MIMMA champion, winner of Test of Will 2018 and a head coach of Fitness District- Zhang Yu Seah has conquered quite a fleet only at the age of 22. With a burning passion for fitness and the will to share the beauty of functional training, Zhang Yu and his entourage at Fitness District are set to change one community at a time. Read on to learn more about this inspiring young man!
1. Hi Zhang Yu! Please tell us more about yourself.
Hi, my name is Seah Zhang Yu, and I’m 22 this year. I’m an athlete, a sports enthusiast, and a coach. I love fitness and food at the same time. Back in university, I represented Malaysia for the Muay Thai world cup in Bangkok 2015. I won 3 Malaysian Invasion Mixed Martial Arts (mimma- flyweight category) title, as well as the Optimum Nutrition Show Of True Strength fitness competition in 2016. This year, I won Under Armour Test of Will.
I believe in passion, hard work, dedication and challenge. I’m that kind of person who will challenge myself from time to time, always ask myself to get out of that comfort zone. Actually I’m quite a lazy person, but when it comes to training and coaching, I will always put my passion and professionalism first. Despite there are quite a lot of choices after my SPM and college, I insisted on pursuing my career in Fitness and MMA, because this is what I love, I always believe that passion should always come first, if we do things with passion, success will always follow.
2. Congratulations to you for winning the Test of Will 2018 recently! Please tell us more about your experience with the Test of Will which eventually led to a victorious end for you.
Thank you very much! First of all, test of will is a highly competitive contest, because it is a four minute intense competition with 4 different movements and 1 minute each. There’s no secret and no shortcut to winning, I trained hard, like really hard, and tried to push myself to the limit, even during training, I imagined it to be the competition finals. But 2018 is a tougher one for me, I didn’t have so much time to prepare compare to the rest as my new gym is still undergoing renovation. So I had to train after a full day of some heavy duty works which was really tiring and exhausting, sometimes not physically but mentally.
3. Tell us more about Fitness District.
Fitness District is my dream; it’s a gym, or box that I wanted to share my love and passion towards fitness to everyone. My goal is to help everyone achieve their fitness dream and stay away from chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity, heart diseases and so on. To live our life free from nursing home during our old age. We provide not only functional fitness training, but also Muay Thai and boxing classes.
It all began with a dream. I got an amazing team that back me up all the time, they are my strongest students and I would call them my true brothers. They started the journey by training together with me a year and half ago, we developed a strong family bond, we pushed each other in training, have fun together and joining competition together. Then one day we talked about the future of fitness industry in my area, and we all agreed that the awareness of fitness and wellness as well as functional training here is very low among the community. So we decided to set up a box to spread out and educate the community about this type of fitness and spread the family love in the box.
I not only trained my team to be strong physically and mentally, in the meantime I also developed their coaching skill on how to conduct a class, how to be creative, how to do fitness programming, diet, mixing elements, scaling, and so on. I taught them how to be a good coach, and a quality of a good coach. I also taught them how to train a person with zero knowledge about fitness to an advance practitioner. I told them that it’s just how they all first started, it’s exactly how I trained each of them.
4. What is the inspiration behind Fitness District and how is this different from other contemporary fitness centers with similar concepts in Malaysia?
The inspiration of our concept actually came from the one I love, CrossFit. One day I showed my boys about the CrossFit Games and the athletes really took fitness into an unimaginable and insane level. We couldn’t believe it and we know we have a very very long way to go. Then we started learning some new techniques and workouts from CrossFit. And after sometimes we had the idea to establish our own gym to grow the awareness of functional training among the community.
I also obtained my CrossFit Level One trainer certification early this year. I totally embrace and love the methodology of CrossFit and I share all the knowledge I gained from CrossFit to everyone here. The difference between Fitness District and others contemporary gym I would say is that, the program and the atmosphere around here. We are classes-based-gym, which means to say that most students joined Fitness District will attend classes, and in the end of every classes everyone gets to know each other, so the whole gym is like a big family, we motivate each other and cheer each other. We leave our ego outside, as a head coach I always educate my students, no matter how well or bad your financial status is, no matter who you are, no matter how well or poor fitness level you have, once you step into our box, everyone is the same, we are united by fitness, whatever ego we have, we leave it outside the door.
Like what CrossFit founder Mr. Greg Glassman once said, the needs of Olympic athletes and our grandparents differ by DEGREE not KIND. So I’m proud to say the ambiance and atmosphere here are really friendly and relax (although the training is surely tough). Elite levels athletes and beginners can train together in the same lesson, only the reps, weights and time may be vary. Although I’m only 22 years old, most of my students and my team are older than me, but they still fully respect me as their head coach and learn and do everything I teach them in class.
All training here are mostly high intensity functional training, we are not body building gyms, so I always encountered with some questions when someone visits us like, where is the machines? Then every time I will spend quite a while to explain the difference between bodybuilding and functional training.
5. Success seems to be a winning streak for you. What do you want to achieve next in life?
I would not dare to use the word success 🙂 Fitness District has only begun its journey. I will do everything in my power to bring the best fitness program to my community, this is the promise I made. My next goals are simply to continue to work hard and do my best in every competition I will be taking part in. I’d also like to continue to grow Fitness District community, then establish my own fitness education program system, growing the Fitness District affiliate around Penang with the same system and methodology of training, and hopefully in years (if not decade), the whole Malaysia. It may be still a big dream for us, but my team and I share a common goal and we have faith in what we do.
6. Since you’re also a fitness trainer, what are your guilty pleasures and your go-to comfort food during your cheat days?
To be honest, I don’t actually maintain a strict diet. And I’m really a food hunter and a big food lover, I live in Penang, it’s a food paradise. But one thing is a must, I will always make sure my nutrients intake are balance. I will make sure I eat a lot fruits and vegetables every day. And I do have a sweet tooth and I love fast food, so I will take once in two weeks or a month. If the calories intake is really heavy, I will train extra hard on the other day.
7. People often said that fitness is more of mental than physical strength. How do you keep yourself going during trying times?
I would agree on this one. During the workout, never ever think about giving up, before I start the workout, I’d set a target to myself. I will and I must finish the workout, and in my mind there is always, ONE MORE REP! Just one more rep before I stop. There are a lot going on in my mind during a tough workout, evil me will ask me to rest and stop, but deep down, a voice will always shout at me, think why you started this, if you stop you’re gonna fail. Just hang in there, and you’ll get there.
8. If you get to choose another career path that is not fitness-related, what else will you be doing instead?
This is a tough question, LOL! I think probably into business and online business. I’d like my job to be time flexible, I do not like a daily 9-5 job.
9. How do you keep your fitness training knowledge relevant and interesting for your trainees?
I will always update myself from time to time. Every day I will read some articles or watch some YouTube videos about fitness health, diet, exercising, workout, techniques, and so on to keep myself updated to the industry. And also I will verify the information before sharing with others.
10. What are some useful advises to those who would like to get into CrossFit but not quite sure where to start?
If you are out there thinking whether should you start CrossFit? YES, definitely, it’s for everyone. Remember this- every champion was once an amateur, every expert was once a beginner. Just step into a CrossFit box, and let your coach know about goals and you didn’t have experience in this sort of things. Pay attention to the techniques, there’s nothing to be shy about training with lighter weights or performing slower than others. It’s okay! As long as you get yourself started while others haven’t, that’s the first and most important achievement that you have already made!
