The Great Billy Workout

23 Sep 2007, ST

More than 400 people flock to DJ Billy Wang's early morning workout sessions at Kampong Java Park

By Adeline Chia

IT IS 5.30am on a Thursday in Kampong Java Park. The area is lit by the glow of street lamps and the nearby Kandang Kerbau Hospital, but a convivial buzz uncommon in other places at this ungodly hour is building.

Scores of people are busy stretching and jogging while others mill around and chat. On the ground is a curious sight: towels, mats, newspapers and bags placed neatly in lines.

Welcome to the Great Billy Workout, a mass-exercise programme led by popular radio DJ Billy Wang, 44, better known as Dongfang Billy. Dongfang means Oriental in Chinese.

Since July, some 400 people from all over Singapore have been flocking to the park for his hour-long workout from Mondays to Fridays. Saturdays draw even more enthusiasts. There is no workout on Sundays.

The workout starts at 6am but early birds stream in from 5am. All come with a strip of stretchy cloth, a flexible tool used in many of the exercises.

At 5.15am, Wang arrives without fanfare, greets some of the people and proceeds to jog 10 laps around the lake.

At 6am on the dot, streaming with perspiration, he takes his place in front of the crowd and everyone else slips into his own spot quickly.

Following his lead, they move in unison in the leafy surrounds. While the mood is no-nonsense, there is a feeling of camaraderie as some of the crowd repeat his instructions to those at the back who can't hear.

But no instructions are really needed: Everyone knows the moves by heart.

The Taiwan-born DJ, who is now a Singaporean, is an advocate for cancer prevention and cure. In 1993, he was diagnosed with leukaemia but battled it into remission. In 2003, he founded CareCancer Society (Singapore) which helps cancer patients and their families.

He travels regularly to pick up cancer prevention tips. He says he started the workout to keep himself fit and lose weight, as well as to step up his cancer prevention outreach activities.

'In July, I told my listeners about the exercise, and so many showed up. I was really touched,' says the host of a radio programme on MediaCorp Radio's Love 97.2.

He learnt the Kampong Java routine from a Japanese naturopathy centre in Osaka last year. It supposedly stimulates the flow of lymph in the body. The lymphatic system is responsible for helping fluid and waste leave the body and for regulating the immune system.

He says: 'The Japanese masters told me, 'There is no copyright to this exercise. Take it overseas and teach others'.'

The crowd comprises middle-aged aunties, the elderly, some young ones, a handful of cancer sufferers and those wanting to lose weight.

The exercise involves stretching the arms, back and legs, usually done while pulling the cloth strip tight with the hands.

At one point, participants sit down and slap their faces, heads and bellies 150 times each to stimulate blood circulation. Near the end of the routine, they stand in a line, massage the person in front of them and finish with shouting 'Oh yeah, ni zhen bang!' (Mandarin for you are great) to their neighbours.

'Slimming down and fighting cancer can be done only in a group. We need to motivate each other,' says the 1.8m-tall Wang, who has gone from 88.6kg to a trim 71kg.

He is not the only one seeing the benefits. Retiree Angel Tan, 57, says: 'Following his food recipes on his show and his exercise, I went from an XL to S or M.'

Madam Lin Ai Lin, 58, who used to suffer from knee and ankle pains, says she can walk four flights of stairs without sweating. The retiree adds: 'I've lost 10kg since I started.'

But some take offence when LifeStyle suggests that his star power might be a vital attraction. Housewife Yoyo Chia, 45, retorts: 'I'm not exercising because I'm chasing Billy. It's the morning and you're sleeping like a log while I'm here working up a sweat. So who benefits?'

At 7am, when the gentle morning sun spills into the park, most people hurry off to work, breakfast or back home to prepare themselves to listen to Wang's radio programme from 10am to 1pm.

As for Wang, it's back to his nearby Thomson Road penthouse for a shower and a breakfast of vegetables and fruit before the bachelor heads to the MediaCorp studio for work.

Of his hectic schedule, he says: 'Am I tired? Of course. But when I see the faces of those who show up, it's definitely worth my time.'

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Work out at home, too

CAN'T make it down to Billy Wang's early morning workouts? You can do the exercises at home.

All you need is a thin, stretchy strip of cloth about 1.5m long, preferably cut from a T-shirt.

The moves are said to stimulate the lymphatic system by stretching different parts of the body.

This is a selection of poses from the workout, and they are not in the order done at the park.



