

We’re back in the studio again, and we suppose that everyone’s just getting on with it. It’s less of a celebration like the last time we cried “We’re Back!!” because on a deeper level, maybe we’re afraid that this’ll happen again.

But press on we must. The fire might be gone in the dust of August, where we fight the blah and nurse the beatings of the year.

It wouldn’t be called a Journey if it lasted for a short time. We’ve ridden together for a while now, and we’ve seen you pull yourself up from the depths of the Circuit Breaker, and how you’ve learned to roll with the punches of the following restrictions that threatened to derail your fitness journey. 

This one hit hard, we know. But we also know that we are in this for the long run, and we’ll wait for you to get back on your feet, however long that takes. They say if you want to go far, you’d best go together, and we will always be here to take you to your next level.

Yours in fitness,

Team Level

Unless you're living under a rock, you know by now that your vaccination passport is more useful than your Singaporean one right now. Level's vaccination policy is aligned with the government's standards, and we'll leave that here for avoidance of doubt:

Personal Training

- Indoor, unmasked training with equipment will only be allowed for fully vaccinated participants. 
- If a participant is unvaccinated, they will be allowed to train outdoors in the courtyard just outside our Telok Ayer studio.
- An update to the Measures for Gyms on the 18th of August state that partially vaccinated coaches will be allowed to coach indoors for the remainder of this period till the 1st of October, when all coaches must be fully vaccinated.
- Basically, if you are vaccinated, you can train indoors regardless of whether your coach is fully vaccinated or not.

Indoor Classes

- As with Indoor Personal Training, all indoor classes may only be populated with fully vaccinated participants in 1 group of 4.
- Our coaches will only begin conducting indoor classes once they become fully vaccinated.
- We reserve the right to turn unvaccinated participants away at the door with no refund of the class.

Outdoor Classes

- Will be carried out unmasked for both fully vaccinated and unvaccinated participants in a maximum of 2 groups of 5 participants per class.

We have extended the expiry dates of all class packages purchased before the end of the heightened alert till the end of 2021. If you are not planning to get vaccinated and need to use these class packages before the expiry date, you may use them for our outdoor classes, and upon request, by transferring them to a fully vaccinated person.

article by Erik Lane

We all saw that video of our Minister for Law and Home Affairs picking up 150% of his bodyweight, which caused more than a flurry on Facebook and Instagram. He mentioned adding weight training to his exercise routine, along with an explanation on the benefits of lifting weights, and at first, I didn’t know how to feel. Nobody asked me how I felt, so I will now tell you how I feel.

Despite everything I feel about how this post went viral, as well as its banal/idiotic comments section, K Shanmugam has, with one lift and several warmup attempts, helped further the cause of many a gym in this country, possibly even undoing the damage the recent Covid measurements have caused.

The other thing which heartens me is the fact that Shanmugam’s personal trainer is another silver fox (who happens to be the splitting image of my father-in-law). It appears— and I could be very wrong here— that the pair have been training together for a long time, and this elevates the message of this video even more.



There are very, very few 62-year-old men who rock up to a gym and pick up one and half times their body weight, and despite Shanmugam’s addition of weight training to his routine a year ago, this is not a “let’s rock up and dick around” moment. This is a culmination of consistent habits done over a long time that led to the moment of this post.

We call this Progressive Overload. We do this for everyone— athletes, office workers, students, stay at home parents, injured people— and the concept is basically this: lift something manageable today, then lift something a bit more next week. Your body learns how to handle the load and stress, and it will then get stronger. It does the same thing next week, and the next, until 150% of your body weight becomes manageable at some point in the future, or whatever your goals are, like walking again or picking up your grown up child to shake some sense into him on why he’s writing a piece like this after you’ve helped him fund his degree in Communication and Information. There are obviously caveats, like how well recovered you are, how you deal with stress, whether you are applying yourself mindfully towards training, and your training age, but This Is The Way, to quote the Mandalorians.

Image by Reddit u/makeartliftweights

It’s a bit like investment. Someone told me once that the smarter way to do it is to not go all in at once for the flashy, Elon Musk endorsed stock. They said that putting your money bit by bit into steadily climbing, historically reputable companies is the way to go. Now, I know nothing about investment, but I know a bit about flashy fitness versus progressive and steady fitness to know that this is a good analogy, and that it works at least for my corner of the field. I suppose flashy, one-hit-wonders work for some people, and some people do get lucky with the flashy stock, but over here, “lucky” is just another word for “genetically gifted”, and I haven’t seen many of those in my seven years as a personal trainer.

The fruits of Shanmugam’s labour are the result of him showing up to train over many, many years. He’s found a coach he connects with, and who helps him work towards his goals of lifelong fitness. The success of this deadlift is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the reps and hours of training he’s put in, and this concept might be something of interest for the people in charge of the support our National Athletes get for their hours of training to achieve what they need to achieve.

No one has accused Shanmugam of being “too muscular” or “too bulky” (even though he is quite the presence in the Ministry of Law), and as we pause for a quick hurrah in this moment of vindication in the face of all the naysayers of strength and conditioning, let us turn this question back on ourselves: Are we being mindful in the way we move and create good habits? Are we working on our fitness in alignment with our long term goals? Are we content to be content in the steady— sometimes even mundane — building of our better selves?

Maybe. Hopefully. But these are good questions to ask.