Basic Exercise Course (BEC) – Day 4 cum Finale

Today marks the 4th & last day of the BEC. For some reason, I really don’t know what reason, I couldn’t fall asleep for the entire night before. It was absolute insomnia… something that I have almost never encountered before in my entire life.

Since young, my parents knew me as the person who can sleep literally anywhere, be it as a baby or adolescent. Just give me a relatively comfortable resting spot & I would have no problem falling asleep. Even at a very young age, my Mum used to say that I sleep like a log. Once asleep, nothing can wake me up. *Laugh*… =)

Perhaps my mind was crowded with thoughts & worries. Afterall, it has been a trying time for me these few months, being without a job, declining savings & no having come face-to-face with the anxiety of passing the coming BEC exam.

After much tossing & turning in my bed throughout the night, I decided to get up at 6am, since I just couldn’t get to sleep. Plus, I needed to get up within the next hour, so no point struggling to sleep at this point of time.

Having washed up & packed my bag, I took a slow morning stroll towards Siglap McDonalds where I ordered Hot Cakes with sausage meal & changed my caffeinated drink to fresh milk. I was the first customer of the day… something that I don’t recall happening to me before.

While on my way there, I felt a tinge of sadness as the course was ending so soon. Deep in my heart, I really wished that I could learn more. Throughout the past few sessions, I can safely say that I’m one of the more attentive & interested class participant. I always had further questions to ask at every chapter, at every session, as well as often staying back after class to ask personal & more in-depth questions. The trainers were responsive, very competent & I’m felt that I was going to miss interacting with them.

Today’s session comprised of Nutrition & Weight Management. And I must say that the part about nutrition really gave my brains such a rattle that not even studying tedious economics in university could give me. This is where I had a first-hand experience of learning about a few terms such as fructose, galactose, glucose, that I had learnt in my secondary school Biology. But these were just a few terms… & there were many more that got me shaken up to rack my brains to figure out & understand.

Let’s remember I’m now learning about nutrition, not in the context of basic human biology… but human physiology in the context of sports science. This topic was very heavy on the mind & many participants yearned for a break, before the next lecture portion on weight management began. My mind was in a state of ‘super-tax’ as well, but I gritted my teeth in a few instances & carried on maintaining high concentration, so as to understand what was being taught. It was satisfying to be scribbling down lots of notes, especially those that were additional information that were not tested.

It was surprising coz most people were more keen on what’s going to be tested in the BEC exam, whereas I was interested beyond that & getting all sparked up about extra useful info which will not be tested at all in BEC. I mean, I was interested & I would be learning this again in greater depth in FIC, so why not figure it out now? And with that level of intensity in eye-contact with the lecturer, notes scribbling & asking further questions… it wasn’t difficult to spot me in the midst of the crowd of 80 participants.

The consequence was that my mind got all groggy at the end of the lecture on nutrition, but I knew that I had learnt a lot… & definitely more than those who were just edging to go for tea or toilet break. It gave me a great sense of satisfaction to see more & more of the blank white spaces in my BEC text notes becoming filled up with words, points & a small handful of personally drawn diagrams. I was glad to be learning & I greatly desired to learn more.

The last portion on weight management was relatively much shorter, as we rounded up that chapter with several formulas to calculate basal calorie intake, comparing between the usage of body mass index, versus body composition test, etc. It was interesting & the lecture ended well, with a very short prelude that we would be going much, much further in-depth in the FIC.

For example, we learnt of 3 different forms of aerobic training in BEC. In FIC, we are required to learn 30. That brought a shocked grin to my face, but I knew that it’s still something that I wanted to learn & become a certified fitness instructor.

I exchanged contact numbers with a fellow course-mate Wong Thim Chong, a technician working at Jurong who conversed mainly in Mandarin, due to weaker standard of the English language. But I respected him for his determination in studying & understanding this course. Despite daily working schedules, he took the time to study 2 – 3 hours every day, with a dictionary beside him. Even while working, he wrote a list of human anatomy terms on a piece of paper & referred it to every once in awhile, so as to aid memory recall. Now that’s a determined guy!

At the end of the session, I approached Paul Oh to ask how I should train for my possibly coming Kota Kinabalu expedition trip next year. My problem was my high level of difficulty in breathing in low oxygen air, up at beyond 3000+ meters till the summit at above 4000 meters at Sabah. Paul told me that it was impossible to train at low oxygen & high altitude levels without the use of high-tech equipment set in an environmentally controlled training room. Thus, his best recommendation would be to train intensively on long hours of aerobic exercises, so as to build up an even much stronger & efficient cardio & muscular endurance that would help lessen this breathing difficulty by a fair bit, but not completely. I’m very thankful for his advice & strive to do even better in my KK trip next year.

Wee Seong & I met up with Shirley Cheah at the ground level of the estate & took the MRT, followed by a relatively long walk to Blk 85 market to eat lunch. I felt bad that the famous minced pork noodles stall (all 3 stalls) was closed & we ended up having to eat other food. It was a long time of chatting & sharing between the 3 of us. I really learnt a lot from Shirley who is highly experienced in this area of sports & fitness training.

Hope that if the opportunity arises, I would be able to meet up with Shirley & Paul again. I’m glad that I managed to get their name cards for future reference & networking purposes. I also got to know Wong Thim Chong, Wee Seong, Fred & Melvin Yo (sales manager for Icon Books) in this course too. Not too bad, I got to know 6 people in a short 4 days course. Glad to make friends with them, especially since all of us share the same passion for this industry!

I really, really thank God for this opportunity to go through BEC. It has brought me networking contacts & an outstanding amount of sports science knowledge that I would not have so effectively learnt, should I not have registered & attended this course. The knowledge gained is simply amazing & I love every minute & part of it! FIC would be terribly tougher, but I’m up for the challenge! =)