# With legs two shoulder-widths apart, roll the cloth until they are a handspan apart. Bend forward and hold for eight counts. Do eight sets.



# Hold the cloth above your head. Then bend to the right to stretch the body. Count to eight. Do four sets. Repeat with the opposite side.



# Wrap the cloth around your hands and lift them above your head, shoulder- width apart. Keep feet together and head facing up. Hold for eight counts. Do eight sets.



# Stretch the cloth around biceps with hands in fists pushing at the small of your back. Bend backwards with knees bent and look up. Hold for eight counts. Do eight sets.



# With legs two shoulder-widths apart, stretch out arms and hold the cloth behind your back. Turn the body to the right. Count to eight. Do four sets. Switch sides.


# A DVD has been made of the workout but it will be given only to ticket-holders of 365 Let Love Begin - Top 10 Cancer Fighter Awards at Singapore Expo's Max Pavilion on Oct13 from 2 to 10.30pm.

Tickets at $28, $48, $68, $88 and $100 from www.tdc. sg or call 6296-2929.

Stints of stillness make you happier

19 Sep 2007, ST, Mind Your Body

Focus on nothing but breathing in and out for20minutes a day and you really will feel happier,
according to researchers in the US who have studied the brains of Tibetan lamas

I have spent a fair amount of time at silent Buddhist retreats staring into inner space and coming to the conclusion that enlightenment isn't going to be happening in this lifetime.

But now when I do find the motivation to sit on the cushion, I imagine a cheerleading squad of a brain researchers waving reams of data.

This data suggests that spending 15 or 20 minutes a day concentrating on the in-out movement of the breath, or a repeated word or mantra - or damn near anything besides the usual rambling, self-obsessed inner monologue - is a good thing, whether anybody reaches nirvana or not.

This scientific movement first took shape in the late 1970s when a young meditator and molecular biologist by the name of Jon Kabat-Zinn founded a stress-reduction programme at the University of Massachusetts at Worcester in the United States.

His notion was that if you stripped away the robes and the gongs and even the smiling image of the Buddha himself, what was left, the cultivation of a calm, non-judgmental mental awareness - 'mindfulness' - might be of great benefit to people suffering chronic pain.

Almost 30 years later, more than 16,000 people have passed through the Centre for Mindfulness' Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programmes. (Log on to www.umassmed.edu/ cfm/index.aspx for more details.)

Studies have found that psoriasis sufferers who included MBSR in their therapy saw their sores heal four times as fast, and that programme graduates made more antibodies when they were injected with a flu virus.

'You're just sitting and following your breath,' said Harvard researcher Sara Lazar in wonderment.

'What's going on in the brain?'

Professor Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin, the leader in a new wave of research attempting to tease out the brain chemistry of meditation, has invited Tibetan lamas into his lab to find out.

Their electroencephalograph readings reveal that they are generating gamma waves, associated with attention and learning, for minutes. Most people can manage this for only a few seconds at best.

According to the functional MRI data, they also show an unusual amount of brain activity in the left side of the pre-frontal cortex, associated with positive emotions. So they are more alert and happier than the rest of us.

In another of Prof Davidson's studies, even a bunch of stressed-out Silicon Valley types who had taken a single eight-week MBSR course registered more activity in the 'happy' part of their brains, dovetailing with their own reports that they were feeling more positive about life.

The underlying explanation for what's going on here can be summed up in a word that scientists in the field repeat like a mantra - 'neuro-plasticity'.

Contrary to what the medical world long believed, the brain is continually changing, both the number of neurons and their arrangement, in response to the mind's daily encounter with the world.

So it follows that it's possible to 'Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain', the title of Newsweek writer Sharon Begley's recent book on the merger of meditation and neuro-science.

Buddha was all over this 2,500 years ago: 'All that we are is the result of what we have thought.'

But now, we've got some pretty fancy tools to drive home the point that practice makes plastic. Harvard's Dr Lazar compared the brains of experienced American meditators to a matched control group and found that certain parts of their cortex, involved in attention, were on average 5per cent thicker, a difference most pronounced in her older subjects.

She's now embarked on a study that focuses on ageing subjects to see if regular 'cushion time' might buy us protection from the shrinking cortexes and mental declines that were thought inevitably to accompany old age.

But Dr Lazar, not yet 40, doesn't have to be personally convinced that the benefits of meditation show themselves before you get old. 'I notice the difference when I'm not regularly sitting,' she admits. 'I drive more aggressively in traffic.'

