Singapore #Fitspo of the Week: Muhammad Fazrul

Life goes beyond the digits on the scale and your body is capable of so much more! Yahoo’s #Fitspo of the Week series is dedicated to inspirational men and women in Singapore leading healthy and active lifestyles. Have someone to recommend? Hit Cheryl up on Instagram or Facebook!

Name: Muhammad Fazrul (@rraisedbywolves)

Age: 28

Height: 1.71m

Weight: 85kg

Occupation: Fitness Professional

Status: Married

Food: I will have a strict diet only when when I’m preparing for a bodybuilding competition. Other than that, I would just be having similar food as any functioning human would; indulging in donuts, burgers and fries. In moderation of course! I do ensure to consume at least the minimum I need to sustain my current physique.

Fitness: Training goals are nowadays mostly to maintain muscle mass and minimise fat gains, instead of doing the usual traditional hypertrophy-based body split that I'm used to. Previously, I would clock about 20,000 steps daily on average (given the nature of my job) which really helps a lot in expending calories with NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) and does not require me to do cardio as often.

With the gym's closure, NEAT naturally drops a lot less – meaning that I have to put in extra effort just to burn off similar calories I usually would previously.

So my current regime now involves cardio every other day, which is either cycling between 20km to 40km or running for 10km. That would usually get me on my desired slight caloric deficit to maintain the current physique.

I also do weight training four days a week:

Day 1 – Upper body pull and lower body push

Day 2 – Upper body push and lower body pull

Repeat for the next training days. This is done in a circuit format focusing on compound movements using a single dumbbell and a few resistance bands.

Q: What were your backgrounds in sports growing up?

A: I didn’t have any specific sport that I really excelled in but I did try a lot of sports, such as soccer, hockey, kayaking, bowling, badminton, tennis, bouldering, rock climbing and flag football. Aside from doing bodybuilding competitively, flag football was something else that I did competitively back in polytechnic too. Oh and I was also crowned as the champion for balancing the ping pong ball relay back in primary school. My first ever taste of victory!

When did you start going to the gym?

Since I was a child, I’ve wanted to step foot into the gym, as my dad used to do bodybuilding leisurely and I was inspired seeing how amazing it is that you can sculpt your body to stand out from the rest. But that didn’t quite go as planned as I grew to be a chubby kid in my primary school days. However, being chubby caused me to be bullied and that got me motivated to start.

You were competing in bodybuilding. When did you start getting into it?

Being in an amazing school gym got me all psyched to be the best I can be and got me telling myself to at least step on stage once in my life. Seeing how my peers set their mind to it and then doing it is what really pushed me to go for it.

How has the journey been?

My first competition was in 2017 and I didn’t place high hopes or much pressure on myself as it was my first competition and I was already in my best shape ever. But then I placed second in my category and couldn’t be happier.

I continued to compete and my last competition was in 2019. The preparation phase went really well but something went wrong somewhere during the last few weeks prior to show day and that caused me to go home empty-handed.

Three years of back-to-back competitions got quite tiring so I stopped competing and shifted my focus to building my personal training business. Coincidentally, COVID-19 happened so that helped me not have the “itch” to step on stage. For now, it’s just about improving the parts that lack.

What is it about bodybuilding that you enjoy?

The fact you can sculpt your body to be as beautiful as it can be and how much it really tests your patience, determination and discipline. Apply the same in life and you’d be best in all that you do.

You're a personal trainer (PT) – what led you to this career?

My first ever PT gig was four years ago in a fitness performance and retail hub. Prior to that I was in retail, selling and folding clothes for a big sports brand. It all started with me falling in love with body transformations, which turned into a fascination with body mechanics and eventually led me onto this career path.

What do you like about being a PT?

Getting to meet people from all walks of life and how you can help them achieve a healthy and functioning body.

What are some of the challenges being a PT?

Having a total understanding on how certain bodies move a certain way, and needing to understand what works best for that particular individual. These will help my clients work towards achieving their goals with their current physical or mental limitations.

When did you feel the least confident about yourself?

I’ve honestly never felt that in a long time. But I guess it was probably when I was starting out and the journey seemed to take longer than expected. But in the end, you realise it’s all in the mind. You just have to trust the process and keep grinding.

Sometimes, nothing you do seems to be right – which is something I’m pretty sure everyone has faced at least once in his or her lifetimes. What it has taught me is to not stress over the things you can’t change and just focus on what you can.

Are you satisfied with your body now?

I am very satisfied with my body now. It may not be as chiseled as I would’ve dreamt it to be, but it is decent enough to look the part for my career as a fitness professional.

Have you ever received any comments about your body?

Definitely, everyone will have an opinion about something. It may annoy you, it may hurt you, but just take it with a pinch of salt. If you can’t change their mindset, change how you react to it and just know that you did your best.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be and why?

This is a tough one because I am happy with who I am and there’s nothing that I would like to change about myself because it defines me.