BRING THE A-GAME

BEATING THE ODDS

Armin Baniaz Pahamin: President of Proton Edar Dealers Association Malaysia and Co-Founder of Chief’s Original Bootcamp Malaysia (right); and Dr Malek Aziz: Co-Founder of Chief’s Original Bootcamp Malaysia.

Having being diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia at the age of 15 and given only three years to live, Armin Baniaz Pahamin’s future prospects were not the brightest. Similarly, Dr Malek Aziz was also diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. After defying all expectations at the end of their successful cancer treatments, Pahamin and Dr Aziz decided never to take their health for granted and went on to found Malaysia’s very first military-inspired bootcamp, Chief’s Original Bootcamp.

Armin: “Chief’s Original Bootcamp (COBC) was first brought to Malaysia by Master-Sergeant Rob Coad of Original Bootcamp Australia in 2009. When he decided to leave and focus on his business back home in Adelaide, Dr Malek and I, who were recruits at the time, decided we could not afford to let such a unique military-inspired training programme go to waste and took over the franchise. We wrote to Chief Gunny Brabon, the founder of Original Bootcamp Australia and a former service member of the Royal Australian Army, and, shortly after, he visited Malaysia to train our first batch of instructors to be certified Military Fitness specialists.

As Dr Malek and I are both cancer survivors, we both strive to take the best care of our health as you never know when you might robbed of your quality of life. Furthermore, being active and fit means that we are able to perform better in the workplace. The law of diminishing returns states that after a few hours, our performance at a given task will naturally suffer but, by being healthy, we can now work longer hours before burning out.

Bootcamp instils teamwork and discipline in its participants. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your race or religion is; if someone commits an infraction, everyone is penalised with push ups! There is no preferential treatment given. This translates to the workplace and we also find that we are more objective oriented as a result.

While I have run nine full marathons, scaled Mt Kinabalu on three occasions and even attempted the Langkawi Ironman Triathlon, my proudest achievement, as well as Dr Malek’s (who is 61 years old), is that we can still find the motivation to wake up for COBC’s 5:45am sessions three times every week. We owe this to the exemplary camaraderie with our fellow recruits and instructors, who hold us accountable if we miss sessions.”

THE MAN  BEHIND THE MACHINE

Jonathan Wong: Co-Founder and Head Coach of Crossfit Malaysia and PushMore

At a time when commercial gyms were booming in Malaysia, Jonathan Wong decided to buck the trend by bringing Crossfit home. Since Crossfit Malaysia was conceived in 2007 with only 40-odd members at Wong’s PushMore, today, there are well over a thousand officially registered Crossfitters throughout the country.

“I first discovered Crossfit in 2007 after I saw the movie 300 and was, like many others, very impressed with the physique of the Spartans. At the time, I had been a freelance personal trainer for five years but I was always looking for new ways to train. I eventually stumbled across crossfit.com. Here, I decided to give one of their workouts, Workout-of-the-Day, a try and was amazed at how I was completely crushed by it. This sparked my interest in Crossfit and I began conducting my own research to gain a better understanding of what it was all about.

I then realised that there were literally no Crossfit affiliated gyms in the whole of South-East Asia. So, I recruited a bunch of friends and fellow trainers, and we founded PushMore in February 2008, Malaysia’s first Crossfit gym, or ‘Box’. It wasn’t easy bringing Crossfit here because getting the right equipment was a big challenge. No one had any idea what a bumper-plate or kettlebell was, so we had to DIY a lot of our equipment or ship it over from the United States. Additionally, we had to go all the way to Australia to get our certification as Crossfit trainers. At that time, most people either had no idea about Crossfit or were afraid of it because they thought that it’s really hardcore. In reality, Crossfit caters to both the guy looking to get fit and the elite-level athlete looking to improve his game.

As a coach, I need to stay healthy and maintain that work-life balance. Of course, I’m not training when I’m coaching members throughout the day, so I have to slip in my own training sessions whenever I have some free time. It’s important to have an objective in mind when you’re training; right now, I’m planning on competing in the Crossfit Games as well as in more local and regional powerlifting competitions.

Being active and healthy also helps me keep up with my two boys. As a father, I feel it’s important that I set myself up as a good role model to encourage them to adopt a similar lifestyle. If I don’t do it now, it’s going to be much harder for them to adopt this kind of lifestyle later on in their lives.”

GETTING THAT BOOST

(Dr) Soraya Rahim Ismail: Managing Director of Boost Juice Bars Malaysia & Singapore

After acquiring her doctorate, (Dr) Soraya Rahim Ismail began a high-flying career with Accenture in London, where she met her husband, Nick Tiernan. Nine years later, Ismail and Tiernan discovered Boost Juice Australia during their honeymoon and, given their shared passion for fitness, fell in love with the brand. Having always possessed the desire to set up their own business, they seized the opportunity to acquire the master franchise for Malaysia and Singapore. Today, Soraya continues to oversee the day-to-day operations of Boost, while also balancing health and motherhood.

“Maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle is all about making your fitness regime a part of everyday life, rather than turning it into something you have to do. It’s important to find what works best for you. Don’t just do yoga because it’s supposed to be the best thing; do it because you enjoy doing it. My fitness regime isn’t a rigid or set one; I keep it varied and try to make it a part of family activities as much as I can so that it remains enjoyable and never a chore. For example, when my son goes cycling in the Lake Gardens I’ll use that as an opportunity to go for a run. In addition, I also do yoga and swim. I’m an avid cyclist, and I try to cycle 60km on Saturdays and recently took part in the OCBC Challenge. Generally, I find that it’s better for me to exercise in the morning because there are just too many distractions in the evening.

My husband and I have one saying which we believe can be applied to both the realm of fitness and in the workplace: JFDI – Just ****ing Do It. Don’t do something tomorrow that you can do today. Additionally, it’s important to always aim to get better all the time; in everything that you do, the goal should always be to constantly improve.

I remember when I was younger, I was ecstatic about doing my first 10k under 50 minutes. Since then, I’ve gone on to take part in numerous marathons, triathlons, century bike rides and even conquered Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Kinabalu. While I don’t take part in these big events as often, as they require so much training and time is too much of a valuable asset nowadays, if I were to take part in the OCBC Challenge again, I aim to finish in the top 10 for the women’s category.”