- FEATUREWELL

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Clear out the internal jabber

If we were to speak out loud the disjointed monologue that runs through our heads most of the time, we'd be locked up for being nuts.

Buddhist meditation comes in many different flavours (Tibetan, Zen and Vipassana are the major ones) but the common premise is this: if we can tamp down the internal jabber, we will get in touch with a calmer, wiser self, which is less tethered to the ego and its constant cravings - for novelty, attention, power, sex, food, name your poison.

The means to this end is usually 'one-point concentration'. In a relaxed position (purists sit on a cushion, legs crossed), you bring all your attention to a single neutral thing like a repeated word or mantra or, more basic still, the in-out movements of breath.

Beginners (and oft-lapsing veterans) should try to establish the rhythm of a daily sit, 10 to 20 minutes in the morning or evening.

This solitary ritual may be enriched by finding a group in your area or spending a weekend or multi-day retreat offered at a growing number of meditation centres. Read the non-sectarian Buddhist quarterly Tricycle for more such information.

Be aware that as you get comfortable on the cushion and prepare to settle in, your mind will inevitably bombard you with inane trivia, sex fantasies or Really Important Things You've Got to Take Care of Right Now!

But it's all part of the drill.

In the popular 'insight' or Vipassana style of meditation, when you become aware of these mind games, you will simply return to the exercises, focusing, for instance, on the feel of the air moving through your nose.

It's a kind of enlightenment, one screw-up in concentration at a time.

- FEATUREWELL

Blow a kiss and look younger

09 Sep 2007, ST

NEW YORK - Botox and plastic surgery may promise to reduce wrinkles and worry lines, but some New Yorkers are turning to facial yoga to achieve a youthful appearance.

At a recent class in Manhattan's wealthy Upper East Side, yoga instructor Annelise Hagen teaches several facial exercises designed to stretch and tone facial muscles.

A group of women practise moves including The Lion, showing the tongue hanging out and eyes rolled up.

Ms Hagen encourages class members to hold the position for 60 seconds, joking: 'You can do this any time. It really helps you get a seat on the train.'

She recently released a book titled The Yoga Face: Eliminate Wrinkles With The Ultimate Natural Facelift.

She said she developed a workshop using facial yoga because women wanted to look their best, 'but they weren't really thinking about how to exercise their facial muscles'.

She said facial muscles become weak and flabby and need regular workouts and circulation to reduce wrinkles.

Besides The Lion, other exercises include Satchmo, in which the cheeks are blown out Louis Armstrong-style, and Marilyn, in which glamorous kisses are blown to strengthen mouth muscles for full and firm lips.

'It uses the same principles of exercise you would use for any other part of your body,' she said. 'Facial muscles also become more toned, so it is a natural way of getting a lift.'

She recommends facial yoga for those wanting to find outer and inner beauty, saying 'the emotional aspect is just as important as the physiological'. But she does not rule out plastic surgery or Botox.

'I don't rule it out for myself. One day I may feel like I need that. But regardless, maintaining elasticity and tone is really crucial, especially if you have had Botox and plastic surgery,' she said.

While making faces in front of strangers might intimidate some, those who attended the class thought it the perfect way to combat busy New York lifestyles.

'Working in New York is very stressful,' Ms Kathy Healey said. 'It's a perfect way to end the week.'

Reuters

Hit those weights

2 Sep 2007, ST

Want to shave off those excess kilos and stay lean? Then strength training is important, experts say

ATLANTA - Amy Jones used to think of a strenuous workout as a long run on the treadmill. Then she joined her husband at a gym he belongs to that stresses Olympic-style weightlifting and other strength moves over cardio.

Within a few sessions, she was hooked. 'I'm more toned, I have more energy and more endurance,' she said. 'I've turned fat into muscle, and my clothes fit better.'

Almost 40 years after Dr Kenneth Cooper coined the term 'aerobics', a concept that would later spawn a generation of spandex-clad cardio junkies, some trainers are steering their clients away from traditional cardio-intensive workouts and towards mostly strength moves.

The reasons: Many exercises that are good for the heart are hard on the joints. And cardio training without muscle conditioning leads to loss of muscle and bone density as well as fat, experts say.

Even Dr Cooper now believes strength training is important.

Some people - those fighting ageing and those with injuries - benefit from more time on muscle conditioning than cardiovascular exercise, he said in an interview from his Texas clinic.

He cites Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, a one-time cardio king who shifted to more intense weight training. (Aikman said through a spokesman he does not think cardio is overrated, but he cut back on his daily 6km runs because he didn't want to further tax his body. He said he dropped body fat when he made the change.)

Dr Cooper does not believe cardio is a bad habit to be kicked. 'If you go strictly muscular-skeletal conditioning, it's a major mistake,' he said. 'You'll wear out.'

But Jim Karas, author of The Cardio-Free Diet, believes cardio workouts overstress the body and work against those trying to lose weight.

Karas, who helped newscaster Diane Sawyer get svelte, experienced a revelation in the 1980s when he was an aerobics instructor. He saw shocking amounts of excess flesh, even on those who came to class religiously.

Then he looked in the sparsely populated weight room. 'Everyone was so lean,' he said in an interview from his Chicago studio.

He changed his approach and found he and his clients could keep weight off more easily with strength training rather than aerobics.

Karas walks most everywhere - a form of cardiovascular exercise, he acknowledged, adding that he encourages clients to take the stairs instead of lifts and park further away to build activity into daily life.

'My whole goal is I just want people to stop pounding their bodies,' he said. 'When people hear 'exercise', I want them to think of strength training.'

NYT

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Finding the right balance

CARDIO and strength training each has its place in a fit lifestyle. Experts disagree on just how much of each a person needs.

J. Andrew Doyle, an associate professor of kinesiology and health at Georgia State University, says flexibility is a third component of a balanced workout.

Here?s what Dr Kenneth Cooper, the Texas doctor who coined the term 'aerobics' in the late 1960s, advises.

When you're in your 30s: 80 per cent aerobics/20 per cent muscular conditioning.

When you're in your 40s: 70 per cent aerobics/30 per cent muscular conditioning.

When you're in your 50s: 60 per cent aerobics/40 per cent muscular conditioning.

When you're in your 60s: 55 per cent aerobics/45 per cent muscular conditioning Dr Cooper, 76, suggests that some younger athletes need to shift away from cardio because of injuries. 'If your body starts breaking down, listen to it.'

NYT

Abdominal muscles exercises

05 Jul 2007, ST, Urban

According to Mr Singapore 2006, it's how you work out, not how much, that makes the difference

Mr Singapore 2006 Dennis Lau is a walking advertisement for his personal approach to exercise. Lau, 24, who is in his final year of material science and engineering studies at Nanyang Technological University, doesn't work his body to the bone to get his lean, sculpted physique.

Instead, he 'targets' the muscles he wants to work, making them reap every ounce of benefit from the exercise.

He explains: 'You can do a sit-up and, if you let other parts of the body get involved, you won't get maximum benefit from it.

'On the other hand, if you force the abs (abdominal muscles) to do all the work, you don't need to do too many.'

Proving his point, Lau confesses that he works out just three times a week: each session involves an 8-to-10km outdoor run, followed by some exercises like push-ups, chin-ups and crunches.

Normally, you'd expect a guy with his physique to be training at least five times a week. A thrice-a-week workout regimen is usually good for people who just want to avoid going up a size or two in their dress size.

But it must work for Lau because there is not an ounce of fat on his 1.76m, 68kg frame.

Of course, there is more to his ripped physique than just exercise - that oft-overlooked factor, diet.

'In order for anyone to have a ripped look, especially the abs, the body fat content has to be low, like 15 per cent. Otherwise, no matter how much you work out, all the muscles will be built under a layer of fat,' he says.

As for the exercises he recommends here - the sit-up and the static crunch can be done by anyone, while the reverse crunch will be tough for beginners - he suggests you start with 10 repetitions of each, without any rest between them, to complete a set. Aim to do three sets.

Lau has one more tip: Rotate the order of the three exercises from time to time. This forces the muscles to develop because they don't get used to a fixed sequence.

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For lower abs

Lie on your back, palms on the floor. Lift your legs and buttocks off the floor as you exhale, then shoot your legs up towards the ceiling and crunch your abs. Hold, then return to start.





For upper abs

Lie on your back with knees bent and hands behind your ears. Lift your upper body about 30 to 40 degrees and crunch your abs hard. The rest of you should be relaxed. Do 15 to 20 times.




For upper and lower abs

Lie on your back, hands stretched over your head. Lift your upper body and legs simultaneously and hold for as long as you can, letting your abs do all the work.